HOW TO MAKE A SCULPTURAL CLOCK pt.2A

Okay YouTubers, I'm going to talk while I work here. Likely this video will be edited out. This is part two of the clock works. All right, so these are the armatures that I constructed using John Brown's method. What I really enjoy about these armatures is that they're twisted and create a real kind of tooth for the clay to hang on versus it just being a bare wire. So I have this sped up times eight to kind of move things along because there's no way that I'd be able to show you in real time what this sculpture would look like, you know, being sculpted and that. So, and I've skipped through some parts that I thought would be exceptionally boring because you're going to know pretty quickly here that I'm just slapping clay on there piece by piece and it's pretty tedious grueling. So anyway, the piping is coming out of the lower part there. That's what I'm pointing at and it should actually come out of the top. So the next time I construct these I'll deviate a little bit from the method that I've learned and put it out of the top for the simple reason that the rib cage doesn't flex. It's the lumbar and the cervical vertebrae that flex. So the vertebrae between the ribs and that, it doesn't move a whole lot. I mean they do move, but not the way the lumbar does. So anyway, that would work my advantage because sometimes I need the lumbar to move and in this case it would have been favorable. So as I'm putting clay on here, I'm trying to construct miniature skeletal parts like the hips and the femur and the trochanter, things like that. So that as I'm putting clay on here, I have some type of reference to orient myself so I can keep my bearings. And if you have a general working knowledge of where the muscles insert and attach, you'll be a lot farther ahead just for the simple fact that you know where to put down clay and where to build the clay up and where to avoid it. So this is all just piece by piece, roughing it in, roughing it in, roughing it in, roughing it in as we go. You know I consider this clock project as I work that maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew and you know it's just so tedious. There's so much work that goes into one of these and there's so many other projects that I want to work on at the same time. So I have to exercise a lot of self-control and self-discipline with it, you know. So my incentive at this point to get this done is working on some coins or metals. I want to sculpt some metals or like medallions. And I refuse to start projects, new projects, unless I'm either going to throw out the current project or finish it first. So it's the only way to keep my life organized and to see if I really want to do an idea bad enough. You find out pretty quick too sometimes hey do you want to do something? Well put it off for a week and see if you still want to do it after a week. If you're still thinking about it after a week it's likely you're you know you'll see it through. So this is a good time to mention that if you like this video please hit the like button and please hit the subscription button if you would like to see more videos like these in the future. Also be sure to check out the item description for the equipment and items used in the making of this clock. Okay so right here you can see that I'm really just trying to build up the muscles where I feel like they would be. I'll give you a little preview there for a second of all the clay built up on the wire so far. So I skipped ahead a lot of this is so monotonous that I just wanted to cut out a lot of the footage to keep at least some interest from people falling asleep on me while the grass is growing. Anyway you can see that I put clay on the arms which I didn't show in the video and the phalanges are still uncovered and that's fine. But I just wanted to get the arms on there and get some clay on them so I can see how these figures are going to you know integrate together. There will come a point when I just leave them on the base and I don't take them off anymore but I really feel that it's important as a sculptor to sculpt what's underneath. So you know some people take the opportunity to use drapery or hair or things of that nature to hide hands or feet and it's quite obvious especially with the face. You know you hide the face with the hair drapery that the artist is really unsure of their abilities to execute that and maybe they're quite right that they can't so they want to cover it up but it's really obvious to the viewer that something's going on there and it's a very I don't want to say adolescent or juvenile but it's a novice attempt to get around the hard work. But if you can get in the habit and the discipline of figuring those things out and you still want to lay cloth over it at least it's going to look convincing but the form underneath you know is really there that is supported. So you know and if you know what a skeleton looks like per se and you know you start hanging muscles on it and all that it's a lot more likely that your figure is going to look realistic. Some people just want to throw muscles on a form and they think that that's going to work and you all the luck in the world to you but it's better to know the bones and then you can start hanging the muscles on it and approach your work much more confidently that way. So you'll see here that as I get these figures built up with the clay and reattached on the form here that they are coming together pretty well. You can see how they are going to be leaning on each other. There's going to be some space underneath her. I'm not really happy about that so I'm just going to put a little plug of clay to help prop her up and as I start to fill in that space with drapery or things of that nature you know you'll never see that a little prop there. So I really enjoy how this is coming together and how they look pretty zonked out by the hand hanging there. I see a lot of times some sculptors will just leave hands laying limp or you know kind of limp wristed while they have their arm raised and I'm not really convinced at the wrist of what's going on but if you can see connecting points that look like you know shapes that are being glued together like with a hot glue gun that were actually integrated curves like you look at the braid of a hair you know somebody braids hair you can see how one braid overlaps into the next. If you really examine the human form you'll see that throughout so a one curve leads into a trough that leads into another curve which leads into a trough and so on and so on. Well a good hand or a wrist or a knee something like that will always have that and again Edward Lanteri's book on sculpting and modeling the human figure has that. I'll put a link in the description. I'll encourage every video sculpting video that I have to get that book. It's just precious and I'm still learning things from it and as you grow you'll read it again and recognize that you're still learning stuff from it. Stuff that you didn't get the first time that you weren't able to soak in because your brain wasn't ready for it. So good times with Edward Lanteri. So here I'm just smoothing out clay on that styrofoam that's going to help me save a lot of clay. It's going to keep it lightweight. This will have a tendency to kind of peel up but it's worth the effort and you know if you want to like rough up the styrofoam or something like that there's a good chance your clay is really not going to stick. You'd be better off shlacking that and letting the acetone bite that and kind of shrink it down a little bit and turn that surface hard to get that clay to grab if you're really worried about it. Otherwise you know just smear the clay on there and go to town with it. So clay is your oyster as far as what I'm dealing with. I recognize pretty quickly that they're hanging off the edges. So I made the figures either a little too big or the base a little too small but all this stuff can be tweaked and that's the good news. And from the picture I actually see that you know these two youngsters are sitting on a slab and that slab can be built to hang off. So full advantage of that here. You see where her legs are hanging off, his hands hanging off. I pick them up and I slide them down a half inch to the left or left and it is sitting a little too low. So I ended up raising that up with a block of wood underneath and that way his foot isn't sitting on top of that gear. And I will build up a ledge underneath her knee and underneath his right hand which will soon be hanging off the side of that base. So it's coming together. One studio session and it's looking pretty good. Well maybe this wasn't two studio sessions. Yeah two studio sessions that's right. But you know I knew I wasn't going to be able to get all this in one video and there's no way humanly possible to do that. Not minute per minute but with this super speed and all that I can speed it up and cut stuff up. Hopefully you guys are enjoying this journey with me. So in the next part two B. So this is part two. I broke up part two into A and B. B I'm going to be really working out the details here. Putting the drapery on it. Using the rig tools and getting the faces on there and that kind of good stuff. So hopefully after the next video we'll be ready. You guys take care. This was fun. You guys are great. Like, subscribe. Take care.