#WIPWednesday Sculpture: "Sashah's Song"

A little over a year ago I started this sculpture of Sashah, the werewolf enchantress, who is one of the main characters of my stories.

A Glimpse at the Stages of the Sculpture: "Sashah's Song"

  

  

In time I hope to better document all the crazy steps of this project, but in the meantime, here's a glimpse of how she's progressed from her original sketch onwards through some of the many stages of sculpting. For more WIP photos of this and other projects, please keep an eye on my Twitter!

Size: 7 x 7 x 13 inches

Current Time Taken: 170+ hours to date

Latest Updates:
 

 

At the present time, I've finished sculpting, baking, sanding, filing, patching, and primering the sculpture, and am currently working on painting on the base colors of her! I decided to challenge myself and tackle one of the most difficult areas first: her leather pants, complete with rivets, lacing, and lots and lots of patience! Those overlapping areas are SO tiny!

The Pre-Painting Photo Shoot for "Sashah's Song"
 

Before I got to work sanding, filing, patching, primering, and painting this sculpture, my dear friend Dana Bishop was find enough to photograph her so I had a better record of how the sculpture looked at this stage because, well, iPhone photos only do so much. ;)

 

 

So Much Patching!
 

While baking went fine, the sculpture suffered some hairline cracks during transport to and from the photoshoot, so unfortunately it took me a lot of time afterwards to sand, file, patch, and then resand her. All the white areas you see in the many photos below are patched.

  

 

 

 

 

Primer Time!
 

I painted the primer by hand as well as with an airbrush because I had certain areas like the translucent nails where I wanted them to remain their original color, and other areas like the jewelry where I wanted to use a black primer instead to help make the future metallic paint "pop." It took about three coats for complete coverage.

 

 

 

  

 

Working on the Test Base
 

I have some pretty ambitious plans for the final stages of this sculpture, and one of them includes making the base look to be a creek-crossing, complete with a dragon koi in the "water." In order to create this illusion, I decided to try using a clear casting resin. My thought was that I could line the outside in Monster Clay and coat it with a release agent and it should act as a sort of sculptable mold. That's the theory at least!

Before even considering doing this to my actual sculpture, I created a small and very basic test base in order to test this technique as well as how I might sculpt the outer edge and add additional levels of detail, like ripples to the water's surface. It's turned out good so far, but I would like to try some new methods and give it another go before applying these techniques to the actual werewolf sculpture.

I think my little test koi is adorable. ;)

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

The Start of Color
 

After a lot of deliberation, I figured out the color scheme I'll be using on this sculpture, and have been busying purchasing paints and mixing them as well. I'm still not entirely committed to the colors of the enchantress's dress, but once I am totally committed, I'll be posting the mock-up for it as well. :)

 

  

  

 

I look forward to sharing more updates with you about this personal project that is so very dear to my heart. I hope that some day you might enjoy learning more about her and her story too!


Thanks for reading, and joining me on the journey!