Update on Jumper Commmission and Frieisian Maquette

The jumper commission ("Rolltop") is sculpted, the mold has been made and I've been making castings.  The first casting is usually one that has to be thrown away, because that's the one where I find the places where the mold catches on the resin.  When it "catches," that usually means the mold material has gotten stuck in the resin and torn off the mold.  These are usually TINY places, so they don't usually damage the detail of the mold.  The first casting also removes any clay that may have remained in the mold.  So the first one is tossed.  I've gotten a good casting now, so it just needs to be cleaned up (washed with Dawn dishwashing detergent to remove any oils from its surface), painted with a prime coat and then finished to look like bronze.  Here's are pics of it in the mold and right after I unmolded it.

The Friesian maquette for a life-size bronze is coming along well.  It's still rough, but the proportions are getting there, and some of the details are starting to show.  Remember, this is a work in progress - it will be in "the uglies" for a while yet.

His body is curved, as if he's turning to the left.  Hopefully it looks like that!  I know his hooves that are flat to the ground aren't quite on the same plane yet - that will come with a bit more work.  Ignore the position of the tail - it's just a "placeholder" for now. 

I try to work all over the sculpture at the same time, without focusing too much on any one spot.  So while the head looks almost finished, it isn't.  While the left hind hip and leg look nearly finished, they aren't.  Everything's being developed a little at a time.  I can see the beautiful horse starting to emerge, although most people will probably not see beyond his current not-yet-beautiful state.

I'm finding the hard clay difficult to work with.  My shoulders are sore all the time despite using a hair dryer on the sculpture to soften the clay before I try to blend it or add more or carve some off.  Some of my ribbon tools are being damaged from trying to carve this clay.  I sure hope the results are going to be worth the effort of using this kind of clay!   It's good to learn how to use a different kind of sculpting medium, but I'll be happy to go back to the soft clay I normally use.

Jumper commission is finished!

This was a fun break from the big pieces I've been working on.  I really needed to take a step back from the Friesian maquette and try to see where it wasn't working, so I worked on this little jumper relief on the tiny  bit of space beside "Tolt" on my crank up sculpting table.  Nanning (the Friesian) is on the worktable across the room with his big reference photo right behind him.  A couple of days of work on the jumper gave me fresh eyes for Nanning, so that was really good!  And I got this pretty relief finished just today.  The customer and I are both happy with it, YAY!

The first picture shows it at an early stage.  I worked from the rear end of the horse to the front once I had all the basic shapes in place.

Below, you see me trying a different jump than the one in the photo (which was a simple jump with standards, although a pretty one).  The original jump was awkward to make into a relief.  One standard needed to go across the rider's boot and the other looked as if it were stabbing the horse in the throat.  So I decided "no standards!"  I tried a coop jump first, but wasn't that happy with it.  That's below.

Then I did a rolltop jump and that's the right one for this piece.  Now all I have to do ("all" - LOL!) is make the mold box, pour a mold, clean up the mold, cast resin in it, clean up the resin, paint and finish the resin, mount the resin and the brass plates to the walnut plaque (my basemaker will actually do that - I'm not that good with power tools!) and voila!  It's a trophy!

I put the little bush at the end of the rolltop to show she's at a show - the rider also has a number card tied around her waist that shows on her back (which is why her back is a bit flatter than it might normally be).

I hope you like my little jumper relief!  It will be available as a trophy on my Trophy Gallery page once I get it finished. 

Ahhh, that's better . . . "Tolt" and "Star Sons 2" news!!

I finally saw what was bothering me about the rider's face.  I knew something was a bit off, but I couldn't quite figure out how to fix it.  Then I saw it.  The eyes were set too high (by about 1/16th of an inch), and the place where the nose dips in toward the eyes was set in the wrong place (by an even smaller margin).  So today I put dabs of clay in the places where the eyes were, smoothed that out and started over - not my favorite thing to do, especially on something as delicate and difficult to create as the eyes on this rider.  But I did it, and revised the shape of her cheekbones somewhat, her temples and browbone, the nose, and even brought the brim of the helmet lower and trimmed some off the top of the helmet.  I like it a lot better now.  I think I need to broaden the lower cheeks and jaw just a tiny bit on each side, and then it just might look like my customer!  YAY!  Here are some pictures to show what I accomplished today.

I know her helmet still needs straps, but I'm not going to add them until I'm satisfied with her face.

As you may be able to see from the pictures above, and will certainly see in the picture below, I also started working on the mane, getting the masses of the flying mane and forelock somewhat defined on one side, as well as filling in holes and undercuts so it will cast well.

I think this will be a beautiful piece!  I'm excited to see it coming together so well!

In other news, I've finished the revisions on my second "Star Sons" novel (titled "The Gathering Alliance") and am printing it out right now for a final read-through to make sure I haven't missed anything in proofreading.  The cover art is finished and there are only a few details to complete before it will be ready for publication.  HUZZAH!!!  I'll post ordering info here and on Facebook and my Yahoo groups when it's ready to go.  It will be available from me as well as from Amazon.com, BN.com and various other outlets. You will also be able to order it in your local bookstore with its ISBN number.  I'm excited to have this finished!  YAAAY!!

Lack of sleep

Why is it that my creative juices always flow the best when I'm asleep?  If I'm truly immersed in a story I'm writing, I will dream entire scenes and hear the dialog in each character's voice.  I can even rerun the scene in my dreams and edit or revise the dialog.  But when I wake up . . . I'm exhausted because I've worked all night!  I relish these times when my creative juices get fired up that way because that means I'm going to be very productive creatively during the day, but it sure would be nice if I could get some restful sleep at least part of the night!

Right now, my creative juices are flowing on a new HP story as well as trying to design a costume for my horse and myself for the Halloween show at Dancing Horse Farm (where both horse and rider are required to be in costume - argh!).  I've also gotten the go-ahead from my commission customer for the Icelandic Horse portrait she's hired me to do.  She's decided to go larger than we originally planned, which means the horse will be 13 1/2 inches tall at the withers, the biggest one I've done so far.  With the rider on, I'm wondering if I'll even be able to lift it when it's bronze!  Hopefully I will, but the best part is that being that big, the tack and the facial details of the rider will be SO much easier to do!  Working at 1/8 to 1/6 lifesized as I normally do, those parts are teensy-tiny!!  So I'm excited about working that big and seeing how well I can capture the horse and rider with that much room for good detail!  And my Andalusian stallion sculpture is ready to be cleaned up, finally.  I've had to fight with the mane and tail to get them where I wanted them, and then when I thought it was finished, I noticed that one hoof was smaller than the others.  Unless you sculpt, you have no idea how hard it is to add about one millimeter of clay to a part and get it smooth and shaped right and perfect.  I had to resculpt the whole hoof to make it work - it was about an hour's work, just on that one hoof, but now it matches the others!  Yay!  Now if I could just get a good night's sleep!