Stage 1

The first step is complete. Now I need to make a waste mould to get a couple of resins I can further refine and tweak. 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

I was talking to my boyfriend the other day, explaining that I love working in oil clay so much because it is so easy to remove bits I don't like and re-sculpt them. He said you can't be afraid to kill your darlings. That stuck with me, and about 15 minutes later I had cut my horse in half, dug out a lot of tinfoil and removed almost an inch from his length.

I think his proportions are much better and I managed to get the back rounded like a proper dressage horse. One valuable lesson I learned is that it isn't enough to know the proper proportions and percentages as well as how to scale up and down; you have to continue to check your measurements!!! After every tweak and change!!! Which I wasn't doing. Oh well, we live and learn. 

Progress Part 3

When I was in University I was studying to become an archaeologist. I was specializing in zooarchaeology - faunal osteology and had every intention of going to an MA and then eventually a career in archaeology before disastrous health problems stopped those dreams right in their tracks. Luckily I was studying art for years before stumbling into archaeology and have thus fallen back into it. I bring this up because while working on my cantering warmblood I realize the process of sculpting is a lot like the scientific method. In science, you start with an idea or question, then research, hypothesize, test, analyze results, rinse and repeat. With my stallion, I started with a picture and pose, researched, sculpted, analyzed the results and then of course rise and repeat. Of course the idea with both processes is to further refine and improve upon the original concept. It just goes to show that no matter your background, any learned skills are never wasted! Plus studying skeletal structures and morphologies sure doesn't hurt :P

    

Progress Part 2

Sometimes progress is a backward step. After looking closer at the photos, I realized the shoulders looked weird; not like muscles but just lines carved in clay. So off they came! This is definitely my favourite thing about working in clay is being able to remove and re-sculpt so easily. I need to tweek one of the neck muscles, but that is an easy fix :)

Progress

Cantering Warmblood is progressing nicely, but there is still a lot of refining to do. He's still very lumpy in places, but hey I'm getting the cat hair cleaned off of him! :D