Thursday, June 23, 2016

Wolf Sculpture Process


I am a HUGE nature geek. I am fascinated by animals of all shapes and sizes, but the wolf holds a special place in my heart.

So I just had to sculpt one. 

This was my first attempt, and I think it turned out pretty good, but I would like to try again with my added experience and a different approach to technique.

Here's how I went about it....


As always, I recommend Premo!  The photos are pretty self-explanatory, but I started with the head. 


I continued to layer clay and fill it out to make it the right shape (I used a ton of photo references).


Once it looked about right, I etched in a few basic details and baked to preserve my work.

 I then got to work on the rest of the body.


I began adding the body, and created the legs using aluminum foil.


As always, my clay gets extra filthy. I guess it doesn't really matter since I paint my pieces, but I do find it distracting. I may need to switch to gray so I don't notice it as much.


I skipped a few steps in pictures, but here is where I began work on the fur.

I experimented with different techniques until I finally settled on this. I wasn't 100% happy with it to be honest, but it looked alright.


I wet the fresh clay down with liquid sculpey and carved out the shapes with a curved sculpting tool.





The fur was a little to woolly and blocky for my taste, but I think it looked okay once the paint was on.

I decided to go with a less obvious choice for color. Silver and black makes for such a stunning mysterious color in a wolf, so that's what I went with.


Finished! (Photos by my husband, Mark.)




Posing with our German Shepherd Tala (her name is Sioux for "wolf").
Despite its shortcomings, I was proud of this piece for a first attempt. 

It sold within a week on Etsy and is now somewhere in Colorado, so I guess somebody thought it worthy! :) 

I'm eager to try another one when I get some time. Thanks for looking!

If you wish to keep track of my work or inquire about commissions, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Etsy or DeviantArt.

HAPPY SCULPTING!





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