My Sculpts Part 10 - Wicket The Ewok

I haven't made one in ages, but I feel the juices flowing again. Until then, I figured I would run commentary on what I've made so far. The good, the bad, and the ugly, because I have the 'gift' of being able to be honest about if my work is bad or not. Going to post in the order I made them, hope you enjoy a smidgin.



FRANK

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This is the first thing I ever sculpted, and I worked SOOO hard on it. Days and days getting the shape right, and using a bunch of reference pics from the old B&W Frankenstein movie. I should point out that with this and all of my sculpts, they really honestly look 500 times better in person. So after being so proud of this thing, I attempted 3 or 4 different paint jobs before settling on this Darkstalkers version. I wish I hadn't, it looks stupid. Looking back, I still like the sculpt itself, it wasn't perfect, but pretty good for a first go. I also would have kept it for myself for the memories and repainted it to look like a black and white picture. I wound up selling it at Level Up instead

SUB-ZERO

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Sculpt number 3, number 2 was a gargoyle head that looked like a pig so I tossed it out without having finished it. This one I made for Ray on order. I had to remake the mask 2 or 3 times before I liked it. This one is the first time that I learned the limitations of cheap ass clay, look at the left shoulder pad, see how it's all funky shaped? That's because that arm was supposed to be raised, but I had to change it because the cheap clay wouldn't hold together with such a big arm. in person, this thing is pretty damn big.

A lesson I hadn't learned yet was to view any piece from all angles while I work, so as a result, this thing looks pretty ridiculous from different sides, his torso is uneven, and the sculpt on his blue pads are sloppily done. I had redone the many times and finally gave up and just tossed them together. The paintjob is ok, other than the stupid looking eyes. Not a fan of this one.

From what I understand, it was broken in a move a few weeks after selling it.

ORIGINAL DONKEY KONG

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Dis, not a fan of dis. It started out as a impressive retro sculpt of the original arcade DK, holding his barrel in the air, and it was very close to the original artwork. Not perfect, but the same cartoon face which took several attempts, along with individually sculped tufts of fur, it looked pretty slick. This time, I had a better eye for getting the dimensions right from all angles. Then as it dried, the arms warped and the barrel he was holding above his head dropped onto and broke his face, then the arms warped further and broke off, smashing to bits, and taking much of the fur tufts with them. So in the end, I did a shoddy repair to it, leaving the arms off, and my experiment in doing a toon-like paint job failed badly, as I used too wide a paintbrush. Still on sale at Level Up, not in danger of selling.

ZILLA (GODZILLA 98)

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I love me a cgi clusterfuck movie, and Godzilla 98 is a fave for sure, and features the best Godzilla design ever. If you kept up with the Japanese movies, they turned him into a new character named Zilla who levels Australia. Anywho, I did a bust that had 2 base pieces that would prop him up. This one is my fave from this time, and an improvement for sure. Instead of really crappy, this one is more of a mixed bag. Not nearly wide enough, the horns are horribly painted, but the green blending is good and I like the jaw. The bases are random carnage, and also have some good points and bad. Still a LOT of mess ups on this one but I.... don't hate it too much. One I might remake as I get better.

SCORPION

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In what seems to be a running theme here, I HATE this one. Made on order for Ray, this Scorpion has an interchangeable head that switches with a skull, and a separate spear and rope that could be wrapped through his fist. All great ideas, too bad it looks stupid as hell. The proportions of both the head and skull are way off, the spear is to small, the fist too large, the torso to malformed. This one is another where the arms snapped off during drying several times. Great ideas, I wanted (and still do) my statues to be more interactive, but this turned out a mess.

SEGA CHANNEL LOGO

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I ain't mad at this one. It looks close to the real thing, was easy to do, fun to paint, and fast. It's still kicking around at Rays store, no one bought it because youngsters have no idea what the Sega Channel was. It wont win any awards, but I like it.

XENOMORPH HEAD

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This, I'm really in the air regarding this one. The Giger style base is probably one of my better efforts at this point, and the sculpt of the Xenomorph head is also one of my better ones, I was taking detail more seriously. The paints are nice colors and I added a bunch of green slobber out of the mouth. The sculpt is well done for what I could do at the time, but I see a million problems with it. The big problem though, is just how damn odd the concept is, a head mounted on 2 sticks on a Giger base. Seemed brilliant at the time, now it just seems odd. Ah well.

Shao Kahn Battle Plan

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My most 'famous' sculpt so far. On the original FB page that I had this gallery posted on, my other sculpts would get 30 or 40 views, and no shares. This one got 20ish shares and about 1500 views. The 'why' is twofold, and neither have much to do with the sculpt.

Let's discuss the actual piece for a sec. It's an MK2 sculpt based on the battle plan, made for a commission. I didn't want to do another damn bust, so I put this together instead. The quality is pretty iffy, but the ideas were good. After finishing painting, I used my clear glaze to put on the avatars, and Kahns warhammer has a nice black strap wrapped around the handle. The horns on his helmet is a broken toothpick. There are holes in the sides for some removable accessories that didn't come out right. Kahns sculpt is pretty cruddy, but the paint job is decent. The mountain he stands on was the fun part to make, and the paint job was done to look like different colored lights shining on it. So I like the mountain, but hate how Kahn turned out.

As for why it was so much more viewed and liked and shared, for one, Daniel Pesina, the guy who played every character on that mountain, gave me permission to use his likeness, which for a lot of my MK FB buddies, was a pretty big deal. The other thing was sharing the gallery on his page and tagging him. The damn gallery blew up from there, I just wish that it had turned out better, even though people loved it.

Neat aside, Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of DOA, saw it and friend requested me. He said that he wanted me to put a sculpt together for him and send it. Never did get around to doing it yet, and that was over a year ago.

Kung Lao Fatality Deady Alliance




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One of my biggest, and easily my most hated!! It's the first and only bloody violent sculpt I made, and it's awful. I tried to make it look Batman:The Animated Series-y, but I was honestly in such a rush and by this point so fucking sick of sculpting Mortal Kombat stuff that I just slapped this thing together. This was my low point, lots of big clunky, ugly pieces, and an awful paint job, and the only sculpt I couldn't show to Belle, which felt shameful. Because of this monstrosity, I stepped my game up and never sold anything that didn't get my 100% effort ever again. HATEHATEHATE this one.

WICKET THE EWOK



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Know what? LOVE this one! After the god awful MKDA sculpt I did, I promised myself that I'd never make anything that god awful ever again.

I did him up with a SD type build with the huge paws and feet. I sculpted out the Ewok, then plastered on the cowl and sculpted it on top, which is the only time I've done that technique, and I think it worked great. The proportions are great from all angles, and the little spear he has I think is a cool touch. The spear is a wooden stick with a clay tip wrapped in ribbon. My favorite thing though, is the paint job, the different colors are blended in together pretty damn well, and my painting arch nemesis - eyes - turned out great

I'm not fooling myself into thinking it's an amazing sculpt, but it was my best up to that point.