The whole point of this blog is to experiment and learn lessons and improve so in the spirit of experimentation, here I present a project that I consider to have been a failure.

Inspired by my modelmaking course I got hold of some super sculpey and tried out sculpting another little character. I kept the same basic weeble shape as my previous little old lady, but went for a bearded wood spirit this time, as I thought that getting bark-like texture for the skin would be interesting.

He was considerably more difficult than the old lady because every inch of him had detail on, and wherever I held him the detail would rub off. In hindsight I should have stuck a stick up him and used that to hold him in place.

He seems like he might be a distant relation of the Lewis Chessmen, who perhaps I could look at as inspiration for developing these sculpting skills. At the moment I have a total lack of subtlety but I hope that will come with experience.

Anyway, lop-sided and looking slightly the worse for wear, here is the final baked version. I am not very happy with him at all, and fear that he is destined to languish in the back of a drawer in the cabinet of monsters with the hair-spiders and dust-moths.

But this failure has helped me realise that the level of detail I need to exercise has to be a lot better, and that the cartoonishness of the character is very unsatisfying. If I were to approach the same subject again, I would either reference the Lewis Chessmen more explicitly, or go for a tone that is much darker and more gnarly.