Dollieh Sanctuary

I have been mostly MIA for the last few months. I've been obscenely busy and I just haven't had the energy for anything. As it is, I should be doing laundry instead of posting this, and at that, I should have been doing laundry instead of making what is below. Or sewing. I really have a lot of crap to sew right now. Anyway.

I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to dig out my Marblex clay. For those of you that have never used it, it's actually pretty wonderful stuff. It smooths nicely, feels like the real clays you're supposed to kiln-fire, (and kinda smells like them too), comes in three colors (grey, white, and terra cotta), and is water-based, thus can be reconstituted if it dries out. I had to do that actually, as my clay is about three years old, and had become a vaguely moist brick. I chopped it up, added water, and left it in the bag until just now. Be gentle loves, as this is only my second try at sculpting anything even remotely resembling a human face. I used a Moxie Teens wig stand as a base to hold my sculpt while I worked, but all the features were thoroughly covered. I wanted to make sure that the face wasn't getting deformed as I worked, and that I didn't squish the features I had just added.




I added clay in itty bitty increments for most of this. These are some various angles to test the planes of the face and make sure they're more or less balanced before I removed him from the base to keep working. I had to wait until the clay reached the "leather" stage to pry it off without mushing it. I had wrapped the base with plastic wrap and taped it down so it wouldn't shift, so when it was time to remove it, I just snipped up the back of the plastic and tape, and pulled the whole thing off.







I removed him from the base and cut out the eyes. I took this pics to send to my girlfriend while she was at work. I had been buzzing about the progress I'd made on him, and she wanted to see as I went along.



I worked til nightfall, and until it was time to start dinner. (Ironically enough, there was traffic, and dinner ended up sitting for an extra fifteen minutes, but I didn't want to walk away and risk the low simmer I put the sauteed tomato and beef concoction I'd made turning into a boil or worse...) I thought I was done for the night.





Nope, I wasn't done at all. After we ate, we decided to go into the studio again, and while Myrretah got fiddly with her FOUR in progress sculpts, and started working on a fifth, I stared at Luka. And stared summore. The smile was intended to be a sorta sweet little half-smile, but really, it just looked like he had a crooked mouth. (There was a crooked man, that walked a crooked mile...) So I got some soggy clay and went to work. Then I wanted to keep going, and sculpted the eyelids. And started carving the ears. Then finished carving the ears, and began back-fulling the shell. Then suddenly, there was Luka, smiling up at me. My sweet little Luka. I actually got a little teary-eyed. I put him on my dresser next to Vespara overnight. He was finished.





But wait! There's more! This morning, we slept in, because we were both off from work. Both of us pretty much made a beeline for the studio. Before coffee! You do not understand how major this is. I decided to finish backfilling the shell, and make proper eye-wells, and then start building the back of the head. He's going to be a face-plate that will be compatible with the MSD line Myrretah will be making. He will have 2 face-plates: a human one, that you see currently, and an ear-less one, with a pair of magnetic fox-ears, which you can see the beginnings of, behind his head. I think I need to make them bigger.




Luka!!

Wow! He looks really great! I'm always super excited to see sculpting projects by peeps on this forum. <3

Verily verily impressive. I'm rather jealous.

Your process and the documenting of it is incredible. The amount of work in such a short time amazes me! Lovely lips and expressive eyelids. The symmetry looks dang good, too.

Thank you!

I meant to say, if anyone with a good eye and/or sculpting experience is willing to give constructive criticism, or feedback, I promise I won't bite your head off. I do see that one ear sticks out a little more, and it seems that one cheek is broader than the other, both of which I'm not sure how to fix, as the marblex can be finicky once it is well and truly dry. If there are more things I missed, pleased tell me! The goal is to make this boy production-ready, and any extra pointers would be appreciated.

I was (am?) simply in awe of this only being your second face sculpt. I had also assumed the ears were simply a camera angle issue. Though I'm not so great at the creative side of constructive criticism. ^.^;

I haven't done any larger scale sculpting (I've done some 28mm-50mm scale stuff) and I'm not sure how well marblex grinds/sands down, but if you want the ear that sticks out more to stick out less, I would think it'd be a matter of grinding/sanding the entire ear down (more in the back, less to none in the front), keeping in mind the fact the ear is actually being tilted rather then sunken, possibly adding some more material to the back of the navicular fossa and helix where the sculpt would end up thin due to the grinding. Not sure how well (if at all) marblex takes to having additional layers added (especially depending on what the sculpt has to endure to have molds made), but that was my first thought.

My second thought relates to your comment on reconstituting the material ... dunno how well it'd work, but would soaking the ear you want to change soften it and allow you to 'bend' the ear back (or forward, depending on which ear is the offender)?

At the scale I'm used to working it's usually easier to simply cut off the offending piece and sculpt a new one rather then trying to modify it.

That is one of the pitfalls to Marblex. It does not take well to having additional clay added on once it is dry, if you do not wet the underlying layer VERY thoroughly. I discovered this as the backfill I added is cracking a bit. It functions very much like traditional kiln-fire clays, and so will flake and crack if you add wet clay to dry. I'm currently misting him with water and wrapping him in wet paper towel and plastic wrap to try to bring the clay back to the leather stage, and hopefully re-bond the added layers. At that point, I will attempt to move the ear a little bit as well.

This is fantastic! I kind of want to try my hand at it too now.