OniSan Update!

 No!! No pictures! I'm camera shy!! 

 

Oooo excitement! Here is the armature stage for the Oni of OniSan. You'll no doubt notice a few differences between the armature for Julia: 1. More massing in of the body and 2. No head. 

This is why: 1. In accordance with the design, more of his body is going to be "visible", necessary to fully structure than Julia's body (Mainly hidden by clothes/highly structured under garments) Normally I'd advocate doing every part since it's educational and, to me at least, fun. But when you're on a budget, it's okay to creatively problem solve around material restrictions. He's also going to be a bit more mobile in terms of posing. Julia's pretty stationary - more of a show than a touch item. Within reason, I want people to be able to "play" with Oni when he's on display. More on that later. 2. I'm not sculpting a head - that mechanic is being handled by Raul, who promises to do his own write up for me to link to when I create Oni's master post down the road. (Should be especially great for those of you who like sculpting digitally and are curious about 3D printing) The middle picture is more or less a suggestion as to where we're going with that. Took me far longer than necessary to find the proper (KS) pipes for it - hint, go to a HOBBY STORE not a hardware or craft store. 

 

Anyways, he's a good inch or two taller than she is, making him close to a foot tall - but I won't have an accurate dimension until we get the head back from print and assembled. I had originally envisioned using foam to mass in the larger areas, it's a bit lighter and in my opinion holds shape a bit better than foil, but I didn't know how I would bake the necessary sculpy bits - if the foam would melt or not - so for now it's foil again. If all goes well I may go back and replace the aluminum with foam. I would like to try/demonstrate that technique since it's not too expensive or difficult from what I can tell. We'll see I guess. I'm a bit anxious and excited for those hands. Since I won't be spending a lot of time sculpting the face myself, I will have time to focus on the hands - awesome because having more time on them will let me try to match the quality of the digital head sculpt, but nervous also because hands are indeed a bit difficult. His especially are going to be quite interesting.

Going to be a busy next few months, can hardly believe that April is nearly half over. Will be checking in regularly, more often than not having some kind of update along the way. If you have any questions about materials or process I will be doing another master post at the end, but please leave me a comment and I can answer it more immediately! Also, if there's anything you're interested in seeing me break down/explain further let me know and I can do step-by-step shots too!! :)