Color Motion

As I ease back into the warm weather habits of the outdoors I find myself lured, quite entranced, back to the shed to resume work on the witch head sculpture. Day job shenanigans all but sabotaged this project last year; the double whammy of learning pneumatic controls and sculpture/mold-making didn’t help things, either. But we’re neck deep in this now and the only to learn is to follow through - so on we go!

I attached a snapshot of the witch’s forehead as I left it. I’m struggling with a lot of creative fronts here - the compression of skin and muscles on the bony ridge of her brow, my unfamiliarity with sculpting materials, and my weak vision for this project. I have attempted multiple times to visualize this creature in the hopes of building a blueprint, a cohesive mental picture to benchmark my progress and guide my hands. I am a far cry from a sculptor but I do know the benefits of a clear creative vision. The trouble is that each time I try to build on yesterday’s ideas, different ideas come out. I never seem to produce a progressively defined, single idea; instead, the more sketches I make, the more variation is introduced.

As a result I started working the clay just for the sake of getting into it and feeling like I was getting somewhere. I don’t entirely regret jumping in and figuring things out along the way, but now I’m paying for it. How can I add clay to the forehead to make convincing brow creases when I don’t have a confident grasp of the skull’s shape underneath? At what point do I know that enough under-structure is in place, so that I can move on to surface structures?

These are of course the high level problems that undoubtedly all sculpture students cope with for years; I can’t expect to figure them out in only 10 projects, let alone 1. I know that the more I work on the witch, the closer I come to the point of marginal returns on my time; I can’t make the underlying features of the head better without starting over completely, so really I’m just taking this opportunity to learn as much as I can from the inaugural n00b experience before I stick a fork in it and call it done. I can’t demand perfection, which means I can stop really any time I want; in a way, that’s refreshing.
I say this happily knowing that the road to good work is paved with all the crap that came before. The crappy stuff is what we should be proud of once we’ve finally progressed to the top of the hill, because even if the crappy stuff wasn’t fun, we had the guts to endure it.

Here we go! With springtime comes spring cleaning, and that means getting our work spaces in clean, working order. There is something so satisfying about a tidy workbench… Maybe it’s just the invitation to turn it back into an overloaded, work in progress, “too busy to clean” battlezone.

Whatever the reason, the warm weather is upon us. Time to scratch that spring fever itch and build something.

In the pics: You can tell that I had a roommate in the shed this past winter. A mouse had 4 months to carpet-bomb my shed with droppings and build a few really decadent nests out of what was once my $30 HEPA-rated air filter. No sign of my deadbeat tenant now, though. Good riddance.

It’s been some time, but the witch head lives on!  How can it not, for it cannot be killed…?

I’m happy to be at the point where I’m adding muscle and tissue under the eyes.  It really elevates the waves of hatred and evil coming off this thing.  When all’s said and sculpted the bags of the lower lids should flow down across the cheeks and join up with the jowls, adding to the ancient, saggy wrinkliness of the thing.  Lots of road to cover still!

Roly poly witch head, witch head, witch head, eat it up - yum!

The right side of the witch’s face has been covered with muscles and the first layer of skin…  The right side is still the underlying structure of the skull.  I decided to build up the head in structural layers to give a more “realistic” appearance - in quotes because, obviously, it’s not a realistic creature at all!

I decided to add some tumors on the left side of the head, but this turned out to be a problem down the road…  If I wanted to add that sort of detail I should have waited until the underlying skull was finished and SYMMETRICAL.  After I took these photos, I attempted to add layers of flesh on the left side to match the right side.  Getting the two halves to look similar is presenting a lot of challenges.

The layers of flesh drape pretty nicely.  I want the cheeks to emphasize age with the sagging cheeks that fall down under the cheekbones.  The low drooping is hiked up by the muscles of the nose to raise the hackles, and so a big challenge I have is realistically communicating the contrast between those flexed hackle-muscles and the sagging, relaxed skin of the cheeks.

I really like this profile.  Getting the other side to match is very difficult!

once this underlayer is finished I plan to etch a great deal of deep lines into the surface to indicate the flowing sinews of the muscle.  From there I’ll add pockets of fatty skin and smooth over spots to indicate the skin covering the muscle tissue…  And on top of that will go the wrinkles, warts. etc.

