Introduction: Hellbeast Build (part 1)
I want to someday be a concept artist for movies/vid games ect. I made this beast to put on my website to demonstrate some 3D skills. This first part is the clay side of the build, I will be posting the resin molding and painting later on. In this edition I will show you the steps of taking a sketch and rendering it in clay. So lets start.
Step 1: Materials
Clay (duh)- I used gray water based clay for this one . I will probably never use it again because of the drying out factor. I will say that it retained great detail on a small scale that i couldn't get with super sculpey.
Clay tools-nothing crazy outside the standard set at a craft store.
Small paint brushes-also nothing special
A sketch- the more angles you can do here the better off you will be. Draw your creature from straight on, up,down,back,front..ect. I kinda skipped this part and paid for it later. The less you draw out now, the more you will go of back and forth with clay (which takes much more time). So take your time and plan it out. Now to get dirty.
Also check out my artist warmup to help you get started.
Clay tools-nothing crazy outside the standard set at a craft store.
Small paint brushes-also nothing special
A sketch- the more angles you can do here the better off you will be. Draw your creature from straight on, up,down,back,front..ect. I kinda skipped this part and paid for it later. The less you draw out now, the more you will go of back and forth with clay (which takes much more time). So take your time and plan it out. Now to get dirty.
Also check out my artist warmup to help you get started.
Step 2: Start to Mold
So you have your sketch and clay, add a little water to the clay and rough out the form. Start by looking at one of your sketches and make that outline in clay. Turn and refer again and so on. The whole first day (about 3 hours) was spent roughing out and getting everything right. These things take time so don't get frustrated here.
Step 3: Step Up Deatails
So we have our underlying structure locked in and we are ready to add some details. It is very normal to absolutely hate your model at this point. Much like painting and drawing, larger projects go through a ugly stage. Just muscle though and add some details. Make use of drawing lines around your model for reference. For example I used guide lines to place the eyes. I started with one in a place I liked, then drew a line over the top of head then one around front. Small thing that can save you a lot-o-time.
Step 4: Reifining Shape
This step can take days or weeks, this is up to you as an artist. It took me like a week to really be comfortable with the look of it. A lot of work was done with water and a small brush to smooth. Note: if using other than water clay you need the proper substance to smooth it i.e acetone for sculpy and oil for oil based clays.
Step 5:
I added the neck last because I knew there would be lots of delicate little tendons coming off. A little planning saves a lot of time and heartache. An example of me not planning ahead, you will notice the tusks of the creature disappear and then reappear. This is because I kept breaking them off like a big dummy. So I learned to save all sticky outy things till the end.
Step 6: Smooth and Photo
So take a little water and do a final smooth on her. Take some pictures with some black paper behind. Have a beer you've done well. Stay tuned for part 2, I will be casting with smooth on products and showing you a couple more tricks to get really sweet detail on your models. Thanks for looking and check out the final gallery at my site andyjonescreative.com.