How to Sculpt Profile Pancakes

inPortrait Sculpting

5.6K

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Assignments 54

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How to Sculpt Profile Pancakes

Lesson by

in Portrait Sculpting

5.6K

Mark as Completed

Assignments 54

Downloads 1

Your assignment is to do three profile pancakes. Mmm. Yummy!

Don’t be upset if the first few don’t come out exactly as you’d imagined. The point is to get practice in. As you gain experience, you’ll get faster and more accurate.

Upload your images to get feedback from me as well as the Proko community. You can also share your assignment on social media using #profilepancake.

Now get cooking!

DANI DIKMAN

12h

Hi everyone. my first assignment

Roy Nottage

These have a lot of character to them!

@endrigodebem

19d

Hi Andrew. Do you have any clay brand that you prefer? Or that you indicated?

18d

I really like Chavant NSP medium clay. I also recently did a video about some inexpensive Dollar Tree clay that's not bad. https://youtu.be/OmtQ7yCitgs?si=NQ0CTheiqyb3I1AB

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leonel C

5mo

Hellooooo Everyone, First assignment completed. Please share your knowledge and help me improve.

5mo

great job on this first assignment! You might double check proportions by holding your sculpture up to the reference. Keep going!

@lisaann

5mo

The third profile pancake will not attach. Every time I try to attach it, Proko.com freezes. I've tried several times with no avail, so I had to stick to two instead of three. I found this to be very difficult. Rather than get frustrated and quit, I decided to stop and submit.

5mo

Hey these are looking great! Don't get frustrated. These are just for having fun and getting warmed up. Sculpting takes time to develop and get good at so make sure that you can enjoy the process and you'll find much more success and skill as you have fun with it! Keep it up!

Zeina Baron

10mo

Hello! My assignments

9mo

These are looking good! Great references too! Keep it up!

@mdm206

10mo

I deleted the 3rd one by accident. What are you opinion on these?

10mo

It's coming along! remember the primary and secondary forms come first. for example the brow ridge that covers the eye should be much more prominent than the eye lids but on the male study the eyelids look poofy and exaggerated compared to the surrounding features. Hope this helps and I hope you'll keep going!

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Hannah DeForest

1yr

Profile pancakes! Fun exercise. I had a difficult time sticking to the profiles and will likely try this again trying not to get as distracted by the rest of the portrait.

1yr

Nicely done! Great start! I like fabric and headdress of the last one. Keep it up!

Azalea June

1yr

Here are my first attempts. The female reference photo is a self portrait by kathe kollwitz.

@sscottie

1yr

I have been posting in the wrong area! So here are the assignments so far.

Azalea June

1yr

I was posting in the wrong spot too. You have elegant lines. It’s obvious you have a good sense of rhythm or balance.

@jcooper1582

1yr

I just kept messing with these until they began to look smooth like reliefs. Is it important to not work through the time limit?

1yr

Really nicely done on these! Keep it up!

1yr

These are nice! And you have captured the likeness of the models. I like Tom Cruise! I think Tom’s nose needs to be bigger, and it would have helped the likeness to give him a bigger mouth showing his teeth better as in the photo. Look at the angle the nose makes with the upper lip on the second child. It is closer to a right angle in the photo. Also the model’s nose is larger. It surprises me how important are the tiny details in getting a good likeness. The human mind is able to distinguish among thousands, perhaps millions, of faces. Every detail is important!

David

1yr

As you can see, my first attempt was clunky and awkward with inaccurate proportions. My second one of angelina jolie came out better. I tried to stay close to the 15 minute time limit but to do so felt rushed. However i think that is the point. Just like with gesture drawing, the idea should be many quick starts to both practice and to find the right one to develop further aithout becoming to ttached or invested in a piece that doesnt have a strong foundation. For my third pancake shown in a series of stages, i laid out my building blocks first. I decided to use th Asaro head to do a pancake from life. I also used proportions and planes that i had learned about in previous videos from Stan and from Marco. I took this third pancake further than i think was intended as i liked how it was developing. However, i think these pancakes are supposed to be quick sketches not finished pieces.

1yr

Great job! Keep it up! Yeah these are just quick studies to get us warmed up and to see where students are at currently.

David

1yr

Scott, thank you for your feedback and i agree. It is very helpful to come back to a piece with fresh eyes. At first the Anjelina Jolie pancake seemed accurate but when i returned to it later i could see that the proportions were off too. I think it would take alot of practice for me to get to a solid 15 minutes without going over which is okay I think particularly since as you mentioned coming back to a piece over and over after a break from really helps see where proportions need to be adjusted. Portraiture and figure drawing seem so much more challenging because even a small mistake is noticeable in the likeness unlike landscapes and still lifes. Thanks again.

