Guide to Aging Characters

Here's another great reference chart from Joumana Medlej, majnouna.com.   The "Artists Guide to Aging Characters" was created for those drawing human anatomy but it is also useful information for those sculpting figures and creating dolls, especially for the facial features.  It shows the changes in proportion and other changes that happen as a person ages from a baby to a senior citizen. See more charts at majnouna.com

Note: The actual size of the image is a lot larger than the way it displays in Blogger.  Chart is much easier to read if you download a copy.

Tutorial: Creating a BJD Head and Face

~ click photos to enlarge ~    

Linda Macario, the Italian doll-maker, has written a wonderful tutorial for creating the head for a BJD (ball-jointed doll) .   LaDoll air-dry clay is suggested.  Creative Paperclay would also be suitable for this project.   Lots of photos demonstrate how to sculpt the Styrofoam core, apply the clay, model the facial features, hollow out the head & insert the eyes and also create the head articulation.

Further steps in the tutorial demonstrate how she paints the delicate features (called "face-up") to create a doll similar to the ones shown in these photos!   Aren't they beautiful?   Linda is an amazing doll artist!   This is a great air dry clay tutorial even if you're not interested in making a full BJD body and just want to sculpt the face.   I hope this encourages you to make your first doll!   I'm excited to try it myself! ;-)

  

How to Sculpt a Fairy Head

Great photo tutorial from the late* Hannie Sarris showing us, step by step, how to sculpt a fairy head.   Hannie used LaDoll for this tutorial but says this sculpting technique is suitable for other air dry clay.
http://www.hanniesarris.nl/page.php?page=sculpting_fairy_head&lang=en

The basis for the head is a special type of styrofoam, also used for coffee cups.   She inserts a small dowel or stick completely thru the foam and coming out the top of the head.  This just makes things easier to handle while sculpting.  The hole in the head can always be patched later or covered with hair.

Example of completed fairy below:

Psyche by Hannie Sarris

--------------------------

*Hannie Sarris passed away suddenly and too soon due to complications from pneumonia on May 2, 2010   In Memorium

Build Your Own Armature Stage and Armature Jig

Finished Stand with Armature

Chuck Needham has prepared a step-by-step tutorial for creating your own "2-bit Sculpting Stage".  It's a lazy-susan style armature stand made of wood and easy-to-find supplies.   Suggested dimensions are for a 1/6 scale figure and can be adjusted based on your own favorite scale.   

Instructions are also given for creating an armature jig in various scales along with instructions for making an body armature using the jig.

Armature jig and partial armature

I came across this tutorial at a Spanish-speaking forum, however the tutorial and downloads are in English.  Go here for tutorial:
http://porcelanaenfrioooak.ning.com/group/todomasillaepoxi/forum/topics/arma-tu-propia-rueda-y-tabla
The same tutorial is not currently available on the writer's website (Chuck Needham, 2 Bit Studio)

On the same page, following Chuck's tutorial, are instructions for making an armature using an image reference.

Pumpkin Carving Part 2

After yesterday's post I stumbled on another great pumpkin carver at Extreme Pumpkins.   There you'll find a gallery of carving ideas, how to tips, free patterns and lots of photos of pumpkin carving contest winners!   The "Cannibal Pumpkin" pattern is probably my favorite...I think...hard to choose!  The one shown above is an interpretation of the one shown on cover of the Extreme Pumpkins book (written by owner of website).


The "Puking Pumpkin" shown below is probably the most famous!   Yuk!!!

Oh my!!!  He found a use for those extra small pumpkins!   Quite creepy!

Tom has lots of creepy ideas!  *G*

Tom Nardone, the owner of ExtremePumpkins.com has written a number of top-selling books on pumpkin carving that are chock full of tips and patterns.  


    

I found Tom's article on preserving your carved pumpkin very interesting.  Tom did went through a lot of effort to test different commonly-used products on some carved pumpkins to see which kept the pumpkin preserved the longest!   A very thorough study IMHO!    


You'll just have to check out his website after watching this video showing some of his cool stuff!

At Extreme Pumpkins you'll also find a totally FREE PDF file to download with patterns for these 48 pumpkin faces, a how-to guide and other ideas.   This is  a Halloween-themed website to bookmark and return to over and over!

Pumpkin carving lesson

Halloween approaches and many would-be sculptors contemplate carving a pumpkin!   We can only hope to be as good as Ray Villafane (shown above and below), but he shows us how with a step-by-step pumpkin carving tutorial.     btw....I just discovered that there's a distinction between carving & sculpting.  Pumpkin carving involves carving a pattern into the pumpkin surface while a pumpkin sculpt uses the pumpkin itself as a 3D sculpted object.

Maybe you want to do something a little simplier (OK...a LOT simplier)....all that carving just looks too hard!   How about a stencil or pattern to follow.   Find some free patterns at Fantasy Pumpkins  and Spook Master and stencils for sale at  Pumpkin Stencils 101 .

You'll also find more carving tutorials and pattern links at Fantasy Pumpkins.    Look at this great fairy pattern shown on his homepage!