The Illustrious Shazzbaa's Blog

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:38:28 GMT

Well, I'm afraid I must start out with apologies here; I have been having some troubles digging up the finished pictures from my last maquette. As soon as they go online, you'll surely be the first to know.

But until then...

...anyone curious what I've been up to?

Well, if you read my journal comic, you'll know that I've been sculpting like crazy for my midterm, wherein I have to pitch a story idea, and have an absurd amount of development for the main character... including a maquette. There've been a lot of late nights involved in this process.

I ended up not having to present everything last Thursday like I thought I might have to... but this is actually good, since it gives me time to touch up my presentation.
In any case, the maquette is done, in a rough state (it's not ready for baking, I don't think, but it's good enough to show the class)... so I thought maybe you'd like to see some process pictures?

The character in question here is Tristan. He's new. He's kinda nervous and uncertain and is multiple, so that's always fun. I gave him a coat that's really super reminiscent of a straitjacket, so I have a ridiculous amount of buckles to look forward to while sculpting this.... ^^;

However, this time I didn't start with turnarounds like I have in the past. I had a crafty plan to trace the sculpture in order to get the turnarounds, so I started with the armature.

I took pictures from all directions and checked to make sure the pose made sense, and then it was on to the foil and the Sculpey clay!

My apologies for the terrible lighting, which will continue throughout this project. The majority of it was completed at night, while my roomie was asleep... so yeah, I was working with limited light. ^^;
...And not to keep making excuses, but, well, I also seem to have left my camera back at home, so I was using nothing but the camera that my laptop comes with, thus the consistently low-quality photos. >_<

Anyway, for the next step I got out the Sculpey Firm (the grey one) and used it to form a sort of musculature.

Once I had all the musculature in place, I smoothed it all out... and gave him feet! And started a head, as you can see lying on the ground there.

Here's a better look....

...though I'll go ahead and let you know, that's not the final head.

When I actually attached it, it became apparent that the head was a bit large for the body. >_>

So I worked long and hard on a new one.

Much better!

Time to start my favourite part: the clothing!

First the folds. You can probably also see I've got little bits of clay serving as placeholders for the buckles on the side of the jacket, so I know how to fold it.

Now some details -- the ID tag, the buckles...

...and it's time to start the hair.

*shudder*
Tristan has somewhat spiky hair, so I wasn't quite sure how this would work out. In the end I think I channelled a mixture of the 10th Doctor and Clay Aiken. >_>

....and Davey Havoc, at first. 0_o

This is the point where I figured out I could get more detailed pictures if I used my iPhone. I'm actually pretty sure my iPhone has a better camera than my laptop. ^^;

...after a bit of work...

Not bad, I say!

Apologies again for the horrendously harsh light, but here we go: turnaround!

And a couple more shots from my iPhone:

So there you have it! It's amazing what I can do with enough all-nighters. ^^;

Third and Final Maquette Project, Part 1!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:18:55 GMT

Man, sorry I've been all slow about getting pics of this one up, guys. Finals are coming and... yeah, it's been rough. But here's where I'm goin' for my final maquette project!

The character I'm using is actually an existing character -- for those of you who are familiar with the werewolf girl who goes by "Melvatine," this is her wolf form. Since Melvatine's human form is sickly thin, the wolf form ends up being a combination of "huge and furry" and "skin and bones," which I thought might be fun to work with.

The full turnarounds are kinda long, so you can click over here for the full turnarounds.

So, we start off with the armature, which should give you an idea of the pose that I decided on. It had to be all action-filled, so I tried to get all her feet off the ground with this kind of jump-and-turn thing.

Then, sculpey, then musculature... you know the drill by now.

Musculature was actually rather difficult this go round... primarily because she has almost no real muscle to speak of.

I began to start on the head, but it quickly became apparent that I'd need a bit more structure. So I tried putting together this wire... thing, not really knowing what I was doing. I haven't done a non-human head that needed support in the armature before.

However, it seemed to work out okay.

Action shot!

That's all for now! As always, stay tuned for future updates, which will come... whenever I have a spare moment. ^^;

The Second Maquette Project -- Part 5 (final part)!

