First, it's an amazing drawing!! Her hair is perfect. The only thing that jumps out at me is that her eyes are a tiny bit too open, especially her right eye. I know I do this all the time. It's incredibly subtle, but a tiny tweak like that in the eyes can really change the mood of the subject.

I've done a lot of sculpting of the female figure, but have never spent the time to get good at the male figure. I think one problem is that the male figure really requires you to know the underlying anatomy and muscle structure, while with a female, you can often get away with smoothing or blurring a lot of the musculature. Yeah, I know... it's cheating (not to mention lazy), but it's real. :-P Sounds like I need to up my game, and get me some decent reference photo sets.

Speaking of the PoseSpace photo sets, here is a sculpt I did recently based on one of the models. I took some liberties with the gown, but hopefully the figure has the same energy...

Question: does the 12DAYS code apply to pose sets?

Wow... I love the overall feel of the sculpture, and then down into the anatomical details, and even the way her glut muscles shape around the stool she is sitting on. I like the way you've randomized the surface texture to give the clay a kind of soft quality.

Working on sculptures, this time with terra cotta clay. So... did I push the movement hard enough in this one? ;-) (Work in progress. 9" tall. Not fired yet. We'll see if she makes it through the fire.)

Checking through the Pose Space site, and it has a LOT of great material!

Okay! A little behind here on my posts, but decided to come back for a second attempt at this sculpt. Also, working on doing a better job with the documentation. I obtained another PoseSpace set (Evae005) to work from. I tried the Da Vinci Eye app with some success, but found it most useful to grab a subset of the images and physically print them out to stand behind the piece as I worked. I went back to my earth based clay (Black Raven), which will turn pure black when fired. (One image included here as an example.) I didn't know how aluminum would respond in the kiln at 2,000°, so I used a wad of paper and tape. The problem with this was, it did NOT provide enough structural support to the clay, so maintaining the gesture was challenging (clay kept sagging under its own weight. :-P ) The photos here are of the clay just as it is reaching the "leather-hard" stage in drying

Interesting discussion on "what is art?" I've also wondered, "What is the difference between art and craft?" There is also a discussion about what is the difference between good and bad art.

Just found some more Al wire buried in a drawer. ;-) It's not heavy gage but stiffer, so may hold up a larger piece. (Says "Electric Fence" wire, 17 gauge.) Worth experimenting with.

Yeah... camera! I think many of the images (including mine) were taken with a phone camera, which, as you say, distorts horribly! For my normal sculptural work, I use a mid-range DSLR with a 50mm lens, so it forces me to back away a bit, and reduce the distortion.

Do you tend to use armatures more than once -- ie., strip off the clay and use it to create another different sculpture? (That's assuming it isn't something you want to keep to cast into some other material.)

Does Posespace have a phone app that allows you to swipe around the different photos on the all around series?

I've modified several of my wooden sculpting tools, and they are definitely some of my favorites!

Hi, was able to "finish" it on time, thank you very much Andrew! Crits are welcome :) kobi

Here you go Andrew! I doubt this was my first sculpture ever, but this picture was taken nearly 30 years ago (notice the very modern phone to the left!). So it's among my firsts as it's pretty old!

Well, not horrible, but plenty of things which, looking back, I can see are some classic mistakes. These are from when I had just started getting serious about figurative sculpture, ten years ago. A note about the figure with the lantern -- her bottom half is actually a lighthouse on the tip of a rock outcrop. "A Light in the Storm"

Do you always use a prop like this? When I did my sculpt for the class, I used a wire armature, and tried to staple the feet to a wooden base. First, my base was too hard (old piece of oak, gack!), and the feet too small, so it kept flopping back and forth as I tried to work on it. Some kind of stand like this would be a huge help!

How tall is this sculpt? My entry for the challenge was only around 7", so I was having trouble getting some of the details. Larger always seems to be easier. Also, the clay I got was pretty soft, so harder to control.

Proko $5 Challenge - $2.80 Craftsmart Plastalina - $3.59 Al wire (craft store) - $0 broken off plastic fork - $0 stainless spoon - $0 left over wooden block - $0 old cake decorating turntable Best tool was the broken off plastic fork. Also, found that the back end of the stainless spoon ended up sticking the least to the clay, especially when my studio started warming up though the day and the clay got really soft! First time sculpting with an armature, which was interesting. Hardest part of the armature was getting her to stand steady. Perhaps I should have made the feet oversized and used two staples to hold them down, so the sculpture wouldn't flop back and forth. #cheapsculpturechallenge