I've spent literally two to three weeks pondering and picking at and trying to sculpt the rider's hands until today when I finally got everything to work the way I wanted. It's very hard to sculpt the part of the fingers and palm that are near the horse, so I finally turned the forearms and hands out away from the horse so I could see the inside shapes better. There are suggestions of fingernails there and even my customer's gorgeous sapphire ring is shown as a general shape on her left hand. Her arms and hands were hard for me to do - getting the muscling and the shapes of the parts right is quite a challenge, but I think everything's good now.
I like the way the wrinkles turned out in her shirt and breeches. I textured her clothing to make it look different from her skin when it's bronze. I think it will be a nice look to have that slight texture on the cloth.
The clay stirrups you see on the working surface won't be the ones used. I made Super Sculpey ones so they'll be sturdier to ship (Super Sculpey is a polymer clay you can bake in the oven so it's hard, unlike plastilene which is always soft.) The stirrups, stirrup leathers and reins will all be hand-made at the foundry for each piece, although they MAY be able to cast the stirrups. I'm not sure if they're thick enough to cast well unless they use jewelry-type casting (centrifugal casting).
Without further ado, here are the pictures!
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| The shape behind the hoof is supposed to be a splash of dirt. I may change it a bit before declaring a victory on this piece. |
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| When I saw this pic, I realized I need to add a browband. I'll do that tomorrow. |
