Need help with clay sculpting technique

[DalekNim]

I'm in the process of attempting my first clay sculpt for making a silicon mask for a Cooper Howard , the ghoul cosplay outfit. Build thread is on the relic a costumes sub forum. I've watched a ton of tutorials and took the Stan Winston clay sculpting on line course which wee a huge help but I'm stuck on how to replica one part of teh mask and can't find anything online so far. Basically I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the 'cottage cheese, shriveled, lumpy skin' look that you can see most vividly depicted in the attached pic and more subtly in other images. Any suggestions or links to tutorials for this technique would be greatly appreciated.

 

[13doctorwho]

I'm by no means an expert... but I would do them just like veins. Roll out a thin tube of clay (or use one of those presses). Attach it to the base sculpture. Then blend the edges of the tube to the base sculpture. The blending is the tricky bit.

It can also be done subtractive, but I've had poor luck with that on details like this. Just remove anything that doesn't look like an elephant (bad sculpture joke). You can make templates and gouge out the valleys in the face, then shape and smooth.

 

[DalekNim]

Thx, will give that a try

 

[JPH]

I'm in the process of attempting my first clay sculpt for making a silicon mask for a Cooper Howard , the ghoul cosplay outfit. Build thread is on the relic a costumes sub forum. I've watched a ton of tutorials and took the Stan Winston clay sculpting on line course which wee a huge help but I'm stuck on how to replica one part of teh mask and can't find anything online so far. Basically I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the 'cottage cheese, shriveled, lumpy skin' look that you can see most vividly depicted in the attached pic and more subtly in other images. Any suggestions or links to tutorials for this technique would be greatly appreciated.

I would recommend looking up "lines of tension" or resting lines of tension or how to perform facial surgery with minimal scaring.

Follow the contours of how the face normally would wrinkle. Add clay then sculpt in defects that show years of age, wear-and-tear wrinkling. Where is the bone close to the skin (hills) vs aged wrinkles and creases

Look at the anatomy: cheekbones (zygomas), masseter muscle, frontal bone, temporalis muscle, nasolabial folds, etc..

Otherwise, when you put on the mask, when your face moves, the wrinkles will bulge and buckle rather than appear natural.

 

[udog]

There are many ways of creating textures. Think of using plastic film wrap over the sculpt when "drawing" your lines, working on noodles etc., IPA to smooth down, sometimes using a brush and talc or even a small torch to melt the surface to create gooey textures with a tool. You can also melt some clay and apply it in the sculpt creating a texture. Ideas to play with.
I'm sure there are videos out there using these techniques.