1yr

Nice work! I should go back and try to do several pancakes as quicker gesture studies. It would help develop skills in achieving an accurate and efficient profile. But it’s been really tough to get somewhere in 15 minutes! The Angelina Jolie study was interesting to examine. It makes me realize the importance of getting the details correct in order to create a good likeness. I think the lips, the chin, and the length of the jaw are each off a bit and are crucial to getting a good likeness. I need to come back to a piece over and over again before I can figure out which details need to be adjusted. And, often making one adjustment messes up another area of the head. So it is really important for me to go slow and get the foundation correct.

Roy Nottage

1yr

Hey guys! Got some pancakes. I spent about 1.5 hrs on first two (myself, then friend), then limited myself to 1 hour on the last (my son). Felt like I learnt a lot on each - and I did get quicker. I think improving my pace to some degree, is definitely something I'd like to develop over this course. I stuck to just using my hands/fingers for these - which felt incredibly tricky for the eyes/lids.

1yr

Great job! Really like the self portrait. Keep it up!

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1yr

Hi Roy. These are nice! I think the woman came out “best”. You captured her profile very well, paying good attention to her prominent chin, and her nose. And I like her hair. I think that when we capture the important features of the profile, that gives us a good foundation. (Which is what Andrew said!). I found it interesting that even though your self-portrait was off in some areas, it still works very well. (I think your chin needs to be longer as well as the length of your nose [your nose is more delicate], and your brow seems a bit too prominent). I think we all realize that until we do about 100 of these, we are not going to be fully satisfied with our results. Take a look at Clay Artisan Jay on YouTube. (https://youtu.be/mDXtD-S5xTc) I bet he has done thousands of these portraits in clay. My envy is unbearable!!!

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1yr

These look great! Did you “carve” and “push” into the clay to make the facial features rather than adding little bits on top? The order is very interesting, I feel that your friend and son look very similar to the reference; also a good likeness for yourself, but I feel your forehead is longer and the nose more straight. The hair on your friend is very detailed and creates a great effect.

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2yr

Hi fellow students, What could be improved to achieve more likeness? I'm looking forward to your feedback. Best wishes, Julia

1yr

Great job Julia! I love the way they look on the black base. Is this ceramic clay that’s fired? Terracotta maybe? I could see something like these being offered on Etsy as custom portrait sculptures. Keep it up!

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Roy Nottage

1yr

Hey Julia! These feel like they've got nice character to them. I do agree with Scott's remarks regarding eyes and chin. I think the one based on the selfie photo is my fave of the 3. Which order did you do yours, out of interest?

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1yr

Hi Folks. I have been looking at bas relief portraits on Pinterest to see what kind of techniques are used to get good likenesses and to develop some of the structures that I think we are all struggling with. The eyes, for example, are difficult in profile and it’s easy to put them in the wrong place or to make them too frontal (rather than in profile). I think the eyes of both the women Julia made should be closer to the bridge of the nose. Also take a look at the chin of the black woman. I think it should be more angular. I do like the way you worked the hair on all of the pieces. I would enjoy some instruction from Andrew on doing bas relief sculptures. It may be another instructive way to transition from 2D to 3D work. Finally, here are a few bas reliefs I found on Pinterest, that may be helpful to examine

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2yr

1yr

Looking good on both studies! I wouldn’t worry too much about details and textures, this assignment is more about having fun and practicing working by hand to build a profile. Keep it up!

1yr

My second try. These are taking me a long time to do. And even at 4 inches tall, it’s very frustrating to do the finer details just with my fingers. I also cannot do the entire pancake in one session of an hour. It really helped me to come back hours later, and look at it again, and make adjustments. It seems that every time I look, there is something else that needs to be changed. Also, I found it VERY helpful to rotate the pancake and the photo 180 degrees and take a look at things upside down. I had the ear way too high up at first and had to cut it out and reposition it. It is surprising to me how every angle and measurement is so important. It makes me wonder about caricatures. How do you exaggerate a particular feature and have it still recognizably the same person. (Proko has some drawing lessons on caricatures which I should watch!).

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2yr

This looks great; very detailed. The hairline at the back could be a bit higher up? How long did it take you to make it?

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Ray Manning

2yr

1yr

Awesome! Great reference photos. Keep it up!

Ray Manning

1yr