This is something I love about drawing and it pleases me to see how well it extends to sculpture.  Beginning with an underlying structure and gradually adding layers of detail is highly rewarding.  Best of all, sculpture doesn’t suffer from the frustrating challenges of 3D computer modeling…  I don’t need to juggle the artistic decisions with how I’ve laid out a mesh, and how that presents technical obstacles.  If I want to add a nostril I just add a dab of clay and sculpt it with my fingers, then smooth the transition into the face.

More to come later!

Day 1

In about an hour and a half, I set up the work bench and got the innermost layer of clay on the styrofoam head.  To support the head, I built a wooden box out of plywood with a 1″ hole drilled in its top and bottom.  I ran a 1″ diameter dowel rod through this hole after cutting it to a suitable length and stuck a styrofoam model head on it.  Perfectly improvised turntable!  With that I was ready to begin.

We ordered 50 lbs of Klean Klay for this project, and it looks like we’ll have plenty to spare.  By using a styrofoam wig model head as a base, the sculpture is made much lighter and uses far less clay.  I could feel my brain figuring out the most utterly basic techniques with sculpture as I set to work.

Day 2

I spent about two hours in the shed today working on the sculpture - longer than I originally planned to.  I got so engaged that I lost track of time!

My major obstacle became the integration of our taxidermy purchases - namely the wolf jaws.  This here model head is human; beauty supply stores don’t typically sell wigs to lycanthropes.  (They have hair to spare.)  I knew I wanted the jaw to be in this sculpture from early on, so as soon as the first layer of base clay was laid on the head, I picked up a flat-head screwdriver and went to work.  Somewhat morbidly I chiseled off the lower jaw of the model and dug my way back to the dowel rod support.

I got pretty worried at this juncture - I didn’t use any glue to attach the jaw to the styrofoam head.  Really there isn’t much use in trying - once the styrofoam starts peeling away it comes off with little effort.  However it compacts nicely, so I was able to wedge the jaw into the mass of the styrofoam, which gripped it and holds it mostly in place.  My next worry, of course, is that the weight of the clay (as I build up the muzzle over the jaw) will tear the jaw out.  When I finished today it appeartd stable, but all the same I propped up a little piece of dowel rod under the jaw to prevent this from happening.

I’m pretty pleased so far but I want this head to say “wolf” more than “rat.”  Time to find some reference photography.

That’s all for now!  On a friend’s advice I will keep taking pictures as the sculpture progresses.  It may not look like much now, but who knows - in a couple weeks the difference will be striking!

No, not like Tony Danza

More like:

These are my newest acquisitions from a taxidermist supply store. The eyes will be 24mm, roughly the size of a human eye, or the size of a really large wolf’s. I love the idea of using taxidermy supplies; they’re relatively cheap, very realistic,  and easily accessible. I think the “wolf-witch” idea will be a creepy balance between the traditional witch you’re used to seeing and the “Holy crap WTF is that?” beast that makes you question the last time you used the restroom.

There’s also 50 lbs of clay and some sculpting tools on their way — I wish we lived nearby a decent art supply store.

Now that the art supplies are coming, I’ve got two tasks lined up:

1) Figure out how the heck to program my PLC (but I have a good text!)

2) Acquire a motor and start constructing the cauldron-stirring mechanism

I’ve been away the last few weeks working in another city, which meant all work and no play. Hopefully I can make some real progress this week while I’m back home.

Started this at 9:00 PM and got quite carried away.

I don’t think it says “I’m a witch” as much as “SATAAAN”.  Hmm…  Whether we use it or not, doing this (Wacom tablet in Photoshop) was a great exercise in conceptualizing the forms and textures of our project.  I found it very rewarding.

I really could not be more pleased with the spraybooth in its function and its results.

More description will follow soon - for now I’ll stick to pics. Here’s the completed booth and workbench, populated with my glorious junk. The bench now has built-in shelves and pegboard.

