While rummaging through piles of old stuff, I found these pics of the unfinished Male Pegasus in clay that I thought were interesting. I think unfinished clay things have a lovely dynamic, fresh look that is often lost when they are detailed. Maybe because the hair detail smooths out the crisp light and shadow.
This was a Polaroid photo that had faded so badly I’m not sure what kind of clay this is, but I think this was sculpted in water based clay; most likely stuff called WED.
If you compare this horse to the final version of the Male Pegasus we produce now, you can see that the the forelegs have been moved slightly ( it is hardly noticeable ) probably to try to make him easier to de-mold. And this one was impossible to de-mold. The poor mold makers. I blame that lapse of design sense on my part ( that was back in 1991) to having given birth recently. He is one of the few pieces that we finally had to make with a parting line down the tail and wings so that the mold can be opened wide enough to pull out his big head and front legs. Similar to giving birth.
It’s not a bad seamline, though. Plenty of texture there to put back in to disguise it.
The seam line on the Pegasus has worked really well. This is encouraging, because the Male Pegasus gets away from the blobby sculpture shape I am confined to with our methods and material, and I would love to do more “up” sculptures like that one. But not if seam lines create more scraping nightmares, like with the Orientals, or de-molding nightmares, like the Sun dragon!!