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:14:26 GMT

Hokay, peeps, this is the last little bit of my second maquette project -- sorry it took me so long to post. I know I told some of you these'd be up last weekend and... um... it's already Thursday somehow. X_X I'm not sure how it is that weeks have started moving so very quickly.

So, last time I was working on the skirt, which kind of whooshes out a bit in the back. I went to attach the tentacle arm, and was filled with rage to discover that the skirt was in the way now, and the arm didn't have enough room to attach properly.

I tried to just twist the arm around and just tweak it, but everyone knows this is going to eventually end with me ripping all the sculpey of off something.

The new arm proposal:

See how it doesn't run into the skirt behind it? Much better.

Of course, now it need some eyes in it. As does my back.

I forgot to take any pictures of the sleeve in progress, but trust me: it was much easier than the first sleeve. And with everything else attached, it's finally time to attach the head!

Whoo!

Next up -- adding hair!

After figuring out how to do hair on Wonka, I was a lot more confident about it; and it actually went pretty quickly and was rather fun. I'll have to do something furry for my final project...

And, adding the bandana:

Now, as far as baking goes... this maquette is about 15-16 inches tall, plus about 2 inches for the base, which is... well, considerably taller than pretty much any oven I could find. So here was the solution that my professor gave me --

I ran all around Savannah trying to find a friend with an oven who would be okay with me using this hair-brained scheme.

I opened the door to the oven all the way. I placed the maquette on the open oven door.

(those are the arms of me -- on the right -- and my generous friend Liz -- on the left -- who let me use her oven)

Then I built a wall of cookie sheets and aluminium foil all around it, which basically extended the oven. Teapots and other heavy things were hunted down throughout the house to weigh down the foil. It actually worked fairly well!

After this, I was sort of racing the clock, so progress pictures did not get taken. But I do have shots of the finished product!

Don't look at the whip. It's so rushed; I want to redo it. TT_TT

Details!

I was told the resemblance is "uncanny." I wish I'd had time to do glasses. ^^;

AND CHECK IT OUT!! I made it onto the display case!!

I'm so excited. *squee!* Awesometastic. ^___^

So what's next? The last project of the quarter! It's a full-action pose of a sci-fi and/or fantasy creature... the creature must be non-human and have 2-3 removable props. More pictures of that to come this weekend (and this time I won't put it off, I swear)!

The Second Maquette Project -- Part 4!

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:19:34 GMT

Well, I promised you an update, so here's the first part. This was basically the first all-nighter I had after the last update.

She's Looking At You.

First things first... spend a few hours making the boot look nice.

Since boots are the bane of my existence, I'm pretty pleased that it doesn't look horrible.

I should probably start on the skirt...

...and touch up that sleeve.

...Well, THAT'S a mess.

Hmm. Still a mess.

Uh, let's go back to the skirt.

You know, I had half-way joked that I would end up taking all night on the skirt itself.

...I was pretty much right.

I was hoping I could get away with just laying some sculpey down over the legs, but that didn't have enough support to work with making the folds and such right. So I had to resort to wireform mesh.

There's a small piece of mesh in the skirt front and a larger piece of mesh in back.... and I have to admit, it was a lot more successful.

In the end, all the time spent was well worth it, I think.

I was planning to include those back-tentacles I had in the original concept, and that's what the wires coming out the back are... but then there ended up not being room for them. So they go away when I start putting the arm on.

But that will have to wait for next update. :3

Enjoy!

The Second Maquette Project -- Part 3!

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:23:49 GMT

Oh, man... I really, really want this thing to be good. Here's the latest in my epic struggle (actually this is mostly from Monday).

Thing's I've learned:
- You don't need an exacto knife to slice your finger open. Sculpting tools work, too.
- Getting Isopropyl Alcohol in a cut kind of hurts a good deal.
- Scraping clay out of a cut is no fun at all.

So, here's where we begin. I got a few more eyes in.

And with all the detachable parts attached:

I attempted to start a sleeve, but... gah! Trying to sculpt realistic folds on an arm stretched backwards to its limit when said arm is not actually attached to the body is really annoyingly hard.
The obvious solution:

Alright. Now I'll think about the arm later. Let's make something out of that sort of head-shaped blob.

