NAWfx Studio's 2015 Jun-Jul Sculpture Contest Entry

[NAWfx Studio]

Why hello there, makers of all kinds!

I'm Nick Winstead, the 16 year old creative director of NAWfx Studios, and this is my entry thread for the 2015 June-July Sculpture Contest! For this one I'll be creating the sculpture for a mask I've wanted to make for a while so it's pretty awesome that this contest will let me bring it to fruition! The mask is gonna be this creepy clown that tears it's face off, hopefully pretty nightmare-enducing! It's a little complicated for a teenager who makes monsters in his garage but it should be a fun time either way!

P.S. I'm working in monster clay as I usually do

 

[Nygiant]

Awesome, looking forwards to your work. Sneaked a bit on your Facebook page. Nice work!

PS.: you have to register on the thread for the Jun-July Contest

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Yep! Don't forget to post a link to this thread in the contest thread! http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=240262&p=3660872&viewfull=1#post3660872

Good luck!

 

[NAWfx Studio]

Hey again everyone! Long time no see! After a trip to New York, film camp, and other life craziness, I’m back more ready than ever to crack out a gnarly sculpt!

As always I started out with some preliminary drawings and sketches just so I can get a feel for the creature. So for this one I was working out some forms and playing around with some ideas (clay spatters optional).



The clay has officially hit the bust! Here I was just sculpting super basic forms as fast as possible so A: I wouldn’t doubt myself and B: so I could just go with the organic shapes the clay made by itself.



Now I was beginning to refine and add on some more the ‘clay lumps’ (official terminology) to fit my vision of what I wanted his vibe to be like: intimidating, sinister, and overall a pretty creepy dude.



My lamp may have won the battle by melting my sculpt, but the war of finishing my mask was far from over!



When I was happy with how the character looked, since I knew he was going to be ripping his face off and needed to have his face as a separate piece, I chiseled the sculpts face off and put it in a container so it wouldn’t get damaged.



(I was a silly goose and didn't take a picture of this, muhbad)



With the sculpt having a hole in his head, I began to sculpt a skull where his face once was (I know it’s a little weird and confusing right now just hang with me).



So with the skull sculpt done I could now start to make the form where the original face piece could sit/ the core for the face mold. With the sculpt sitting back, all I did was make an alginate mold of the skull sculpt and then make a plaster replica of the skull from that mold.



Since I wanted a lip with mold keys to make molding easier for myself down the line, I sculpted what I wanted the lip to look like in clay around the plaster positive of the skull a made earlier.



With that plaster and clay positive, I made another alginate mold that I backed up with plaster bandage and filled it with plaster to make a big ol’ awesome plaster positive that I could lay the clay face on (and it just keeps getting weirder…).



P.S. I didn't mix up enough alginate to cover the whole piece and since alginate doesn't stick to itself, I covered the first coat in a mix of corn starch and water, let it dry, and poured on my next layer so the two layers could clasp onto each other.


Now I began to add some textures on the clay forms, getting some real life out of them.



I eventually realized that the back, even though it looked pretty cool, was completely ridiculous so I decided to totally scrap it and re-sculpt a more human-like back.



The day has come! The finished pieces!



P.P.S. I used Bondo car filler to cover up all the teeth on the face sculpt just to make it better for molding.


I know this is just a sculpting competition, but I thought it would be neat to write a bit about my adventures through molding, casting, and painting; so you’ll probably be hear from me in a little while. Well anywho, thank you so much to everyone that made this contest possible and good luck to all my fellow competitors, I had a blast knocking this piece out! Later, dudes!

-NAWfx Studio