What was/ the hardest sculpture to do?

Also, do you favor facing a sculpt in a certain direction? Wow, this may be a very loong answer! It would be easier to list the ones that just jumped out the clay, perfect. Some really did that, but not many.

The male griffin was a struggle, it was the first thing with bird wings I did. It was difficult to sculpt the bird wings in a position so that they didn’t cover up the the cat back-end, yet would be strong enough to cast. I was sure glad when that one was done!

Some of them have been just murder… Sculpting the Secret Keeper gave my assistant, Dhey, and I allot of trouble, until I gave up and raised one paw up. There simply wasn’t room for both feet on her tail!…The S.K. is still giving us trouble in every way! Hard to cast, hard to make mold on, hard to lift, hard to paint… surprisingly, I still like the sculpture though. Often after that much of a headache, I don’t want to have it around!
What usually gets me in trouble with a sculpture is some feature that simply doesn’t work… I have (am having) a tough time with lying griffin /hippogriff eagle feet. I want them to NOT look like a dragon’s feet, but if an eagle’s foot is relaxed, and not spread out, it just doesn’t look right as a front foot. A bird foot is a hind foot and there are no wrist bones in it… so I have this anatomical problem of making a hind foot into hand. My approach to most anatomical problems is to cover it up with fur or feathers…but I can’t do that with eagle feet…so the mother griffin has wrist bones. The male doesn’t. The hippogriff has rough blobs of sculpey right now.

I tend to sculpt things facing right. I always draw things facing left. I sculpt left handed and I draw right handed. I have to make an effort to do things the other way. I can if I try, but not automatically. This was always one of my problems…Weird. Do you guys have trouble drawing things in either direction??
This was a fun question,. I love bitching.. thanks!

I thought sculpting pyos would be easier than regular stuff, but it is quite the opposite!
When I realised that every angle and detail will be scrutinized by everybody, it became much more difficult to finish things! Everything needs to be much more perfect. On production things, I would think, eh, somebody can just airbrush this part a dark color, and nobody will notice..ha ha. The backside of the male griffin’s front legs…ooog.

Me too!!! 😉

Do any of you have an issue with trying to repeat a drawing? When I draw say a lion and really like how it turned out, if I try to draw it again, no luck. It will look like crapola!
Anyway, thanks! Oh yeah! Even if you trace it won’t look as good! I have found this when drawing specific characters, the proportions need to be just perfect or they don’t look like themselves. The only way around that is practice practice practice practice…(oh, and photoshop!)
A great sketch is a piece of magic.

My biggest problem with drawings (I have many) is being able to ink a pencil drawing, and manage to retain what I love about the sketch. I have found that I can’t. They will always just end up being two different drawings.

I was just amazed you put ANY sort of detail there, myself. That, and inside the space between the back of his head and the backs of his semi-raised wings (below where the wings touch his head). I can’t imagine how tough that must’ve been to get any detail in those areas! Those long dental tools you use most help, though. 😆

The only thing that really made me go “HAAAY” was the lack of halluxes. XD But I forgeeve. And as for avian hindlegs on griffins/hippogriffs…you know 99% of the time I myself draw them with handlike foreclaws, myself. 😀 It’s only when I’m drawing someone else’s character or during the rare times I’m illustrating a character from my second universe that I get out the birduh books.
You don’t want to watch me detailing these things. I am not afraid to get out the saw and hack their heads off to get to the hard to reach spots. I stick ’em back together with wax and get them recast.
I am thinking of leaving the halluxes off of the hippgriff too. Pesky things.

😮 😯 😆 I never would have guessed.

Yep x_X My drawings (mostly dragons and horse heads) always seem to face left too.