Because Digital art finds its roots and references in traditional media, I found it necessary to include sculpture and more specifically model making techniques in this tutorial section.
Thanks to Alan Dickinson, a friend of mine and a renowned sculptor, I made this tutorial that follows a personal creation and gives valuable information and methodology built upon his years of experience in this traditional and sensual media.
My first topic was inspired by an Hajime Sorayama illustration.The human body is not the easiest thing to embrace, However it is very engaging to work with. The main difficulties that I encountered were the size of the figurine. The scale, being quite small, gave me a challenging task to achieve detail while keeping a perfect smoothness.
Here is the oil used to smooth out the fresh clay applied: Ronsonol. A brush slighly humidified with oil (don`t wet it too much or you might lose a lot of detail) will do. Any kind of tool can be used to applied the clay. The best for most of the work are the thumbs but you might as well use wood sticks of any kind of flat or sharp shape to be able to carve accurately or create fades and transitions.
The base structure for the arms is appled. Once cooked, sanding process once again.
The shape is getting there after the layer of "fat". We can notice how the base skeleton structure still shows quite remarkably through the latest clay layers.
A guided tour of the current state. The arms are still in early stages. Feet, hands and head will be done separately.
The Hips are quite successful, giving some nice curvatureThe rib cage will have to be sanded out, the breasts will have to be flatten.
The profile looks good overall. The Calf and thigh region, on the right leg is quite hard to achieve. Since the leg is bent very close to the thigh, there is little place to work. Do not try to make the pleat at this stage for these cases. It is better to ensure continuity between the two parts and then work on the hard material with a scalpel, cutter or alike.
The back and buttocks look quite natural. The pleats make it for a more souple, fat part but they will have to be smoothed out to avoid a classic roman / greek period look.
