So I finished sanding down the limbs and wanted to make sure they weren't now too small for the body:
Nope... they look good.
Now it was time to tackle the torso. As I mentioned earlier, the torso is made out of a harder grade of plastic, so the grind and sand approach wasn't going to cut it.
I decided to try a different dremel bit, and try to just slowly shave off what I didn't want.
It worked like a charm.
I shaved the chest. I shaved the back. I shaved parts that no one should ever have to shave.
I took it very slowly to avoid going too deep (as the torso is hollow and I didn't want to accidentally create a hole). In the end, though, I was able to get it nice and smooth and am now left with a very nice base without all the detail from the original figure:
The only problem is that now, after taking off so much of plastic, Lardy looks a little less than... well... lardy.
Ah, ha! That's the next step, though.
It's time to bust out the clay and begin building up this now detail-less base to the goal design. I'm going to start with the boots to get a feel for working with clay, then, when I think I have it down, move on to the torso.
Up next: We can rebuild him!
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OK, so I've got the guy all stripped down and sanded, and now it's time to begin building him back up to the shape I want him.
For this I'm going to use a clay called Sculpey:
The tutorial I'm using recommended this brand for beginners like myself, because it stays malleable until you cure it. That's good because, as I mentioned at the beginning, since I am decidedly not a sculptor, my approach is going to be "just keep at it until it looks right".
Sculpey comes in many different colors but, since I'm going to be painting the whole thing anyway, I just went with "Transparent," so I can mostly see through it to the lines I left to guide me (for example, the line on top of the boot in the pic above)
For tools, I lucked out that many years ago, Mrs. Nihil took a pottery class and still has her old tools that she's letting me use:
Of these, I actually wound up using only one thing - that metal pick looking thing. Basically, the scale I'm working at is so small, that anything else would just be too awkward (I could probably even just use a toothpick and it work work just as well).
To illustrate this point, tonight I wanted to do a test run (just working on one boot) so this is how much clay I used:
...and I wound up having some left over!
It's a bit of a slow process (for me at least) to both get the lines I want and keep it thin enough that I don't lose the detail already there. My hats off to those that do this all the time, as it required a very detailed eye and a steady hand.
After about an hour or so of etching in the top line and blending down the bottom part with a moist finger, I had something I was comfortable with:
Now it was time to cure it. The package said to bake it in the oven at 275 for 15 minutes for each 1/4 inch.
Well, I had nowhere near 1/4 inch worth of clay (more like a 1/2 millimeter... seriously) so I only kept it in about 3 minutes - watching the whole time, because I was worried about the paint on the boot melting (ergo the parchment paper).
It must have done the trick because, when I pulled it out, it was no longer malleable (I tested it by trying to poke it with the pick and it didn't leave a mark).
To make sure that I had a crisp line on top and that the bottom was blended well enough that there would be no visible drop off, I sanded it with a fine grade of sandpaper (220 grit):
... and, in the end, it wound up looking pretty spiffy and paint ready:
It will probably be a few days before I do another update because, although the other boot should now be a bit easier for me, I think the torso will probably take a bit of time.
Thanks for all the compliments so far!
I'm really enjoying this process and am already thinking, if this turns out well, who I want to try next. (Hint: I've been scouting out some Lobot and Mace Windu figures, looking for that perfect bald head. )
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posted
Thanks, deddy... and this is actually a perfect opportunity for the "credit where credit is due" department to put in a word.
As I'm sure you know, but for the benefit of everyone who sees this, the drawing that I'm working from:
was actually drawn by dedman, himself, many moons ago, I assume based on the original drawing:
by Sketch Lad.
A quick update: As I mentioned before, the sculpting part is a little slow going for me, as this is the first time I'm ever trying to do it. I got the second boot finished, and started working on the torso. Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll have the torso in shape (or, rather, out of shape, as the case may be) and be ready to prime it.
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posted
OK... mini update, just because I'm really grooving on the way the top half of the torso is turning out.
I finally figured out what that looped clay tool is used for:
Clearly it's for sculpting man-boobs.
I was a little worried that with so much clay in the front now, that it would no longer stand up without tipping over.
What do you say, headless, only half-torso sculpted, future Lardy?
He says... well... nothing. He doesn't have a head. But he does still stand! Whew.
Bottom half tomorrow.
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Well, little by little, the sculpting is starting to take shape. When last we checked in, mini-Lardy had the beginnings of a torso, and I was going to try my hand at sculpting the trunks.
After trying it twice and realizing that I was making it too wide - it looked like he was wearing a diaper - it suddenly dawned on me that if I used the natural pivot of the legs, they would describe a nice arc for the trunks:
Good deal.
Now, you might notice a gap between the belly and the trunks... it's not a belt line; it's a space I intentionally left to build the rest of the belly.
This figure has an articulated torso so you can make it turn sideways. If I sculpted the torso as a continuous piece, I'd lose that, so instead - in keeping with dedman's drawing - I decided to build the belly downward so it would overhang the top line of the trunks.
Easier said than done. Because I couldn't use the figure itself a base for the clay (and still keep the waist articulation) I had to build it down from the clay I already had in place, one rung at a time, baking it in between each round:
Eventually, I got it to a nice girth that I'm satisfied with:
I still need to sand that last round, then I want to sculpt the shirt line. Slow going, I know... but we're getting there.
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Are you going to have a large bellybutton hole kind of show threw the 'shirt'? Sketch's drawing sort of hints at one. And I've never really seen someone with a large belly that the button didn't show through the shirt. That I remember anyway. Remember that comedian that came after John Candy? Chris Something? Anyway, I always kind of pictured Lardy like him.
posted
Thanks for all the nice words, Shady! I don't know that this is so much a tutorial, though, as a "watch Ex stumble through a new process, learning how to do it as he goes along"-ial.
The comedian you're thinking of was Chris Farley, and you're dead right... he had the perfect shape (so to speak) as what I'm trying to get:
You probably can't see it in the pics, but there actually is a slight indentation around the belly-button. That's a cool thing about this clay - since I'm mostly just using a wet finger to smooth it out, if I do it a bit less, it actually has more of the appearance of a fleshy body and less a perfectly smooth surface.
Thanks for the kid comment, too... but... I don't have any. The only little one in my life is that little terrier on page one and, though he does adore me, he's miffed that he can't play with the new toy daddy's making.
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So, first things first... I finished the torso sculpt:
That shirt was way easier than I thought it would be. It was basically: add a thin line of clay, blend at the top but not the bottom, cut in a few lines on the side to make folds. It's funny that the easiest part of the sculpt is actually the part I think turned out the nicest.
So... got our guy all shaped, now it's time to prime him:
Since the thicker parts of the clay are white, and the original bits of paint still left are black, I decided to go with gray primer, so I could tell if I was getting full coverage. The tutorial I'm using said to make sure it was sandable primer... but since every can I looked at was sandable, I just went with a brand I've used for other things I've done in the past.
Obviously, I'm not going to use spraypaint inside, so I took future-Lardy out to my backyard:
The instructions said to use a fine even mist, going back and forth and overlapping layers.
Yeah, right.
This thing is like three and half inches tall... one pass and:
This primer dries to a handle-able tackiness in about 15 minutes or so, after which I bent the joints to hit the areas that weren't covered in the first pass:
Since it's still a little tacky to the touch, I've decided I want to let him dry fully overnight before sanding and hitting him with another coat.
The next image still has a few rough spots that need to be smoothed out, but you can really see him starting to come together:
Pretty nifty, eh?
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