Step 1: Put Eyes In

Step 2: Add Detail

Don't be fooled by the easy step-by-step instructions; I easily spent most of the day on this.

Now then, on to clothes! Let's start on that corset.

On my laptop in the background there you can see my... uh.... corset reference. *koff* (Yes, that is me in a dominatrix outfit. ¬_¬ It was for April Fools' Day.)

Touching it up some more:

And then I went and worked on the face again. It's weird. Some days I'll just spend hours doing one thing, and then sometimes I'll bounce around at random.

Hey, it's getting closer! Though admittedly, as it's a caricature this time, I don't think it'll end up looking exactly like me.

Okay, back to the shirt.

Working a bit on folds... but yeah, this is going to be a while. It's my own fault; the whole reason I made myself a pirate was so that I could attempt to sculpt a poofy shirt. ^^;

So I'll stop here for now. Here's what everything looks like when it's attached.

I don't know when the next update will be... but last night was an all-nighter, so I definitely have more pictures to show. :3 But I also have a lot more work to do, so it won't happen until I get another free moment. Hopefully that'll be soon?

I'm going to try to bake on Sunday again; we'll see how that goes.

The Second Maquette Project -- Part 2!

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:09:43 GMT

More pictures from the amazing world of Conceptual Maquette Design!

My desk is a lot less organised than it was when I had "the shrine." Ah, well, anyway...

...Here's where it begins.

I got all the normal sculpey on. And as the observant may note, I've made a couple of changes to my armature regarding the more tentacular limbs -- I decided some extra support was going to be needed, so I propoxied some more wires in place.

Aaaaand, now it's time for muscles. Out comes my anatomy book.

I didn't take as many pictures of the muscle-putting-on process this time, but it's pretty much the same. Except that the shoulders detach from the body, which is actually a bit annoying and makes it difficult to get the anatomy right.

....I don't actually have half of these muscles, I'm sure. (But my villainous alter-ego does!)

Smoothing it out a bit and working on the legs:

"The body should be pretty much done for Tuesday." -Prof. Larison
"So... wait... we're all bringing in naked us?" -Shazz
"...No! It's not naked, it's a skin-tight suit!" -Liz

I'm going with Liz on this one.

A bit more work on the leg and arm...

Oh ho ho yes, you know what those slots in the leg are for. :3

And some close-ups of the tentacles taking shape! I'm really starting to think I'm going to forego putting any suckers on them. I just don't want to think about sculpting that. X_X

the arm:

the leg:

...There was this kids' show I used to watch that had a lot of singing in it... I remember this one song about how all of your body parts are in the right place, but what if they were different? Or something. There was one verse about "what if your eyes were attached to your thighs" that ended with the declaration that you'd have "the best lookin' legs on the street."

For some reason I'm reminded of this now.

Oh yes. Now I'm excited.

The body-eyes are basically the same as normal eyes -- baked separately with the heat gun and then inserted into the clay, so that I can properly sculpt eyelids and such -- except that they're made out of white sculpey (for emphasis!), only half-spheres instead of spheres (because there's not as much extra room for eyeballs in my leg/chest/etc. as there is in my head), and a good bit larger. More eyes have since been inserted, and you'll get pictures of that next update. :3

For now, I'm skipping my writing class in order to further sculpt this puppy. We're supposed to have clothes and stuff by Thursday and I don't even have a head, so I figure I should get on that. You can probably hope for another update tonight/tomorrow, but there's an equally good chance I'll be totally frazzled and won't post anything until this weekend. ^^;

The Second Maquette Project-- Part 1

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:02:13 GMT

Alright, alright. Sorry for the wait.

My latest and greatest assignment, as you may recall, was to design myself as a superhero, a supervillain, a sidekick, or a minion. Amazingly, it wasn't until the day that the assignment was officially introduced that I realised that the obvious answer here: I will be a supervillain, and I will have tentacles.

So here, I'm some manner of lovecraftian pirate:

This design has been described as "Davy Jones' sister" and "very... ambitious" by my classmates.

