Sculpting Anise

Several months ago, Jennifer Scott, Fabian Rodriguez and I attended the American Eventing Championships at the Colorado Horse Park in Parker, Colorado. It was a fun day walking, talking, watching horse and taking photos. Between us, Jenn and I took several thousand photos.

I posted some of mine here and on Facebook, and that was pretty much the end of them. Jenn took one of hers and used it to create the most exquisite sculpture of a Thoroughbred event horse. She's been documenting the sculpting process on her studio Facebook page, and because she is as generous as she is talented, she letting me share it here as well. 

Thank you, Jenn. I absolutely love Anise!

Sculpting Anise

by Jennifer Scott

I've found watching Sarah Minkiewicz-Bruenig's sculpting process so fascinating and informative, that I'd share a little of my own process and tips. 

This first tip is actually one of the most important ones. It has to do with fear of starting or of just not having a clue as to where to start. My tip - STOP THINKING and start smacking clay on your armature. Literally. Take a blob, squish it on. Take another blob, squish it on. Don't worry about details like making sure the outline is exactly right or thinking about what muscle will go where. Those kind of thoughts will bog things down. Just start smooshing clay into a quasi horse-shaped object. Have some wine and have fun with it.

Once the clay is in place, I start to refining my horse-shaped object. I like to get the basic outlines blocked in first - so around the top and bottom of the neck, the back, around the tail and buttock, the tummy, the shoulder/chest and the outline of the head. From there, I add and subtract clay until it's perfect. Only then do I really start worrying about beginning to fill in details. 

On the left side of this horse, you can see it's pretty blobby and rough. Proportions aren't there yet, and it's just a hint of the horse to come. The neck and head are still just squished in masses of clay. The right side shows the next stage. There still a lot of work to do, but the picture is already getting a little clearer.

The next step is to refine the outline. The thing that helped me most with my this was superimposing my reference shot (a photo I took at the American Eventing Championships this year at the CO Horse Park) and a good shot of the clay (like this picture below) in Photoshop. Each photo is a layer and I'll set the top one to an opacity that allows me to see both the sculpture and the reference horse relatively clearly. I'll then whittle or add clay as necessary to the piece while that guide is on my monitor in front of me. Typically this is a two or three shoot a photo and superimpose reference process. 

Now she's ready for the next step - depth! With the 2D outline more or less settled, I can start work on the 3D stuff. Some areas will get narrower and some will get wider. It's very easy to get stuck just looking at your piece straight on from the side, but it's uber important that you change your view constantly to make sure that all the bump outs and carve ins work from every angle. As I build up or dig down these areas, I'll block in muscles very roughly with some scratch lines (you can see these in the photo above).

Here's some fun. With the exception of the face and legs, most everything on this side is blocked in as far as depth goes. Muscle placement and such will be heavily aligned with reference photos from here on out to ensure accuracy. At this stage, it's most important to get the overall depth and a very close placement (but not 100%) of muscle structure. 

Because our girl is moving, she needs to show some dynamism. Muscle mass stretches and bunches as it moves, it doesn't disappear or add onto itself. Using the hinder region of this gal as an example, the stifle gets pushed forward under the tummy from the leg moving up under the horse. All that muscle mass must go somewhere, and in this case it bulges upward and outward as needed. Now look at the area behind that - see how the back of the lower butt has had to stretch and lengthen (and thin as it did so) in order for that leg to move forward. So *general* rule of thumb - if you're squishing an area, the mass will try to bulge somewhere (usually outward) and if you're lengthening an area, the muscle mass will be thin. This helps give the sculpture the essence of movement when you get bulges and squishes and stretching sculpted in properly. 

I created a fun (and probably only semi-accurate!) depth chart of this piece, so you could try to look for the bulges and narrow stretching areas.

Now the left side is catching up with the right. I still need to work on legs and head, but the depth is equal on both sides. I always try to get both sides of the horse ready to detail at the same time. This ensures that I won't have a situation where I've spent a huge amount of time and energy on one side, only to find out it's too narrow (or too wide) and doesn't match the other side - then rendering all that work lost as I have to redo it.

