Update to WRAF and dog

Since my last post the relief has been fired (cooked in the oven) and alterations have been made to the dog and uniform. After a clean up (using needle files and wet and dry paper the relief has been sprayed in acrylic grey primer.

The sculpt is at that point, that with just a little more filling and prep-work  its ready for paint. But here’s the rub – I’ve been in invited by Steven Lloyd at flattinfigures.com to do at step by step tutorial on relief sculpting for his website, so unfortunately the painting is going to have to be  put on hold whilst I get going on the new project.

Overall the sculpting of this figure has been both a journey of re-discovering my old skills and developing new. Its been an absolute joy to get back to who I was (the artist and model maker) and I now know that the discipline of the sculptor/painter is going to be a central part of the rest of my life.

As for this sculpt?

There’s a lot that I would change about it. Not that I am unhappy the end result, its just that when you look back at the finished work, its far away from the polished realistic look that I really want to achieve. Also on reflection the sculpt looks more like a caricature than in does the original photograph.

On the next project I will be introducing a better clay (Super Sculpey Firm), I was using the regular Sculpey, but found it a Little too loose to get the level of detail that needed. The thickness of the relief itself will be reduced so it resembles more of a bas-relief  rather than the mid-relief that I achieved this time around. Also more planning is going into this next work  so that I set for myself a strict discipline of construction, a foundation that I can build on for all the work that is to come.

A long way to go, a lot to learn!

And the subject for the next sculpt?

Female member of the London Ambulance Column of the City of London Red Cross.

WOMEN IN UNIFORM DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR© IWM (Q 30349)

Served time with the Royal Berkshire Ambulance Service back in 1980’s, so I feel a lot of kinship with the subject matter (may even make this a recurring theme of my future sculpts – who knows?).

-Rich