Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Voila!

 Finished! Here stands Miss Julia, the "Beauty" in this little beastly tale of love and understanding.

The first few pictures are in-process shots of the costuming process. That lower lace is also embroidery floss - took me the better part of an hour to get it behaving and it was a nice stretching of my back-stitching skills.

The pages below are:

1. A quick summary of the building process.

2. The finished sculpture.

3. The initial design/development page for the sculpture.

4. Explorations in costumes and personality.

I have one more page in mind for presentation purposes, but I am taking a small break from her to develop the surrounding characters - I've started sketching one sister and research/thumb nailing the "Beast" called Oni-san - our second prominent figure who I also hope to complete a sculpture of before CTN in November.

 Of course I had intended to post yesterday evening, but I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Jon Schindehette encompassing the 10 Ways to Kill Your Career (And How to Avoid Them). It was quite good. He is a very smart, charismatic gentleman with years of experience as an Art Director and Artist. He writes the ArtOrder blog which everyone should now go look at for more inspiration and insight. : )

Monday, February 17, 2014

Adding Some Soul


DOUBLE UPDATE! :D This is for two reasons:

1. A certain company that I'd LOVE to work for has posted up their next round of internships for the summer. Since this personal project is one that I'd envisioned done for/by this studio - I figured it'd be great to get more of it out there sooner - maaaybe get an internship too? *Rubs lucky ears*

2. She LIVES. I literally just finished her, so I won't be behind next week when I leave for this weekend and can easily do a double post this time AND next time - so the final will be posted next week!

So. The top image is of the acrylic painting process (Sneak peak in the background of the design sketch) and then they are followed by two in-process hair shots. I opted for embroidery floss - as opposed to my actual hair - which was a smart move considering how much my glue gun decided to melt stuff and smoke randomly. Though I burned myself considerably less this time than the last crafty project.
Leveling up with the glue gun! :)
The embroidery floss also allowed for more strand colors and lock thickness variation. (Much easier to braid and fray than Scuply) Overall I think this was my favorite part.

The last four pics are a turn around of the finished hair. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned for corsets, lace and all the skirts!





Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Sculpture Update!

I was going to post a triple update today, but in light of the fact that I now need to make a run to the fabric/crafting store for a different shade of Satin and a functioning iron I've decided to save two updates in case I don't get the chance this week and end up putting it off until after Valentine's weekend...at which point I would be behind posting since I'll be out of town the last weekend in February for a birthday party. Hurray for cake (not that I need any more of that), not hurray for falling behind my schedule. ><

That said, the sculpture below has already been baked, painted, and given hair. I do not profess to be a master photographer, so please excuse the image quality. I also found it necessary to bring another lamp upstairs since from this point I decided it would be best to see what I was doing. lol There is a nice skylight window that faces north up there, BUT it's not quite so helpful when buried in snow. And it has been a bit on the chilly side recently. Anyways...




 
Ta da!

Monday, February 3, 2014

It's Character Building

That's how I feel about standing in lines, especially long ones to reach nifty places or meet cool people. I could list at least two or three examples of what others might think were waste of time, but they were in their own ways defining moments. Lines are important. As slow as they are. As painful as they are. I know everybody's in a rush to get through them these days, but about half the time, if you are actually conscious of being in them, you'll come out of it with a better understanding of other people and yourself - and this applies to those metaphorical lines as well. It gives you time to think. To observe and consider. To live and experience. Yes, it's uncomfortable...but being thrown out of that comfort zone makes you really notice things. Little things, that distinguish ourselves as the unique characters we all are. Reactions. Emotions. Influences. The way he rolls his Rs when he says his name but not when he says mine. The way she turns a page if she's really invested in the narrative. How a person's body language changes if they see someone they like or love versus someone they're unfamiliar or at odds with. How many people jump when they see spiders.
So many variations. All interesting and unique. Lines are important.
They communicate to us if we're paying attention. 

That said. The last few weeks I've been doing some character building. Metaphorically and otherwise. I've been fairly unhappy with how my current focus character has been falling flat and so I scrapped a bunch of work to start over. Time for lucky Version 5! I have thus far one (of three or four) pages of development ready - but I want to release them as a set. So I will post production shots and side projects until then. Here are the first process shots: 

 
 



She's about 9.5" tall and I am really freaking proud of how those hands are coming out so far. I had to amputate fingers a couple times because one wrapping felt too much like sausage and didn't give me any mobility and the other method wasn't strong enough. I got two books for my birthday (off to the right there) about Stop Motion animation and puppet building and while I initially planned on building a full puppet...this would be the first time I cast anything other than my hand making the Live Long and Prosper sign or my nose, and so we're going to try a few smaller scale projects with that technique before a full puppet. This will be a mixed media sculpture like one we did for Joan Kresek's Illustration Media class - I even contemplated donating my hair to the cause, but it doesn't even hold a curl on my head so I figure there's a better way than opting for a 1920s pixie bob first go - and the scale drawing blueprint is slightly off left. (Back drop is a portion of the library) She's got a mini fan too that was pretty fun to glue together, though a test to fold so many tiny creases. ><

Another quick note before I turn in: I'm very privileged to be reading through the second draft of B. Erin Lounsbury's first novel right now. So good. Be jealous. :)