As an aside, I think it's the lack refinement in her head and legs, but she is one of those kind of awkward looking horses here. I know perfection is what everyone wants, but I secretly am pleased with her "ugliness." It makes her more real, more personable. Also, I think it goes with the spirit of eventing. She's meant to depict a TB event horse - fit but not lean-muscled like a race horse. Eventers don't care about how their horses are bred or what they look like. They just need to be able to perform. They're accepted for what they can do. I think that's a pretty cool philosophy.

Angles are hard to capture as the camera tends to really distort these. In this shot I'm trying to capture the motion of the hind end. The pelvis doesn't move forward or backward, but it does lift and drop. Usually the dropped hip is the leg in the air. In this particular bit of the stride, where the right rear leg has just landed, the hip is dropped but the pelvis is beginning to level out again for a moment. But as it has not yet, we need to sculpt that. The left hip is lifted in this to demonstrate the push upward it’s getting from the leg under it. The leg is angled inward to depict that near-straight line motion the hooves land in. The hoof is about to lift off the ground, so you can see the stretch right before that heal comes up. Also notice the angle of the hoof compared to the canon. It's still weight-bearing, so the entire surface area of the hoof needs to be on the ground. This whole leg has that feeling of ready to spring off the earth from the force of the powerful thrust that leg has just made.

One thing to note in this, is that because of that center armature post, I can't place the right hind as under the horse as I need to at this point in time. The easiest solution is to sculpt it as close to correct as I can, then heat and bend things into shape after I have the resin master that won't have a pole in the way.

This front angle picture shows the foreleg movement. The landing front leg is approaching its destination. The elbow is tucked in, the peck muscles stretch forward with the motion of the leg, which is really reaching - you can see the hoof pointed upwards in anticipation of the heel-first (which is how a healthy hoof should land - on the digital cushion) impact. You can also see how much lower the left point of shoulder is compared to the horse's right shoulder. Now, remember that circular motion I spoke of earlier? The upward leg will demonstrate that. The knee is coming up and forward, and its beginning to move in as it reaches the peek of its motion. The hoof and fetlock are thrown outwards in their circle, which allows for clearing of the leg under it in the scheme of the motion. Because this shoulder is raising up, so too does it's attaching chest muscles. These legs are pretty crude still in their sculpting progress, but you can see the motion dynamics in play.

Here you can see the left hind hip lifted up due to the thrust of the leg underneath it. There's also that wonderful slight twist in the rib cage as the left front leg reaches down and forward and in. The parts of the horse go up and down, forward and back, in and out and also twist...all at the same time!

And lastly, I want to point out the angles of the pasterns. Mostly the hind at this point since the fronts are just barely blocked in. Right hind - As a horse's hoof makes impact, the weight of the leg and hip follow through behind it, really putting a lot of bend into that pastern angle. Left hind - As the weight of the leg and hip lifts, the pastern is freed to stretch upward to follow the motion of the leg. Because it's "behind the motion" of the leg, it's almost underneath the fetlock. All these factors make for a very upright pastern.

Tail time! I still need to finish cleaning up the front legs and head, but because I'm not particularly fond of sculpting legs, I tend to break up this area with something I like more - sculpting hair! 

The tail gets sculpted more or less the same way I did the rest of her. I begin with an overall idea, and then smooshes and noodles of clay get squished onto wire. My personal style is flowing with a little flare, but not over the top busy. Flow is achieved by adding curves and bends as well as layering. Layering is *so important.* Hair is unruly. Some strands wrap  around and over others. With this sculpture, I've chosen to go with small strands on top as well as a few streamers off by themselves in front. I had a looping streamer attached to the back, but it made it too busy so I edited it out. 

Also, because this girl is a thoroughbred, I don't want her to have thick and copious amounts of hair like you would see on a Morgan or a Friesian. I'm taking a bit of artist liberty by going with a smidge more hair than is typical for her breed, but I'm compensating for that by making it more like a flat ribbon as opposed to a more tubular shape. I think as I get it further blocked in that will make more sense. I'm ending with a stylized square cut to give your eye a straight line to land and rest on after all that swimming around the curves! Contrast like that makes a piece interesting. 

The top of the tail near the butt doesn't have any hair yet, but it will only get some thin strands - just enough to blend in and make it work with what's already blocked in. The right side gives a clear visual of the shape that's been worked out. The left side gives you a good visual of where things started. 

