New Website, More Yokaiden Progress

EmilySculpts.com is now officially up and running! Take a look and let me know if you have any technical difficulties. The main design has remained the same. However, I have a new layout for my gallery. I also added an archive that includes the best of my older works for those of you that are curious. Many many thanks to my wonderful and patient husband for setting the whole thing up for me.

I’ve been working a lot on this Yokaiden sculpture. It’s very tricky to work in someone else’s style, especially one so different from my own. I am slowly making it more angular and true to the original design. It’s slow going, but getting there! The hands still need work especially, feet too. It’s been VERY hot in Florida here the past few days so it’s been hard for me to get good work done on this at home. I am mostly working on it in the studio at work where it is an icebox.

Yokaiden!

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately. Most of what I have been doing isn’t all that exciting…getting portfolios printed up for comic-con, researching and contacting companies I am interested in talking to, messing around in Maya trying to get the hang of things, and my day job too of course!

I became impatient and decided to start another sculpture, even though I told myself I would only work on 3D from now until comic-con. I’ve been wanting to do a piece for a friend of mine for a while. Nina Matsumoto/Space Coyote is an awesome artist who is the author of the Yokaiden manga. I am currently sculpting this piece from her book. I love all the little details, colors, and character! I love trying to match someone else’s style with my sculpture so this has been fun thus far.

As usual, sorry for the crappy photos. Even more so this time because the angle is SO off that the skull looks much smaller than it is in real life. I have the scale a lot closer to the drawing than it looks in these photos. Hamachi looks like a frog boy right now, that entertains me But so far, I am just getting the positioning and most basic forms in. Next, I will start layering on the clothing and details.

Book Review : I’d Rather Be in the Studio

I’d Rather Be in the Studio! Buy it on Amazon.com

I recently picked up this book as it had great reviews on Amazon.com. It covers every aspect of marketing yourself as an artist. Though I already do a lot of what is covered in the book (much of it more recently), I picked up some better ways to go about the things I do. There were also some subjects I had never taken into consideration. I’ve always had problems with selling myself and properly expressing to others what I do. This book has given me more self confidence in self promotion. With Comic-Con coming up, that is definitely a good thing!

This book goes over goal setting and organization, writing effective artist statements/bios, public speaking, portfolio creation, online promotion (very up to date!), newsletters, communication, the media, community involvement, and money saving tips. It is a great book for any one starting out as a freelance artist, or for one that has been doing it for a while. Even if you think you know it all, it’s a worthwhile read for sure! It dispels all the excuses artists gives for not putting their name out there in every way available.

I Love Molds. But Not Really….

I got to work on my Wolverine mold last night. I used Smooth-On Oomoo30, and ended up using the whole container! Here are some progress photos of how I made the mold.

I make my mold boxes using 1/4″ foam core. I start by measuring out each side of the box, leaving a little space on each side of the sculpture. You don’t want the edges of the box to be too close to the edges of the sculpture or else you will get weak spots in your mold from where the rubber is too thin. I cut the pieces out using a metal straight edge and a box cutter, and tape them together with masking tape. You have to make sure you seal the inside and outside edges with tape so that the rubber doesn’t leak. I actually ran out of masking tape when I was making this so I used a little scotch tape too which ended up working just fine! I then used Super Glue to fix Wolverine in place at the bottom of the mold box. I spray the inside of the mold with Universal Mold Release so it the rubber won’t stick to the figure.

Then the fun starts! The rubber gets mixed 50/50. I use the small cups to measure out each part and then mix them together in a larger cup. Once they are blended, I pour them into another cup to do the final mixing. Then, I pour the rubber into the box. MAGIC! It’s a tiring process. You have to make sure the rubber is mixed very well, and you don’t want to mix too much at one time. So I mixed three batches of rubber for this particular mold….and my neck was screaming at me after wards. FUN!

This morning, the rubber seemed to have cured well. I won’t know for sure until I fully demold, but I am confident that it turned out ok. Here’s hoping the casting goes smoothly!

