Sculpt a nymph
Craft a fantasy figure by hand.
From the time of my early youth I’ve been enamoured with fantasy art. In seventh grade, my middle school’s art teacher brought in Frank Frazetta to do a live painting demonstration. I was awestruck. Since then, I’ve rarely been able to complete a work of art without adding an element of the fantastic.
Along the way, I’ve discovered that if you stay true to what inspires you, others stop to admire the view, even if the subject matter is foreign to them. When working on Queen of the Seas, I began with a very classical pose from a beautiful model named Jessica. But when I started with the tentacles, many thought I was ruining it – yet when it was finished, it captured the attention of people who wouldn’t otherwise appreciate fantasy art. It was later featured in Spectrum.
For this workshop, I want to show how an aspiring sculptor goes about making a classical bust with a touch of the fantastic thrown in for good measure. Before we start with the steps, I’d like to emphasise
June 2014 how important it is for sculptors to find specific subject matter that’s exciting to them. Sculptures, depending on their complexity, can take hundreds of hours to complete. If you aren’t excited about it then you can’t expect others to be, either.
I also want to stress the importance of getting good reference material. For human anatomy, you need multiple angles of the same model and pose. The human form is too complex to do an accurate sculpt without reference. For this project, I’m collaborating with Zienna Eve, a beautiful young model from Denmark. Her natural beauty provides the initial inspiration that will sustain the vision while developing the final concept: a spirit of the forest takes hold on a tree, and causes a transformation, allowing it to commune with man.
In this workshop, I’ll show the materials, tools and techniques to kick start your sculpting project. From inspiration to final lacquer, I’ll show the processes you can use to sculpt something you can proudly put on display.