Hi Mr. SovereignStudio, what do you use for the skin texture like pores, etc? How do you sculp the hair? Do you have online tutorials too? Thanx! Amazing work here.
Sorry, I currently don't have online tutorials. And if some of the comments made about my sculpts are true, maybe I shouldn't bother with any!
I don't do skin texture. I know it's the current trend, but I think it's silly. A person's skin texture is barely noticible in real life, unless you're right up in their face, and people want all that crammed into a 2-inch portrait?? It's overkill. There's a point with 1:6 sculpting where too much detail does nothing but clutter the piece and age the portrait beyond where it should be.
I can take direction. I don't like to call useful advice "criticism". to me that term in and of itself is derogotory. CelticP is right; random comments that lend nothing useful are pointless and aren't worth the time they took to type. If you don't like something an artist has done and you
know why , great, let me hear it! An artist who turns a deaf ear to anything that makes them better is not an artist.
This seems like a good time to do something I've wanted to do for a long time. I want to gain more understanding about how people view sculpts, what they look for, what turns them off/on, etc. Some of what I'm going to say will sound like I'm ^^^^^ing,
I'm not! But after years of hearing comments about not only my own sculpting but that of others as well, I'm at a point where I've really started to anylize all of this and want to know where people are coming from. Now, this is where I REALLY want insight!
First,
NO head sculpt is or ever will be 100%. Sculptors are taking a full-size, living human face and shrinking it down to an interpretive, 2-inch lump of lifeless, painted plastic. And at the end of the day you're trying to get everyone (or at least a good majority) to agree that what you've done is a solid representation of your subject. It's tougher than you think. I've seen work I really liked flamed to a crisp, and I've seen work I didn't like that much put on a pedestal like the Holy Grail. It's confusing. And it seems lately the artist needs to factor in how people "feel" about the piece, or how they "remember" it looking. That last one, of course, is impossible to deal with when you're sculpting. I put together a photo collection of some other Joker portraits along with mine I want you guys to look at. Now, I'm just giving my personal opinions on each. I'm not bashing, but I do look at other peoples' work when doing my own and I let my opinions guide what I'm creating. I want your take on it.
The first is Hot Toys version 2 sculpt. Very nice, but wrong. The detail is too heavy and over stated. The paint is highly stylized compared to his look in most of the film, and the eye make-up is completely wrong for any scene in the movie. He also did not look that angry most of the time. The mistakes are few, but obvious. And people really love this sculpt, particularly the paint work of JC Hong. But when compared to the actual photo, the likeness and paint are not that close at all. Still, people love it, so it must be good.
The second is Chris Howes's sculpt. It must be good; a ton of people loved it and bought it and now want Chris to sculpt everything short of his own butt. But if I saw this presented on this board for the first time, I would think, "Yeah, that's never goona fly with this crowd" but it did. And I honestly don't know why. My honest opinion is that most of his sculpts look like modified Ken dolls. Again, when compared to the real thing, not very good to my eye.
Third, there's mine. Perfect? HELL NO! But I think I got just slightly closer than the other two;
slightly. The first two are huge favorites, and so far the reaction to mine is very discouraging. It's one of those things that leaves me scrating my head and wondering what I did wrong. I'm sure you guys see the problems with all three. But when I compare all three I really don't see anymore or any less flaws in mine than I see in the others. It seems people are willing to accept or overlook inaccuracy to a point and in certain areas, but where is that point and what are those areas??
I work from a lot of reference photos, but I also look at other sculpts and identify elements I do and don't like and factor that stuff in as I work. Someone said my sculpt looked "blocky". That's something I saw in the HT sculpt. His jaw there is very broad and heavy, people love that sculpt, so I did it as well. I have a really clinical or surgical way of sculpting that I think might be working aganist me. I tend to slice peoples' faces up in my head and sculpt one feature at a time. To be honest, I never really stand back and study my work to see how it's working as a whole; how all those features flow together. I've had had many fans and professional sculptors tell me you have to sometimes exagerate certain key facial features, that if you can get people to instantly recognize a nose or pair of eyes then they instantly recognize the sculpt and regard it as good. I've always rebeled against that notion, which may be wrong to do. I feel that, as with a photograph, when you shrink something down you lose resolution and detail so, if you start exagerating things, you'll inevitably create a caricture. If I don't see something in a photo I'm not adding it, even if I think it will make the piece more dynamic. I also tend to soften and sometimes eliminate certain details based on my shrinkage/resolution theory. Maybe that's the wrong approach in a 3-D piece??
A lot of people call my work "interpretational". ALL sculpts are. Every sculptor has his own distinct style, but yet there is only one real-life example of any actor/subject. We're all rendering the same people, through our individual style. By definition alone, it's interpretation.
I think maybe people have it a bit backwards. I think maybe most of my work is not interpretational
enough. By my clinical, often lifeless approach and leaning toward fully static and neutral expressions I think I create alot of sculpts that aren't necessarily bad, but really bland. What does it matter if I got a nose shaped right or eyes positioned and shaped right if the whole thing is dull and boring to look at?
I love sculpting, and I know I'm good. But not as good as I want to be or need to be. And I'm having trouble identifying the fundamental areas I need work. Hopefully I can get some solid advice. So, if have constructive advice, great! If you're just dropping in to be an A-hole, don't waste my time or yours. Sorry, but that's how I feel about that.