Free Sculpting Tutorials & backstage

Pumpkin Sculpt by Ray Villafane

Some of my favorite sculpting artists take the time to share with the world.

This list will grow as I remember or get exposed to more tutorials and sites that I can wholeheartedly recommend.  A trend that I noticed and partake in: Facebook pages are being used by artists to showcase their works, and quite often, they include work in progress shots, and answer people's questions. 

FREE SCULPTING TUTORIALS

http://www.absculpture.com/tutorials.htm

Sculpt by Andy Berghotlz

BEHIND THE SCENES & WORKS IN PROGRESS

https://www.facebook.com/adambeanesculptor

https://www.facebook.com/Ray.MasterofPumpkins

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Andy-Bergholtz-Sculpture/251052568242450

http://philippefaraut.com/video.html

Sculpting DVD Library

by Philipe Faraut

Hey!


I was just sharing a list of my favorite DVDs with a colleague, and realized I haven't compiled it before. Let's share it with the world!
Happy Holidays world!

I consider each one of the following a precious resource in enhancing my skills as a creature designer.
I learn as much by observing as by doing. Books are neat, but video is better for immediate clarity, at least for some of us.

Working on new designs as I watch these videos is almost as if the instructor was right there with me, helping me with details and approaches. I can even rewind and pause them!
Additionally, I love to watch those videos as a work on repetitive tasks that don't require me to problem solve. The techniques get absorbed further into my memory.

I hope these will be of great inspiration to you, like they never cease to be for me.



The Art of Sculpting, by Philippe Faraut.
Definitely the series that will make every motivated person into at least a decent head sculptor.
His method takes you from the total beginner to the advanced results in just hours.
I'm eyeing his books too, especially volume 2.
I wrote an article about the series here.


Creating a Faerie Figure, and 
Creating a Character Figure, by Wendy Froud


Sculpting Movie Monsters, by Mark Alfrey
this one has a lot less step-by step clarity, but you learn a lot by listening to his comments, and watching him work. Not a first choice for a total beginner seeking total clarity (Faraut's method is perfect for that), but still a useful resource, and I'm glad to have it.

Sculpture with John Brown.
First series of DVD I tried. It is and will remain a great learning source. I own volume 2, but saw other volumes as well, and it's all top quality. Judge for yourself, each product's page has a video sample.
I want to own the whole series someday.


Pumpkin Carving Tutorial, by Ray Villafane
It's been a really good tool to help get more comfortable carving subtractively, even in clay.
Learn by carving on pumpkins, and the skills are transferable to other media.


The Ama - Soft Sculpture Body Construction, by Lisa Lichtenfels.
I thought I could use this for puppetmaking, but found it  difficult to adapt to moving puppets.
Still, I use some aspects of her method, and the set is worth the price for the anatomical lessons on the first DVD. She shows you with illustrations, then color codes everything, then  re-sculpts it all in clay, then does it with her polyester batting on an armature of wire. Fascinating!  I'd love to see her other video!



On my Wish list:
http://www.adambeane.com/sculpting-tutorials/

Félix Mirbt

Woyzeck & Marie, photo: Nir Bareket

Last night I went to see the finale of the show "Die Reise ou les visages
variables de Félix Mirbt"
by Théâtre de La Pire Espèce and Marcell Hudon.
It was happening in Montreal, but I hope this show will live on a bit longer and performed elsewhere.
For the credits, see this page, in French.
http://www.pire-espece.com/diereise.html

The show was complemented by an exhibition of puppets, masks, props and
photographs of the career of Felix Mirbt. I wish there had been more to see, but it was a beautiful exhibit. I even learned a few techniques by studying the puppets and masks.

I was inspired by both the exhibit and the show, fascinated almost against my will!
I'm grateful to have gone and experienced it.
Even though I did not know the artist, nor ever saw any of his whosws, this retrospective, created by people who were close to him, made me feel nostalgic and almost like I had met the man. I can definitely see some of his influence on what has been done in Canada since.
He is a defnite pice of puppet history.
Some lessons and techniques people have learned from him have been passed on to me over the years.

What spoke to me the most was his use of the materials and the methods as an integral and visible part of the experience of seeing the show performed.
a lot of people try to hide the process, to make the illusion work.
Mirbt was not hiding a thing: "I shall not forget to mention my tutor at my first (Tecklenburg) festival: Make your strings visible or people will be more concerned about 
how you do it than look at your show."

Strings were very visible on marionettes, some other types of puppets were missing hands or the hands were only there when needed, some body parts came from separate props or body parts from the puppeteers. One puppet had a large mask for a head, while the body was a large piece of cloth, and the neck linking iot all together was a very visible ring of wood.

Mirbt had and still has a big influence on Puppetry being done nowadays in
Quebec and Canada. The man loved experimenting on every asopect from puppetmaking to how thw show was constructed, to how the music played a role, and it showed in his results.  Refreshing and thought provoking.


For those curious to learn a little bit about his life and work, a website
has been created. They mixed English and French texts, on the same pages.
Beware that a loud sound file will start once the page is loaded.

http://www.pire-espece.com/mirbt/vie.html

Custom Banners

Click on picture to enlarge.

If you like these, or even if you want something completely different, consider me for the job.

Really, I enjoy transforming images and drawings (yours or mine) with a bit of digital magic.

For rates, send me a detailed description of what you need, and I'll reply promptly:

creaturiste@gmail.com

Pumpkin Carving DVD Review

Today  I received the Ray Villafane pumpkin carving DVD, and it is a very good learning tool!
Here's my review.



In brief:
Highly recommended for the lesson contents and ease of understanding.
Disappointed by the image quality and lack of true bonus features.

