He's Got a Knife: The Design
I'm terrible with documenting my various projects. I usually start with a goal to photograph my progress but I inevitably fail to do so. On the one hand, it's unfortunate I don't have a good step-by-step history of the process. On the other hand, the fact that I didn't slow down enough to pull out the camera is pretty indicative of how into the project I was. That is, I'm passionate about it to the point that I don't want to pause for photos.
As for the He's Got a Knife (HGK) sculpture, I did take the time to snap a few photos...mostly because I had to wait for clay to harden. With this and a couple future posts I plan to document the steps I took to create the sculpture. Maybe you'll find it interesting...maybe not. I'm hoping it'll spark some fellow sculptors to take up the clay and, by all means, if you have suggestions for how something could've been done better, please share. I would love to get your ideas.
1. The Idea. HGK really started with the knife. It was leftover from a custom action figure project where a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys figure was the source (somewhere in my stash of goodies there's a tiny spear and diminutive crossbow just waiting for a project). It's a good knife. Plain. Simple. More importantly, it's sized realistically...not some huge, stylized mystic machete. The idea to build a nasty monster around a tiny knife came to me at work one day. The irony and the humor struck me. I'm a sucker for both monsters and funny so the combo was a one-two punch.
2. The Design. I sketched out a couple ideas. I didn't do a lot of this initially. The idea to make the monster more swamp-themed came later, after I decided that sculpting fur would be too difficult for a first sculpture of this magnitude. Eventually, I had a monster and a man but no base. I put more effort into the sketching of the base than the actual characters.
Those are the pre-construction steps.
Next up...construction begins.
2 comments:
I think an important part of making a funny sculpture (and trust me, I'm an expert) is that the sketch itself already conveys what's funny pretty clearly.
I used to play around with Fimo on occasion in junior high and high school and usually when I started, I had an idea that didn't really look cool when I tried to draw it, but I just trusted that it would look good when I added a third dimension.
That was usually a mistake.
Sculpting feels less intimidating than some other art forms. I know I can work clay over and over again until I get it the way I like it. Even after it's baked, I can carve/sand it. And, when I break something, I can typically glue it back together.
Using paint and/or ink is difficult for me. It feels so permanent and I'm scared of making mistakes. Sure, you can repaint or white-out something but that gets old after while.
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