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I've had three five pound blocks of Chavant staring at me from a shelf in my studio for a few weeks now, beckoning to me. I've never really worked with oil clay, but it seems like it might be a good medium for me. I love water clay, but it's a pain with figurative work. It's hard to keep thinner parts from drying out, and the constant spraying of water causes my tools to rust if I'm not very diligent about drying and cleaning them. And I'm not.

Polymer clays are cool, and I like a lot of things about them, but I have to admit that I've never really liked the way they feel. They feel like plastic to me, not like clay. Since they are plastic, I guess that makes sense, but my use of polymer clays has always felt like a compromise. Wax, I just haven't taken to. I find it hard to work with and frustrating. But, oil clay sounds right up my alley. It feels like clay, but its consistency changes with heat, not with the amount of water, and it never dries out, making it well-suited to dilettantes like me who sometimes go several days or weeks between sculpting sessions. Other than the fact that it can't be made permanent, it sounds like a perfect medium, so it's odd that I've never tried it.

Prior to a few days ago, I couldn't find time to start a sculpt with it. I was traveling for work, then had to prepare for the holidays, then had company for the holiday. Finally, A few days ago, I found time to build an armature for a new sculpture, and boy, it's a beauty. I know, I owe you all an armature tutorial, but in the meantime, this sculpture uses the technique found in John Brown's first DVD with only a few modifications (I use an adjustable support, smaller-gauge crossbar and t-adaptor, and do not fasten the leg wires down, but just drill holes for them and seat them with clay), so if you're jonesing to build an armature and are getting tired of waiting for me, you'll probably find John Brown's video to be well worth your time. I still plan to do an armature tutorial, I'm just not sure when I'm going to get to it. Anyway, here it is:

This armature is a for a figure a little over twenty inches tall, which is the largest I've ever built. Well, actually, I tried to build one this big another time when I was first starting out a few years ago, but it was (shall we say) structurally unsound and collapse in a heap, taking my spirits with it. I haven't attempted anything larger than 1/6th scale since. This one seems to be quite stable, though, and I'm exited to try something this large.

I built the armature based on a female skeleton, so I knew I was doing a sculpture of an adult female, but beyond that, I didn't have any idea what I wanted to sculpt. For a few days, I obsessed, trying to come up with just the right idea but after driving myself (and my wife) crazy for a while, I finally decided to just pick some pictures from my reference collection and sculpt it as an anatomy study. At this stage, I need anatomy practice far more than I need an idea for a masterpiece, so I just found a pose I liked and printed out some images for a reference board. You can see the armature here along with the reference board in the background (using images from 3d.sk):

Obviously, I'd rather work from a live model, but it's just not practical most of the time with my schedule because I do most of my sculpting after the rest of the family has gone to sleep. I do need to start working from life again, however - it's been too long, and I feel like my work is suffering for it (if you don't ever sculpt from life, you really, really need to start). Anyway, this is my substitute for a model. I have no idea how other sculptors do their reference boards, but I know many others use them.

I'll give a quick explanation to my approach here: One board has orthographic front and side shots printed at the same scale that the actual sculpture will be. These two shots gives me something to measure against with calipers when I need to check scale on my piece. I use the rest of that piece of foam-core for close-ups of various parts of the body. Right now, there are only three shots of the head — front, side, and three-quarters — but I will likely add more pictures as I progress. I don't want to focus on details now, so having a close-up of an ear or eye or whatever would be no help, and might coax me into doing detail work prematurely, which is something I'm prone to doing anyway and am really trying to avoid. On the other board are eight images of the pose I'm actually sculpting, not to scale. This one's for eyeballing, not for measuring, but it's at least as important as the other board, and probably more important. I actually try to work by eye most of the time, and only pull out the calipers when my eye fails to tell me exactly what is wrong.

Next step, of course, is to chop up some of the Chavant...

...and throw it in the warming box...

After a few minutes, I grabbed some clay, and despite warnings from several people, I proceeded to burn myself with molten clay due to grabbing a piece that was right in the light's hot spot. Several minutes and a couple of well-chosen swear words later, I began constructing the base for the piece. This isn't, perhaps, real sculpting, but it's enough to tell me that I like this clay. Except for the smell. I love the smell of water clay, especially when you open a new bag; this stuff smells like water clay that's been stored in somebody's ass.

Here's what a few minutes gets me:

As you can see, I've taken the arms off for ease of working. This is one of the great tips I got from the John Brown video linked above, and it's a huge help. It obviously doesn't take much talent to sculpt a sloppy rectangle, but it's been good for me to get the feel of the Chavant, and now I'm ready to start bulking out the piece. I start with the feet and legs.

Again, this is pretty simple stuff, but I find I have the best luck if I work simply at first, finding larger shapes and contours, and then refining.

I'm actually working differently than I normally do. Normally I block out the rib cage and pelvis first, and I really don't know why I didn't do that this time. I wasn't really thinking, but I'll probably do the ribcage and pelvis shapes first in my next session.

Now, seeing as it's Saturday night, and I'm a wild and crazy guy, I'll probably be doing more sculpting after I've gotten the kids to sleep, so you might see another update tonight. If not, well, I've got one more day off before returning to the grind, so keep stopping back!