#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!

#TipTuesday: Sharing My Productivity Tracker

I'm a huge fan of holding myself accountable for how I use my time, so for over a year and a half now I've used a custom tracker to keep track of a number of things, including how much art and writing I do on a given day, as well as how many steps I've taken and how well I've eaten and what sorts of things I spent my time on.

I try to make sure that these things are very easy for me to input to encourage me to keep up with the tracker and meet weekly goals, and I thought it might help to share the same customizable tracker with you!

Here is a Google Sheets document which includes a blank version of the tracker I use to help increase my productivity! You're welcome to save a copy & use it for yourself. :)  --> http://bit.ly/1J2qCo9

More about the Tracker and How to Use It

 

Example of a blank weekly log for art and writing

Included in the tabs:

• Your Log
• Your Historical Info
• Log Example
• Historical Example
• Tracker for Artists
• Tracker for Writers Without Part Numbers
• Tracker for Writers With Part Numbers
• Tracker for Artists and Writers

The tabs can be found along the bottom of the sheet:

I've found that weekly goals work better for me than daily goals, so that's how I set this up. I feel that part of striking a good balance in your life means holding yourself accountable for how you're spending your time on the whole, while also respecting that some days you simply need to take some R&R and watch Netflix, see friends, or what have you.

As far as this tracker is concerned, you simply need to set weekly goals for yourself in the "Hours to Weekly Goal" row, and as you make progress, they will turn green when you hit the threshold you set. As you can see in the example below, I've already met my weekly goal for hours spent writing and doing art for this week (yay!), but I haven't met my blogging or words written goals just yet.

You can track how much you want to exercise, do art, write, how healthy you're eating: you name it! And you can take notes on how you spent each day in the "Notes" section.

You can even set goals months out in the "Next Milestone" section so you're mindful of approaching milestones.

Example of a Weekly Log. This is mine from this week! I still have a few days left to meet my next milestone.

There are quite a few formulas included in it to help ease everything along, including a Food grade tracker to help track how you're eating in a given week. I generally envision "C' as making eating choices that will maintain my weight, whereas regular, healthier meals that would encourage me to lose weight could fall into the "B" or "A" category depending on a number of factors including their caloric intake and nutritional value. Keep in mind that you can track as much or as little as you like, so feel free to customize your tracker for what works best for you!

Once the week is over, you can move that week's data into the "Historical" tab, and then start fresh. You can change the date in the top-most row, and everything below will automatically populate as well. Feel free to change up your hours to weekly goals so that you can set realistic goals for yourself.

Example of a Historical Tab

I hope you enjoy checking out my productivity tracker and might consider using it for yourself. Let me know if you have any questions on how to customize your own tracker, or if there is a new template you would like to see me offer!