I guess not. You'd think they'd turn to charcoal during the burnout, at least with a tiny creature like that. I'm more curious how he sprued it, but I forgot to ask. Not sure I want to know either.
I'm sculpting the wings for my magpie at the moment and I'm doing something very similar for the primary feathers, so it's helpful to see how that looks when it's done. The patina effect on there is really cool. I'm guessing LOS mainly, with Ferric on the wood? But how did you do the stripes? It must have been pretty painstaking if you did it with a brush.
yes thats exactly how I did it.There's also ferric on the owl too, to replicate the orange colouration on the upper surface and head, that isnt clear on these pics. The black wing markings were indeed done with a brush dabbing LOS onto the bronze hot. It was then allowed to cool and LOS was applied cold to give a golden colour on the body and underside of the wings.
I'd suggest investing in an airbrush for stuff like that. It goes on a lot smoother and there's no chance of drips or it running. Iwata are a good brand and are fairly affordable. I've tried using a larger spray gun, like you'd use for doing body work on cars, but it goes on a bit speckled. Looks good for a brindle effect though.
Ive usef a fine mist spray bottle to get a more even patina but i do prefer a brush for fine detail for more control. A spray gun would require learning and practicing a new skill. Im just a traditionalist at heart
Finally finished up the wings. Not too complicated once I got the technique down, but rather time consuming. I started by etching the pattern of the feathers into the block, then used a wire loop to shave away the surface like a carpenter with a wood plane. The wire frame poked through in a few spots, but that should be easy enough to fix when it comes to chasing the wax.
I made a major cock up. The feathers on the wings are layered, like a series of shallow steps. Like a moron, I sculpted both wings with the same pattern, essentially giving it two left wings. It was completely unfixable. So after smashing my face into the desk for a while, I started over from scratch. It gave me the chance to change some details and I like the new sculpt better, but redoing such a big section has taken the wind out of my sails. Good news is all the limbs are done now, so the end is in sight.
It has a 50cm wingspan and it's about the same beak to tail. I'm not sure how much it's going to weigh until I can make the wax copy, but I'm guessing it'll be a bit under 10kg. I'll be pushing the limits of what my casting facilities can handle, but I think I'll be able to make it work. My forge only takes an A4 crucible (about 4kg per pour). That seems doable so long as I make the central body hollow. A solid cast would probably be around 7kg alone and would be a shrinkage nightmare. But I've never tried a hollow cast before, so I'll have to figure that out when the time comes. I'm thinking of trying a pinned core and seeing how that goes.
I did a pinned core once. It worked suprisingly well. I used plaster of paris, sand and some smashed up ceramic shell. Cant remember the ratios probably abou equal parts of each
Oh man that sucks, I did that once with my bird sculptures too! How hard is that clay? Do you find it picks up dents when resting it on surfaces or can you manipulate it pretty well without it changing the surface texture? What clay are you using? Definitely hollow cast it. It won't cast well if done solid. It isn't very hard. You just tig it back together once cast. Essentially just slush cast a wax copy from the mold which will be hollow, then cut a widow out of the wax casting in an area that will be easy to weld and blend (like on the belly) and then coat it with shell material or investment like normal.
NSP Chavant Hard. It's somewhat similar in firmness to cheese, but more elastic. At room temp (around 18C in my room) it's slightly too firm to work with fingers without heating it, but it can be tooled without a problem. You can handle it and lay it on the table without disturbing the surface, and it won't pick up fingerprints just by holding it, but it's slightly sticky and picks up grime easily. I've been sculpting on a cloth, less to protect the surface from damage and more to keep it off my dusty desk. Apparently the stickiness is why a lot of people prefer monster clay, although I find it a bit waxy. But you might prefer monster clay for that reason though.
I bought some monster clay to play with. The hard stuff is... hard and just like you describe but it bends of you take a large sheet of it. I never tried t with armatures so I just never used it. Maybe I'll revisit it after seeing your post.
I have a ceramic lasagne tray that I keep my clay in. 5 min in the microwave softens the clay and the heat in the tray gives you about 30 min working time. Putting a desk lamp above the tray helps keep it soft too.
Microwave is very quick for softening clay but be careful it melts from the inside out, and the inside can be molten and hot enough to cause a nasty burn if you prod your finger into it
I've been procrastinating sculpting for the last couple of weeks, so I made some feet to bump-start my motivation. Made them from miliput and epoxy. Hardest part was making the wire frame as I had to join 3 pieces of wire with 2 different gauges without wrapping the wires. I made a custom socket at the joint where the toes connected out of miliput, then threaded the wires through to make the armature. The result was stable, if not a bit fiddly.
Got a bit of detail to finish up on one of the wings, some facial details to do, and then some general tidying up, but I'm about to call it a job done for the clay work. Due to working on it in separate parts, certain bits are beyond awkward to sculpt, so I'm passing the buck to my future self to fix in the wax stage. Overall however, I'm quite happy with the proportions. Not an easy feat when sculpting all the parts in isolation. I just ordered 5kg of silicone. Probably not enough for the entire moulding process, but it's all I can afford for the moment. I like to think of moulding like a save point to let me play around without the risk of ruining things. I'll get the body, legs and tail moulded, then I can experiment with how I'm going to base it. At the moment, only the tip of the tail contacts the ground when it's stood upright, so it needs something else to make it stable. There's a lot of negative space underneath too, so the composition needs some work. But I'm getting ahead of myself thinking about that at the moment.
When a magpie lands its possible for the tail to touch the ground first. If you curve the tail so that a good amount of the bottom surface is in conct with the base then I think that the tail will be strong enough to support the weight of the sculpture. To be on the safe side you could thicken a few of the central feathers. Bcause you cant see them edge on I dont think the viewer will notice the thickness.
