Monday, December 20, 2010

Miniature Fox Sculpture in Oil Based Clay

 I need to start learning the mold-making process, so I sculpted a small image of a fox in oil-based clay. I chose the animal and the pose to make for as easy of a mold as possible - notice that the entire composition is very pyramid in shape. I made a simple armature of a nail driven into a small wooden disc. Then I used oil-based clay to sculpt the fox in a more stylized manner.

It was fun to sculpt something different from figure and interesting to try and capture the essence of a fox without worry of trying to be anatomically correct. The oil-based clay is still kind of new to me and the sticky texture is still something that I'm getting used to. The upside is that you can stop and start as many time as you wish and it never dries out like water-based clay.

This measures 3.5" tall and is sculpted in Classic Clay purchased from Sculpture Depot.  Next I'll be showing the process that I used to make a pour mold of this sculpt. I learned this technique in the sculpting class that I took with Rik Sargent at the Denver Art Students League.