I also have a photo of all the pages of my 8×10 portfolio. The paper instructions said to let it dry for a week (!!) after printing before putting it in an album. That paper is expensive so I am not taking any chances! I should be able to put them away this weekend!

My kitchen looked like easter after all that colorful rubber going everywhere!!!

3D Learnins!

I’ve been working in Maya today. My coworker, Jessica, has been helping me out a lot and showing me how to use all the tools. I am starting to get into the swing of it, it’s pretty fun! Here is my progress so far. I am modeling Dezzi! I am only going to do his base mesh in Maya and then bring him into zBrush for detailing. I haven’t messed with the face yet yet, mostly the arms and legs. I am glad I learned zBrush before this because it’s helping me to understand the principles behind everything.

Making a mold for Wolverine tonight, photos to come!

Wolverine’s House!

I’ve been trying to come up with a good design for the box that will house my Wolverine mini-busts which I will be giving out at comic con. I am trying to keep with the same theme (colors/fonts/etc.) as the rest of my promo material. I will be using these boxes and will be printing out the labels on 17″ long paper to wrap around the box. Probably will use spray adhesive to get them to stick, I love that stuff.

This is just a mock up as I don’t have the figure cast yet, so I am working with my progress photos. I am still tweaking it, and any suggestions would be much appreciated! Any type of package design is always a struggle for me.

Punk Raptor…Again!

Well, after texturing my raptor zBrush model over several months, I couldn’t come up with something I was happy with. I may revisit him later when I am more comfortable texturing, but for now I put a nice material on him and took some shots for my portfolio/website. I also had a lot of trouble with stretching when I was posing him. But this was my first model, and I learned a lot. It should make my next one that much better.

This Has Been a Productive Week!

I finished up Wolverine tonight. He is about 4 inches tall and done in Sculpey Firm. I will be giving out casts at Comic*Con next month. I am going to design boxes for them this month.

I am casting him in resin with nickel powder for a pewter look. I will be using Smooth-On products to cast, used them for years. Here is what the process looks like. And don’t worry, I will do my own step by step photos for this project! My husband will be taking on a lot of the work because I am horribly allergic to casting resins when they are in liquid form. I break out in hives for a month with the tiniest exposure, even fully covered. EW!

I have been working on portfolio stuff the last couple of days. I am printing out a few pages for my large portfolio tonight. I have a good prototype done for my small hand-out portfolios, now I am just waiting on paper samples. I went through 2 types of paper all ready with no luck. I am ordering some top quality stuff from Inkpress.com so hopefully one of those will work out for me.

I worked a little on my website design tonight too. My husband is nearly done coding my new site, yay! Nothing TOO big changing…a few small design elements and a more organized/simplified gallery. I am linking my news updates to my Twitter as well. I feel so modern!

Dexter’s Done!!

My husband retook these photos 1000 times last night (at my request because I am annoying like that!) Getting skin tone to look “correct” in photos is very difficult. It’s hard enough to paint to begin with, but then the lighting adds a whole other pain.

The blood splatter turned out different than I had originally envisioned, but I like it alright! There are so many layers of paint that make up the skin tone I can’t even tell you. I would guess at least a few dozen thin layers. I learned a lot about painting true color rather than shadows/highlights. This is a must with skin tone.

I learned so much in this piece. It makes me want to do more busts so I can work more on likenesses. I think I will try to do one every few months, even if it isn’t quite this big. I’ve learned I really enjoy working on a larger scale because of all the detail I can fit into a piece….and I love how it forces me to pay attention to small details that I might have overlooked when doing a larger sculpture.

Wolverine is close to being finished too, just a few more adjustments.

More Progress

Getting close on my Wolverine sculpt. I gotta get him cleaned up and put the fine details in. I will be casting him in resin that will have a faux pewter finish (or adamantium!)

I am going to try to get more painting done on Dexter tomorrow. I love productive weekends.