I struggled to find an effective way to pipe the booth’s “spent” air outside the shed. This effort sabotaged the booth’s basic function (to remove air from the booth itself), so in the end I just took the back off the booth and let the air cycle back into the room. It sounds dangerous, but really it isn’t; I have some big box fans cycling air into and out of the shed at all times and I always wear a respirator when I work. You can see from the air filter which colors I was just working with!

I set up this area on the right side of the bench for drying parts. The top level is a model BMW that I got from the hobby shop; the lower level is the front of my wiitar which still needs a lot of work.

The Wiring - A Mixed Success

The wiring was a big challenge and there is still a lot about it I don’t understand. I did my homework and learned the difference between DC and AC, Ohm’s Law and the power formulas, parallel vs. serial circuits, and a few other things. Arming myself with this knowledge was immensely helpful, even for lacking a whole understanding, and encourages me to picture a time when I build ingenious breadboard circuits to power other maniacal devices.

But “ingenious” is hardly the word to describe this wiring experience. The main control panel - the black box - covers a Lovecraftian tangle of octopus-like splices and wire nuts. The black box is actually a project enclosure from Radio Shack, which I purchased when I thought (correctly) that I would need something larger than a conventional junction box to hold the range hood’s control circuits. I should have looked for a unit with a pressure rating. It is crammed full. I did my due diligence with the wires themselves, using wire caps at every opportunity and wrapping them tightly with liberal sections of electrical tape, which is the main reason for the box being so packed. If I knew more about the voltage and amperage ratings of breadboards I would use one of those instead. But the wires in the project box are a thick gauge… Do they have to be in order to carry all that power? If my breadboard uses smaller, flimsier wires, would my project (and my safety) be in jeopardy?

To my immense surprise, I did not electrocute myself when I turned the unit on. I was yet more surprised, and excited, that 3 out of the 4 circuits worked right off the bat! Both fans function flawlessly when you turn the knobs, covering a range of speeds. With both fans going full tilt the booth acts like an echo chamber. You have to brag loudly to your wife if you wish to be heard gloating about your accomplishment. Also, the first light - the one on the right hand side - functions fine, but the overhead light doesn’t work at all. I have not ruled out a bum light socket, but I have every reason to believe the circuit itself is faulty. I think on that mess of knotted octopus wiring that dwells beneath the control box cover, and wonder how bad it would be to live without that overhead light…

Here is the inside of the enclosure with the functioning light turned on and the camera flash off. The white paint is doing its job, reflecting light all around the box. I may be able to do without the overhead light - but I don’t want to do without it! I want all the circuits to work, dammit. How else am I going to learn circuitry?

As I have found before, achieving success in a new skill like this follows a formula. The formula is to fight a relentless, uphill battle against failure until you can finally do things right. It’s no different with drawing or programming. You have to draw ugly pictures (or write spaghetti-string programs) for a very long time before you get anywhere close to what you want. That’s just how it works; it’s a parameter of reality. You have to earn the skill and you do that by refusing to give up. I will try to keep that in mind as I depressurize the control panel wires - oh, and also when I fix the fatal flaw in the booth’s design!

The Fans Don’t Work

Mechanically, the fans do work. But in practice I set myself up for a big failure. Look at the picture of the booth from the inside. Behind the blue air filter screen you can see the two fan blades in the top half of the booth. They feed air into a rectangular opening that is barely wide enough to cover half of each fan’s area. This is where a background in aerodynamics or fluid dynamics would really have helped me… Or at least if I had paid attention lately to a water faucet. When a fan creates a lot of suction, the force does not pull all air particles in a clean, even way - there is some “spillage” where turbulent air particles catch some of the force but then veer off course and splash against the back panel rather than go through the exit opening. How much of this air actually goes through the exit depends on how large and well-placed your exit is, as well as the initial position and velocity of the air particles. This much is clear to me now, and now you may see where I’m going with this.

