Sculpting The Character - Developmental Process: Clay Final Layer

Final clay model of Edrik

With the armature done previously, it's time to mask Edrik in his flesh, made from clay, of course. Personally, I expected the last step to be rather tedious by using methods of covering him with silicone or hardening clay, but it was just good old colored plasticine - easily shaped and diverse in terms of combining colors. It was a good thing that I had already designed the color scheme of my character, so without any thought I knew which colors I was to use. Firstly, I covered Edrik in the cloth layers, which are his legs and shoulders, since those layers are in the background, preceding the spiky and exaggerated armor. However, the head armature was too big to execute the precise proportions of my character, hence his head is really small to contemplate his physique. Still, it resembled the facial features of my character, as I used a marker to point out his contours (eyebrows and lines above lips). I tried to maintain the key features, such as the emphasized cheek bones and long slender lips, something I believe to have "nailed", to be quite honest. As for the rest of the details, I did by scraping the top layer of the plasticine with a thin aluminium wire (such as his abs, or under-eye lines). This character really put my character into perspective, as I can see him in 3D and use him now as a better reference for dynamic shape. Aside from this, during our session we also learned how silicone molds are made - something that intrigued me ever since I saw the process of the molded characters being made for "Shaun the Sheep" at the Manchester Animation Festival. A real versatile material, all I now need to do is be a bit more curious so that I can do it on my own for my future stop-motion films to come!