How to Sculpt a Dragon (Game of Thrones)
The Dragon is back! In this video, sculptor Andrew Keith shows us step by step how he sculpts a game of thrones dragon from start to finish. His process includes the supplies he uses, tips on filling an armature, and advice on texturing clay.
Interested in learning more about sculpture? Want to make a dragon of your own? Andrew is helping me film a basics course on sculpting.
Be sure to watch the music video version.
Also, be sure to check out the new Masterpiece Sculpting Demo by Zoe Dufour. She walks you through her entire process for sculpting and making a cast from scratch.
All you really need to begin is a basic desire to learn, some basic supplies, and the knowledge. I’m here to help you with the knowledge so you can start sculpting like a pro. So let’s get started!
Armature
Before you start throwing clay around, it’s important to create an armature, kind of like a metal skeleton that the clay can attach to. If you didn’t have any bones, you’d be helplessly flopping on the ground. This is a simple and effective armature, the same kind you would use when sculpting portraits.
It’s made from a square plywood board, a ½” metal floor flange, and a ½” by 17” metal pipe.
I then attach 8 gage metal wire on top of this base to shape the armature.
Newsprint…
…and masking tape work just as well and cost much less.
For most of the sculpture, you’ll only need to use your hands and fingers to add the clay and shape it. You’ll find that this is the quickest way to sculpt, but once you get into the details, that’s when you’ll need the right tool to shape the clay more precisely.
Gesture and Underlying Forms
Once you’ve got the armature covered in clay, make sure that you have the correct gesture. It’s fairly easy to make large changes early on but once you start working on the details, it becomes more and more difficult to make those changes without having to redo everything.
Do you remember the videos on the robo-bean and mannequinization? Where Stan showed you how to represent the complicated forms of the body as basic geometric forms like boxes and cylinders? That’s basically what I’m trying to do at this stage. I’m trying to create a kind of geometric dragon that helps me better visualize the overall shapes and lets me see if the sculpture is symmetrical. If I had more experience and knowledge about how to create this dragon, I might have started more organically. But I’ve found when you are sculpting something new and complicated, it helps to break it up into some simple basic forms that have clearly defined planes.
I like to draw a clear centerline to help me as I sculpt. It’s important when working in 3D to be able to always identify the centerline of the sculpture. This dragon is in a very symmetrical pose and its primary gesture is the s-curve of the neck, but if this was a more dynamic pose that was twisting or turning, a correct center line would be even more essential. Once I have the centerline clearly marked I can get a better idea of the proportions and symmetry as I’m working.
Spines, Horns, and Teeth
For the spines on the back of the dragon’s neck, I used additional wire inserts to help support the clay. If you’re gonna sculpt fantasy creatures, especially things with spikes and pointy teeth, you’ll need to think of ways to support that clay in some of those areas.
If I was to redo it, I would have only used the wire support for the large horns. And that’s the thing about sculpting; until you try something, you really don’t know what the best method is for you. Sometimes you just have to go for it and hope for the best.
Try to work evenly throughout the sculpture. It’s easy to get caught up in one area for too long and develop tunnel vision. You’ll stop seeing that area in the context of the whole. If you work a single area or angle for hours without stepping back, you may find that the proportions are off and you need to re-do a lot of work. To avoid this try to work evenly and constantly move around the sculpture, or if you’re lazy like me and have a lazy susan, you can just turn the sculpture.
It also helps to take frequent breaks and step back away from the sculpture to look at it from a distance.
Once the sculpture starts to take shape and the underlying forms begin to look how you want, it’s time to start thinking about the details that will make the sculpture come alive. This dragon is all about spikes, horns, and teeth. I knew I didn’t have time to place each spike exactly or even place as many as there were supposed to be, but with sculpture you’ll find that if you get the general masses correct, it will start to feel right.
I made the spikes by rolling long cones of clay and attaching them to the dragon with a tool or my finger. For stuff like this, you’ll want to press your fingers down firmly around the base of the cone so the spikes don’t fall off easily. You can see how these details really start to bring the dragon to life.
Texture
Before you think about what kind of surface texture you want, take some time to make sure the underlying primary and secondary forms of the sculpture are correct. I often see beginner sculptors create some wicked textures on the surface but because the underlying forms were not working it still looks clumsy. There are many different techniques that you can use to create texture.
If you apply texture to a small area it may look weird, but as you continue the texture throughout it will start to look more natural. Whatever surface texture you decide on, try to make it consistent, though you don’t always have to represent each area with the same amount of detail. For example, I’m not worried about the texture on the neck being as detailed as the head, so I just use a rake tool to make a rough criss cross texture that fits in with the rest of the sculpture without taking hours and hours to work on.
Final Thoughts
This was actually the first sculpture I’ve made that wasn’t based on the human figure. I mention this so you can see that once you learn the fundamental principles of sculpture you can really apply those principles to pretty much anything.
And there you have it! I really do hope this gets you excited to start sculpting.
The Proko team and I are working hard to create a sculpture fundamentals course for you guys. Man, I’m excited for that! We’ll go over all the fundamental sculpture techniques that I learned while getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in sculpture. There will be a lot of free content and the Premium course will cost you a lot less than I spent learning how to sculpt.
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Now go make something awesome and I’ll see you guys again soon in the sculpture fundamentals course!
Filed in: Animals/Creatures • Misc. • Sculpting • Videos
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Very nice:) Bravo. Are you sculpting with an epoxy clay?
Ummmmm, are you trolling Keith? He clearly states “the clay I like to use is Chavant NSP medium, …because it’s made with wax and won’t dry out.”