This is the rectangular opening in the back of the booth. I cut it to this size to fit a piece of ductwork I found, which will mate with a vent that will exit the shed. It is hard to see from this vantage point but this hole covers a lot of the area between the fans and not behind them. The fan’s area that does not coincide with the hole is a big backsplash - air races toward it under the fan’s influence and then bounces right back out at the accelerated speed of its approach. Add on top of it the fact that the fans are so high up and my work will mostly be done very low to the floor of the booth! This means two things. First, the solvent spray at the front and bottom of the booth may be too far away to catch the fan’s force and be carried off. Second, because the fans and the opening are so high up, any spray that approaches from below and is accelerated by the fans will simply rebound off the “backsplash” and back into my face.

In essence, my entire design is sabotaged by this problem. If you ever find your project turned on its head and rendered useless by an early mistake, just remember…

Winners Never Quit and Quitters Never Win

Thank goodness it’s just plywood, paint, and screws! Everything but the electricals are easy to alter or replace. All I have to do is lower the fans, rotate the back piece 180 degrees, and cut a better opening, or perhaps cut a new back with a better opening. This does, of course, involve removing a lot of screws, ruining the paint job, cutting new wires and/or doing more splices than I intended, probably getting some new junction boxes, and building my own piece of “ductwork” to fit the new, custom opening on the back of the booth… As usual it’s more work than I estimated. And as usual, I won’t let that stop me.

As May comes to an end, it’s a priority for us to understand the witch’s appearance.  A clear, specific vision of her appearance will keep us focused.

To that end, I decided to start off with a general approach.  What sort of body type should we strive for?  A lot of her appearance and the emotions we want to convey - power, danger, threat, presence of the unknown - will stem from her body language and costume.  Her body type won’t do that work for us directly, however choosing a suitable body type will make that work much easier, in the same way that the shape of a skull influences the facial features.

I sat down this morning and drew three body types to get discussion started.

You’ll see that by “body type” I am also loosely determining the style of dress.  In figure 1, the character has an hourglass shape with broad shoulders and a tapered waist.  I think I drew this body type just to rule it out.  The broad shoulders are too masculine, in my opinion, and for me the body shape evokes images of middle-eastern wizards.

Figure 2 is a study in exaggeration - the sway-backed old hag with spindly arms, oily strands of hair, hopping from one foot to the other.  There is a mixture of benefits and drawbacks here.  The benefit is definite clarity and identity - this is the stereotypical body type of the Snow White witch, used by Disney and other cartoon makers.  People recognize it immediately, and for good reason.  This body type sets us up to realize all kinds of witch stereotypes - old, haggard, a creature from another time.  The downside is that this body-type has very little creative headroom.  I can picture very clearly the limited options this body type allows, and perhaps I’m not being creative enough, but I don’t see a way for this character shape to tell a story that’s evocative and fresh.  It’s too deep in the wheel-ruts of witches that came before.  Not exactly what we want, is it?

The last body type is also a mixed story.  It’s more like the Wicked Witch of the West - schoolmarmish, narrow shoulders and hips, utterly sexless.  In a lot of ways, I like this a lot for a witch.  By forcing the viewer to struggle a little as they identify the gender and stance of this figure, they can’t help but feel a little alienated.  Instant recognizability as in figure 2 breeds familiarity, and body type 3 is not so familiar.  If it is, the familiarity is with school mistresses, who in their day evoked fear and knowing “more and better” than those around them.  That’s another fitting emotion for the witch to instill.  Lastly, this body type is the only one of the three that (I believe) has the power to really communicate danger.  The sway-backed witch in figure 2 might put a spell on you, but her arms are spindly and weak; the witch in figure 3 has sharper nails than you realized and a very, very strong grip that surprises you.  The witch in figure 3 has secrets and concealed ways, and we could dress her in a simple, black manner that says, “RAZOR SHARP - you WILL be cut if you come close.”

All that said in praise for figure 3, but it does have a big hurdle.  It does not communicate all that imagery by itself - that was mainly my imagination opening up and wondering what can be created ON TOP OF this body type.  Figure 2 does so much of that work already, which makes it a tempting choice, but that easiness is deceptive; the body type isn’t the whole story, just like your skull isn’t your face.  If we aren’t up to a big creative challenge and want to go an easy route, we would go with figure 2.  As I’ve written this post, I’ve warmed up to the possibilities presented by figure 3 in spite of the challenges it poses.  (No pun intended.)