1:4 scale Peter Cushing as Van Helsing sculpt - a WIP

Looks pretty good Al; the only critique I'd make is that the lower half of his face seems a bit narrow (looking at your screencap especially). Seems a bit more 1970's.

Love the idea though

Agreed with Mr. creepy - but wow, nice work!


-Grimm
(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD)

Oh yeah, that's it; the brow ridge might be a bit pronounced, but I can d[FONT=Verdana]efinitely see the "chubbier" Cushing there! [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]BTW, I meant to ask earlier, but what are you using for the sculpt and eyes?[/FONT]

I'm using super sculpey for the sculpt.

For the base figure, I'm using a quarter scale figure body which I've modified to be better proportionally. I've dremmelled the original head features away and I'm sculpting around the remains.

Glad to hear it's headed in the right direction, thanks for that. I've continued to tweak away at the sculpt since the last batch of pics were taken - I'll try to get some more up soon. Yeah, the brow ridge is a little too pronounced, thanks for that - I'll fix it.

Gotta sleep now though or I'LL be like a vampire in the morning!

Al

A fantastic likeness already!
No mean feat at that scale.
I was privileged to attend a BFI Q&A with him in his later years. Unforgettable.
Good to see Hammer represented.

So cool that you met him in person, I would've loved that!

A bit more progress last night:

Extremely nice work. 1/4 scale is very challenging.

WOW

The nose really sells it

Thanks guys. I've made some good progress over the last day or so, should have more pics to share shortly.

Yet more progress pics. Lot's of hours going into this, but I think I'm in danger of overthinking it. I might have a day or two away from it and come back with fresh eyes. Here's where I am at right now:

Cool subject, Cushing is a legend. Looking at where the sculpt is now could I suggest something? I get the feeling that what may be knocking the likeness off line right now more than anything else is the eyes. Roughly I'd say in reality the vertical distance on the visible part of his iris is about half the vertical distance from his nose to mouth. On the sculpt it is only about a third, so they are way too small.



Also the ears look like they could do with being bigger and higher.



Maybe with the eyes and ears enlarged the rest of the head proportions might be easier to wrangle into shape?

Thanks Columbo for your critique, I completely agree! I am working on those areas right now.

Nice reference pics too.

Resculpted the eyes and moved the ears higher up. Looking at the most recent photos, I still think the ears need to go up a fraction further.

Overall, I think it's looking better. I still see several areas which need improvement, as demonstrated here:





Thoughts? Are there any other aspects (not noted in the diagram) which I should work on? Aside from the crappy sculpey crucifix that is. Will be using a metal crucifix for the final statue.

ob1al said:

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Thanks Columbo for your critique, I completely agree! I am working on those areas right now.

Nice reference pics too.

Looks to be going well in latest photos. Reviewing those I picked up on a few points.

1. The hairline is too high. It also looks off centre. The front lowest part should be directly above the nose and sweep up in a broad V from there.

2. The brow bones are too far off horizontal. The slope from inner end to outer should be very slight.

3. The nose is too short. Distance from corner of eye down to where side loop of nostril starts needs to be further.


Its tricky to judge from photos that are 3/4 view but to my eye these areas would benefit from a little adjustment.

Cool sculpt. I think I would also broaden the chin and bottom of the jaw a little, as it is looking rather pointy right now. He's bony, but definitely not a narrow skull.

Making the eyebrow ridges above the eyes more straight rather than angling downwards out towards the ears, will also bring the likeness closer, as currently, he just looks somewhat sad.

Thanks for the input gentlemen, much appreciated.

I've had a eureka moment on this one. Actually started the entire head again from scratch, I know what I'm doing now after struggling with Cushing's likeness for so long. Really want to thank you guys for the input, it has been most helpful!

Give me a couple of days to work on him and I'll share the new (V2) pics.

Oh... okay. I admire someone who has the guts to start over when a sculpt in progress goes somewhat sour, instead of treading on with the old sculpt that may be beyond improving. Though... the latter, the guy plowing on and getting the likeness in the end is also admirable.

Looking forward to the new iteration. Honestly, an idea I had was to basically sculpt the skull shape first and then bake that and then build on top of that. It's a pretty silly approach, perhaps, but I've been getting pretty good results with it in terms of overall head shape and features before going into the detailing. The fact that I then ultimately such at getting the detailing right is another matter entirely.

That's pretty much what I'm doing Carsten - I'm using super sculpey and my technique is to make a layer, bake a layer then build on that. The V1 sculpt would be salvageable if I hadn't cooked most of it, but the details I need to change are pretty fundamental so carving stuff away and rebuilding would be a pain in the arse. Easier to start anew with lots of lessons learned from the intial sculpt, the process should be a lot quicker now.

Oh... that may be a bad idea. I've definitely not had much success with continually baking super sculpey after having added new layers to already baked Sculpey. It tends to crack, as the new layer stretches and shrinks differently than the already baked piece.

Was advised to put the sculpt in the freezer overnight and then bake it once it's gotten back to room temperature - something about the material bonding better in the cold and staying in shape when ultimately baked. However, I have NOT had the chance to test that out, so I really can't say if it works.

I've kind of got the technique figured out though. I only bake the INNER (ie skull) layer then bake when I think I'm nigh on finished again, perhaps with only a few details to add. Second time around I use a heat gun or hair dryer to bake the piece. It works.

Ah... cool. I'm going to try that next time. Thanks man.