The other rules for this assignment are:
1) We must use telescoping brass tubing for the arms and head, to make them removable during sculpting. This is mostly for our own convenience.
2) We must sculpt the character in an action pose, with a twist in the body and at least one foot off of the ground.
3) The character must have at least one removable prop (this prop should be removable after baking, too).

Since one of my character's feet is simply a giant mass of tentacles, I figure that's what'll be on the ground. My removable prop will be (what else?) a whip, but I don't have any good pictures of that design yet. Truth be told, I haven't quite made up my mind on whether or not the whip should have an eye in it, too.

One other option we had was to try a free-standing armature, if we wanted.

...which means we get rid of that huge pipe out the back. It also means we have to use steel wire, so that it can fully support the clay. And it's A PAIN IN THE REAR to work with. Seriously, I am not physically strong enough to even bend it without lots of pliers and vices and things holding it in place, much less actually bend it into a desired shape... so my room mate, Brittany did most of the bending for me. And Prof. Larison helped.

After we got it bent in the curve I wanted, it was time to attach the brass tubing for limbs with propoxy.

I don't think me and propoxy will ever really be friends. Every time I use it, I find myself at some point chipping rock-solid hardened propoxy off of my armature because I made a mistake somewhere, and this time was no exception. >_> At least it's being a little more cooperative this time.

Now, the brass tubing...

It lets me detach the limbs (and the head, when I get the head started) from the main body, so that I can sculpt them more easily (instead of contorting around the maquette and turning it on its side like I had to with Wonka). The arrows were added by me so that I didn't attach the wrong pieces the wrong way when I was propoxy-ing them on.

And as you can see, I've started putting clay on. That weird pink colour is actually the colour that normal Super Sculpey comes in, which I have to put down before the Super Sculpey Firm will stick.

The next step is musculature and all that.

I have this weekend and next weekend to work on it. Then it's due. Isn't that terrifying?

Conceptual Maquette Design (pictures!); The Finished Product

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:20:17 GMT

Okay, sorry for the wait, I've been mad busy with Advanced Writing (scripting 30 pages in one weekend is not fun when you're still working out the outline), but now I finally have the last batch of pictures.

There are only a couple of pictures of him completely finished, because I was sort of rushing near the end and sanding him down right before class, but you get the idea.

First off, my "goodbye photos," that is, the photos I took right before running off to Charles the Ballerina's house for baking.

Now, the reason I take these photos is basically just in case disaster strikes and my maquette explodes in the oven.

Disaster did, in fact, strike. Wonka didn't fit in the oven (stupid top hat) so we turned him on his side. Everything seemed to be fine until I went to check on the maquette after half-an-hour into the five-hour baking time, and discovered his head had fallen off.

Again, I blame the top hat... which if you remember from last update was just a large, heavy chunk of clay.

It had already baked too much to reattach, so we just set the head on aluminium foil beside the maquette and baked it the rest of the way (I wish I had brought my camera), and then I used Charles' roommates' Apoxy to reattach it. Since Apoxy hardens in about 6 hours, the thought was that I wouldn't have to re-bake the sculpture.

'Course, then he had a big white crack in his neck.

I ended up smoothing some sculpey over it, and heat-gunning it rather than baking. In the end I think it was a pretty good cover job, but his neck became a bit longer in the process.

That little "W".... I sculpted that four different times, and they all broke. By this point, it was nearly time for class and I decided that this one was "good enough."

When I turned it in, and we critiqued it, the general consensus was that I'd made his face look a little older, the neck mishap had created some problems with his jawline, and the details in some things (such as the shoes, or the little chain) were simply not at the level they needed to be at. But overall, for the first maquette of the quarter, I'm still pretty happy with him.

Hopefully when I get it back I'll post a couple full shots of the finished maquette, but you should have a pretty good idea what he looks like. :3

My next assignment in Conceptual Maquette Design is a caricature of myself, as either a Superhero, a Supervillain, or a Sidekick/Minion. My turnarounds were due on Thursday; I'll have pictures up of that as soon as I can. I'm a villain, of course. A tentacular one. *grins*