The next stage is the stage right before the detail and futzing period (which is my favorite!). She's pretty much 95% shaped in. Before doing any actual detailing, I do a last proportion check with the calipers and take a final round of photos to peer at as it gives my eye a fresh look. Both are invaluable! The front right canon particularly was short and the upper leg and knee were too small/thin. The left cannon also was a smidge long. One of non-hardening clay's biggest advantages is that I can make a slice and then pull or push to the length I need and patch. I also narrowed the wither and spine area a notch in the saddle area to represent those narrow-tree'd thoroughbreds! She may not be shark-finned, but I did want her more on the slim side up there.

While she hasn't changed too much in these photos since the last round, I did want to share them as I'm sure she has the appearances of being too rough to be at a final detail stage. Roughness is actually a key part in my sculpting. Don't be afraid of it! Those odd bumps and divots in areas are what give a horse the feeling of a living animal. If I try to work all those out into smooth perfection, it becomes sterile. There's none of the glorious random interest that's prevalent in life. After tinkering with areas here and there and adding veining and other details, I'll finalize everything by smearing turpentine with a soft brush all over the piece. Liberally. It's a part to be brave on. But by being so rough and then really smothering it to smooth, the two opposite mindsets marry into something amazing.

Little bits of clay can make the biggest difference! If you're afraid of touching your piece to see if a change is in fact needed, then Photoshop can be your friend. Here I snapped a photo of the head and made it black and white to remove any distraction. This helps me zero in on the area in question. In this case, the eye was bothering me. I had a feeling which way I needed to add and remove clay, but I wasn't sure. The smudge tool let me very quickly stretch the clay around the eyeball to the right and around the eyelid/eyebrow down. This look is much better and will be implemented now!

These are absolutely the fussy nit-pick details I was talking about when I refer to the detailing stage. Getting the tiniest amounts of clay in just the right places really adds to a sculpture's overall appearance. It's the little things in life!

Here are the changes actually sculpted in. I also took the eyeball "in" more. That change is seen best more from the front, so here's a picture from that angle. It has yet to be smoothed in, which will soften the edges of the lid perfectly. The contrast between the finished areas  and the areas left to go is getting pretty noticeable.

Next, I work on the other side of the head, and the biggest challenge is always symmetry. A huge help is to take profile shots of the finished side and the side currently being worked on and superimpose them in Photoshop. You still have to make sure everything lines up in person - which means viewing the horse from every angle. I think one of the biggest problems for folks starting out is that they forget to look at their work from the all angles. I know when I was learning, I used to look at the horse from the front and side the most. I forgot to tilt the piece up and look at it straight from the nose or from behind the ears. 

I've got the head 99% there, but the eye is giving me a bit of trouble. It still needs some attention before calling her just right. 

Unfortunately, the left side of Anise's head continued to give me fits. After struggling with it all weekend, I decided last night to leave it and move on to the body smoothing/refining to let my eyes clear. If something fights you that hard, it's best to just let it be, work on something else and then come back to it with fresh determination. This was definitely the right move in Anise's case. I was able to see what was bothering me on the head and consequently make those literally paper-thin clay tweaks that puts me on the path to fixing it. It also helped to have a buddy with a great set of eyes text me what she saw this morning, which happened to be the same thing I thought I saw. Confirmation is good!

With her profile straightened more and the corner of her eye pulled more forward, she looks more Thoroughbred-y and also more symmetrical. There's still work to do, but she's definitely coming together!

Sometimes progress is slow. I've been moving minutes amount of clay on Anise's head, and while there's been improvement, I never felt it was quite the "aha" moment I was looking for. So, back to Photoshop. The middle of the head down got rotated upwards to really bring out a straighter, more TB, profile. This time, I added bars to help people see where I'm making the change. The good news is that with non-hardening oil clay, I can very gently wiggle that section forward and up to get the angle I want without much resculpting.

There's only a little bit left to do now. Now I'm working on her chest and inner legs. If I don't get her to the point where she's ready to seal for rubber molding today, it'll be tomorrow!

I have reason to believe that Anise is now complete and ready for casting. I don't know about you, but I think this just my be my favorite Jennifer Scott piece so far. Thank you, Jenn, for letting me share her creation story here!