Project Granado Espada: Rifle!

This is by far the most strength consuming part of the project ever! Since I was lack of many tools to do this job smoothly, I gotta use what I have on hands.. Exacto Knife, Pen Knife, Needle Files and Sandpaper.

This will be a pretty image intensive post so I shall type lesser and give my fingers and hands more rest, although the posting is almost 18 hours after the curving, filing and sanding.

Caught in the actMy girl was at my place when I was doing this piece..
And she goes shutter-crazy with my mobile phone..
I was actually working on the second piece because the first piece was too small to fit the "barrels"


Basic shape is finally carved outTaken when I was having a break from all the carving..

Sanding the basic shape into details

Sanding the rough areas to see if the shape is OK to continue..

Finer shape of what I wanted

The raw shape of the "rifle"..


Closer lookShortly after this picture was taken, she couldn't stand it anymore..
And head straight to sleep..
So, no pictures of the filing process..


Final fittingThe final assembly of the "rifle" after filing the shape and sanding the edges round.
The "barrels" were super-glued to each other first, then to the wood.


Close-upAfter sanding off the excessive super-glue and cleaning everything with alcohol..


Close-upThe back-end of the "rifle"

This part of the project took an extremely long continuous 5 hours and 15 minutes..
My fingers were shaky and my eyes were tired. My neck was almost broken and my back became jello..
I'll do the wood staining and vanish when I'm feeling better and not that lazy.. probably after my birthday trip.. =D

Total physical Project hours till current progress: Approx. 18 Hours.
Total Project hours: Approx. 51 Hours.

Project Granado Espada: Body shape

Like I mentioned the last posting, I was lazy (I mean really lazy).. So I consolidate and post the 2 progress together since they were done on the same day straight after the other.. I've worked on her for 5+ hours straight so I'll give my fingers some extra rest by typing lesser..

Front Stance

Covered her up with blue clay.. Since the blue clay was slightly softer, I decided to take a rest and let the clay harden a little before working on the shaping and details.

Profile Stance

Profile view. Sorry dudes.. no nude photos.. hope nobody is disappointed (only I had the sole privilege!)

Close-up with "clothes"

Somehow, I feel that she looks like some Chinese dancer.. -_-;

Total physical Project hours till current progress: Approx. 13 Hours.
Total Project hours: Approx. 46 Hours.

Project Granado Espada: Head/Facial

After a few days of lazying around, not even touching the clays, I finally gathered enough mood to redo the head and facial details. I'm uberly tired so I won't blog much..

Now for the headshots..

Better Profile than the last time..

This time she's looking better in proportion..

Comparing with thumb

A comparison with my thumb to give an idea of the exact measurement..

Front view - Mugshot

Mugshot of her new plastic surgery..

Total physical Project hours till current progress: Approx. 11 Hours.
Total Project hours: Approx. 44 Hours.

Project Granado Espada: Head/Facial - Failure 1

Tried to create the head and facial items like the eyes, nose and mouth. Everything was "done" in slightly over 3 hours and I happily went for a good coffee break with my girl. Hours later when I came back, I didn't bother about it and continue studying the tutorials and such in sculpting the lips. A couple of tutorials later...

To my horror when I compared the tutorials' pictures of the profile (side-view) to my clay, I was clearly, ultimately, uberly, extremely out of proportion. Now, I need to redo the entire head structure (into proportion), armed with the new experience I have learn.

Just some of the progress pictures of the failure piece to share below..

Presenting... The Alien Head!

The raw clay alien head! Definitely not from Mars but somewhere uglier!

The better looking Alien Head

After Cleaning up the raw area, the head starts to look better..

The supposed neater looking face - Now known as Flat faceAt the end of the third hour, when I was exhausted. Most of the details are smoothen out. The bump behind the head didn't look funny when I was sculpting but it does looks huge now..

Total physical Project hours till date: Approx. 7 Hours.

Total Project hours: Approx. 40 Hours.

Project Granado Espada: Armature Making

Finally, I'm ready to start making the "Armature" aka skeleton of the figurine. Since none of the progress are intended to be made into any tutorial (I'm a newbie too), I'll be only adding progress photos during the end of a stage/day.

The armature is made up of 2 different thickness of wires where you can see only the thicker ones being shown in the pictures. The thinner ones were used to anchor the junctions of the "pelvis" and "shoulder" wires to the "spine". It was then bulk up by wrapping layers and layers of aluminum foil to minimize clay usage and at the same time, give the basic shape of the figure.

I've made a cheapskate mistake here to purchase the cheaper (S$0.80 per box, and I bought 4 -_-;), thinner, regular aluminum foil vs. the better quality thicker heavy duty foil. The foil was pretty hard to handle especially when I exert more force to tighten the foil to create a stronger bonding between the layers. Trust me, the foil came off into crumbs here and there and in fact, it is thinner than the foil they used to wrap Ferraro Rocher. It is the kind of foil they use for wrapping KitKat. Bad mistake with lotsa foils waiting to be used up. I ended up folding it into 3-4 layers before wrapping around the armature.

Now for the pictures..

Front View

Notice the extra wires at the end of where the palm is supposed to be?
It was said that it's better to have extra length because you won't know what you might need it for.

Side View

The figurine is supposed to be in a kneeling stance.
I've left extra wire length in case I need to anchor the figurine onto the platform.

Top View
No, I don't know why I need to take the top view picture.
But since it's taken, might as well put it online.

The entire armature took close to 3 hours (with some smoke breaks) to complete. Looks like a good start to me..

Project Sculpey: DIY Tools Making

I've done a few years of sculpting wax (carving candles to be exact), with a few completed wax projects done, I've decided to move on to clay sculpting (although I've failed a couple of times with the air-dry paper clays) which could provide longer lifetime, strength and sharper details. I've wanted to sculpt game characters figurines for a very long time since I was playing KALOnline in 2004.

After much intensive research (thanks to the initial research by my girl), I'm pretty ready to this new category of clay - Polymer Clay. Polymer clay has been in existence for quite some time and is one of the favorite clay to be used for doll making.

Since the knives and such for wax "carving" will not be used for clay sculpting, I've decided to make a few detailing tools myself instead of purchasing every tools off the shelf.

I've done the tools last night after purchasing the clay from Vive Creations @ Chinatown Point and some ball stylus and tools/materials from Art Friends @ Ngee Ann City. I also bought a packet of bamboo chopsticks (Only S$1.50 for 20 sticks), some sewing needles and hair-pins to be used for the tools' handle. I would like to express my gratitude to the lady @ Garie International for her patience and clear explanation of different kind of polymer clay and Vivian from Vive Creations for sharing many tips and ideas to get us started - as n00bs.

Things used to create the tools

By cutting the bamboo chopsticks into halves and sanding them, I get some pretty good handles for the tools. Using the crafting "needle tool" I've purchase years back, I managed to squeeze out a 1-1.5cm hole to hold the sewing needles/hair-pins. Super glue was applied to seal the excess area after using the Almighty IKEA pliers to force the needles/pins into the hole.

Close-up look at the needles/pins

Close-up look at the completed tools
(and a half-done bamboo chopstick)
I've created 2 sets of 3 tools (one set for my girl as she'll be sculpting clay too) consisting of a fine "needle tool", a small and a larger "scraping tools".

Later I'll be moving on to creating the skeleton (made from wires) for the figurine. The character I've decided on sculpting is the female Musketeer from Granado Espada. Upon completion, she will be standing 10-11 inches tall, but I will be positioning her to a kneeling stance (my oven is too short for her o.O).

Female Musketeer - Granado Espada

First Post

This is just a test posting for nothing.