So the plan is...

I've finished a maquette set for my friend Erick Tran and it turned out well. Erick was pushing a new show concept he had in mind and I thought it would be fun to make his characters and add an interesting piece to my sculpture portfolio!

Only this time, since I know Erick and has an interest in how things like this get done and "how did you do that?" stuff, I thought I'd document the whole process of making the sculpt from armature to finished product, and puttin the stuff on here, complete with little movies I took after each stage in making this thing. Keep in mind this is how I do it- I didn't go to school for this and I just figure stuff out as I go. Seems to work... most of the time.

So the plan is, once I get enough blog entries done, I'll try to post one every other week. I get alot of complaints that I don't put enough stuff up regularly and I agree. I'm either too busy or too lazy...! So maybe if this works I'll have something new and interesting up here every other week so Ernie-grog and everybody else will be happy campers!

...by the way... does anyone still read this thing...?

;)

EVERYMAN is on his way!!

This year, The Simpsons season premiere is an episode I directed! Not only was I lucky enough to get a script with a storyline about superheroes and comic books, but on top of it- I had Tommy Tejeda (longtimepalandfellowcomicenthusiastandbesides-heusedtodesignforBatman) helpin' me out as my assistant director!


The show's gonna be great so I hope you all tune in to Fox on Sunday, September 27th and check it out. Everyone had a really fun time drawing and working hard on this episode and I hope y'all have fun watchin' it!


Thanks to all the crew that helped us make this show "the worst episode- EVER!"


-Lancer

Li'l Indy and Kodos...and some worms!

One year when I was at home in North Dakota over Christmas break, I bought some of the pre-colored sculpey to experiment with. I made some simple animals like a pig, a hippo, a bird- just to see how the stuff handles. I made one for each of my brother Marc's little girls. When I got back I sculpted this little German shepherd pup with the stuff for a friend's birthday. He's modeled after my own shep, Indiana.

The colored stuff is great because you don't have to paint anything once it's baked. However, it gets really soft really fast and becomes kind of difficult to put any real details on the sculpt itself.

Since it does get really soft, you can easily blend and swirl two colors together. I tried to kinda blend the colors of the pup's tummy fur together to see if I could make it look more like hair.

The pics don't really show it but the blue sculpey in the tile floor has a pearly iridescent color to it that's pretty cool. It made the tile really contrast with the texture of the puppy.

I think if you really wanted to do detailed stuff with the colored sculpey, it might work better to sculpt the piece in phases and put the whole thing in the fridge for a bit between each session. Then you could pick it up and handle it a little better before the sculpey absorbs the heat from your hands and gets too soft to work with again. It works great to crank little fun little things with though!

Big Indy and Li'l Indy.



Another kind of sculpey I tried playing with was the bendable sculpey. After you bake it, it stays rubbery so you can bend longer pieces and they don't break! First I made these worms.

Then I made this little sculpt of Kodos from Simpsons. I figured his tentacles would be fun to bend around and play with.

The bendable stuff works great. But like the other colored sculpey, it gets really soft and is hard to detail with. It's fun to make stuff and crank on it when your done though. The stuff won't break! It just bends!

I gave Kodos to my buddy and fellow-Simpsonite, Ernie Keen, as a surprise. He was surprised!

DOG NOT TO SCALE