In detail:

The lessons are very clear, and they are classified by complexity levels.

It was filmed with two or three different cameras, so one can appreciate the steps better and with more clarity. Ray narrates live as he sculpts, so it feels like he's there in the room with you, coaching you every step of the way.  The pace is probably a bit fast for some beginners, but hey, this is a video, and it can be paused and replayed.

I'm very glad that I got this, and viewing it as I was working it has already helped me with my carving skills, and not just for pumpkins carving. These skills are transferable!


There are disappointments however.
The video quality is not impressive.
It feels dated, as if it had been filmed in the 1980s, and transferred to DVD recently, without much remastering. It does the job for learning the steps, but even using my computer's DVD player software's advanced image enhancing features, and tweaking the options, the image details and colors are lot less alive than they could be. It looked a lot better on the television, however, so you should not worry too much about it if it's your main viewing option.  But considering this was made this or last month, I was expecting a video quality that's a bit brighter, sharper, and more alive.

They mentioned bonus materials, but compared to most other DVD tutorials I've bought, it's not cutting it in that department. The bonus lessons are about how to make hands out of pumpkin vines and wire, and how to carve stitches. I'd consider these as integral parts of the main content, as necessity more than bonus. I'd have been angry if I had had decided to go with the downloadable version (I very nearly did, but learned it was in MOV format, which does not do well on my computer system), which does not contain the instructions for those two steps. Considering there is plenty of space on two DVD disks,  I was hoping for at least a photo gallery section and some high def video footage of the best pieces in Ray's collection. Maybe even featuring the TV and web interviews Ray has done over the years.  Arguably, there is a photo gallery, but it's a part of the intro, is only a few seconds long  and shows less then the Facebook page's photo section.  The Time lapse videos are very fast, and only appear at the end of each lesson. I'd have loved to see the progress slower, to really appreciate it, and have access to each sculpture's timelapse video on the main menu. Hopefully, there will be some better bonuses in the future, and I hope they will make it available for free to people who ordered the first batch.


If you are not in a hurry, I'd wait a bit before ordering. They might make a better batch of DVD, as this one was rushed so people could get it before this Halloween. Right now there is a video section missing on how to choose one's pumpkins, and I noticed some editing errors. The missing info on pumpkin selection can be found as one illustration in the photo section on the Facebook fanpage.

Warning!
I still recommend this!
The disappointments do not remove the high quality of the actual main content, I'm still very glad I got the DVD for my ongoing training, but the package would have felt a lot more special with better image quality, with bonus features to watch and show to people, all in one place, instead of having to go online and checkout his sites.


http://villafanestudios.com
https://www.facebook.com/Ray.MasterofPumpkins
http://www.youtube.com/user/VillafaneStudios

Halloween 2011

My Halloween activities have increased this year.   Moan is my personal costume. I went with creepy this year, as opposed to my usual fun/slightly spooky looks. I went out with it three times. Today I went downtown, and I got a lot of the kind of responses I was looking for. Smiles, startled screams, and even a store manager having to follow me around, and admitting it to me, as my costume really worried him.
On my way back to my bicycle, I went in to say thanks to my new optometrist and her staff for the glasses I got a few weeks ago, and I got an amazing response from her assistant. She was laughing uncontrollably!
My friend's annual Halloween party doesn't happen this year, so I'm looking for another event in Montreal.
So far, no luck. Public events are mostly about themes I can't relate to, such as the usual drunken vulgar pimp & hoe scene...

The pumpkin is my first carved in 3D, following methods I gathered from looking at the works and videos by Ray Villafane, of Villafane Studios. Look at his Facebook fanpage, it's full of amazing photos and info!
I ordered his Pumpkin Carving DVD, but haven't received it yet. I KNOW my carving will get better when I see more of his methods.  I intend to carve as many pumpkins as my time will allow me until the season is over. After that, I'll turn to other root vegetables. It's great practice for my overall subtractive carving skills, and I love the feel/texture/challenge of it. This makes me feel confident that I will be able to carve wooden puppet heads and masks to my liking, soon. Likeness of specific subjects is to come later, but at first I'll be happy to be able to improvise creatures like I am able to do on pumpkins.

Added: my second and third carved pumpkins:

Carla the Vampire has been sold as a Halloween decoration for a party this week-end. Second pumpkin I sell this week, thanks to my friend Daniel, who cut a deal with a pumpkin seller, who got impressed with our carvings.

Two more pumpkins were carved today, October 28th.  Might be my last this year. We'll see how the schedule goes.

Posh Puppet of a Pig

Some pics of my finished pig puppet.

He's mostly sculpted polyfoam, synthetic fabric, nylon webbing (backpack straps) and contact cement, with lots of machine and hand stitching. He's also equipped with removable rods in the forelegs. He has fabric lining inside the head so that the puppeteer's hand doesn't feel uncomfortable on the foam, which overtime gets nasty and textured when it's not covered.

His hooves and snout are paper mache, for the nice definition and strength they need to have.

He can be operated on two or four legs.

The trick to his stability and versatility is that the axles for his legs are stiff, made with rods going through the legs and body. To prevent tearing, each hole is lined by a piece of PVC tubing that is slightly bigger than the axle. That bulge in the neck is avoidable and doesn't always show. Next puppet I build this way will have an extra step top prevent that altogether.

The finish on him is to work with the story that he was badly prepared and cooked all wrong by an inexperienced cook. I made this texture by choosing a textured polar fleece, and by rubbing some very diluted acrylic paint with a rag, while the puppet was moist. It prevents stiffening of the fabric, and prevents brush marks, acting more like a dye.

He now lives and performs in Spain.