The making of a witch

Jul 22nd, 2008 by grim

Last year I made a commissioned witch for a customer. Here is the process I went through to make the piece.

The person wanted a witch. I don’t normally work from reference photos they tend to mess me up and frustrate me. I will look at Google images and books for a while and then think on it for a bit and a while later start working, making some sort of amalgamation of what I looked at I guess.

I usually work on top of a 2 part urethane foam skull cast I make. I add bulk to the foam with Celluclay, Available at any art store or online.

I then start adding more defining features as I see fit. In this case the chin and the nose. These are the main features most witches have in my mind. I placed roll-on deodorant balls in the eye sockets after I dug some of the foam out so they would fit in there (they aren’t glued in yet).

I continue defining the brow and add some mass to the forehead area. I add most of the nose at this point.

I hate the nose I added so I removed it and slimmed it down a lot. You will notice the Celluclay has shrunk a lot in the picture below, its 30-50% water and it does that. Its also fairly hard at this point. it has dried for maybe 2-3 days. I had a lot of frustration with the nose, I re sculpted it many times. Sometimes this happens with a certain feature, it can be maddening.

I then take Paperclay and start adding it over the Celluclay making a smooth topcoat. I have also added some glue to the back of the roll-on balls and glued them in place where I wanted them, I normally use Gorilla glue for this. I think I also removed the hook from the end of her nose if I remember correctly. The Paperclay topcoat is where I add in most of my detail of wrinkles, and texture.

Paperclay does dry much faster than Celluclay and has a tendency to crack sometimes, I will go back after the Paperclay is dry and fill in the cracks as needed.