I posted earlier about a piece I made in 2005 called The Preacher. 9th Monk made a comment about how for him “concentrating on any one area too long makes it difficult to match that ‘favoured’ area… often leading that unfinished work to a shelf.”. I believe this is an issue for all of artists until they overcome it.
There are a few things that can be done to help avoid it.
When working on a head sculpt mount it on a lazy susan. I have done this at times, but I use a lot of water to smooth my airdry clays and over time the bearings in my lazy susan rust and seize up. What I do now is screw a 3/4 inch PVC T to the bench top and then put a 12 inch length of PVC in it I gorilla glue a 3/4 inch PVC coupling in the base of my skull armature. When I want to rotate my piece I just twist the PVC piece. No rust, and cheap as well. I can also put 3 or 4 of them on the bench at once and have multiple sculpts going at the same time. I mount the PVC T’s on a 1×6 and screw that to the bench top, then I can move it elsewhere if I want to when im not sculpting.
Now there is another very cool solution that I am surprised a lot of sculptors don’t use. A friend of mine is a machinist and he got a hold of an old barber chair. He removed the chair and mounted an 4×4 piece of steel tube to the base raising the level to about waist high, then he mounted a 16 inch diameter 1 inch thick plywood circle to it. Barber chairs are designed to hold about 450 pounds, they raise and lower and spin. Every thing a sculptor needs. He also has several different tops he can put on it, one has a vise, one has a wire bending jig I think, etc… The possibilities are endless. You can pick them up on craigslist for around 100 bucks sometimes. I will be doing this soon.
I have mostly fixed this problem for myself when doing head pieces. The challenge remains when doing large pieces that are life-sized. I tend to build standing from the viewers perspective, If I don’t force myself to walk around it every 30 minutes I end up with a horribly thin piece that is appropriately wide but looks about as thick as a piece cardboard from the side.
So if you are a prop builder or a sculptor it is always the same. Design from all angles, never assume the viewer is only going to see the piece from one angle, or only look at one feature.
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This is a great topic. And I’d like to add on one additional thought to this:
There is one aspect to working with angles that’s important to consider, and that’s “the bread and butter shot.” Jarrod Shiflett talks about this as part of his development process. He knows that there’s one angle – the bread and butter shot – that comes from how the piece will ultimately be displayed. It’s the angle that the audience will first encounter the piece and is the most important angle to focus on. That’s because it’s the moment your project imprints on the viewer.
Certainly you have to look at everything from all angles to cover the core design of a piece, but you also have to stop and consider where the project is going.
If you’re a propmaker designing a piece for display – perhaps along a pathway or near an entrance – you have to consider the angle of approach and the positioning at final arrival. Where will you emphasis the drama to best take advantage of the side that will be presented? In this case, you may need to set the project on the floor. If it’s something that will tower over people, you need to put it up high – maybe on a shelf or stack of boxes – to check the emphasis points that might be hidden. Again, it’s a combination of working from every angle and designing for the end result: the first encounter.
I agree with 9th Monk and Grim that you can’t rely on one angle or let it take over your development process as you build your piece, but you have to keep that point of emphasis in mind from the start and as you progress. It should also be the last thing you finalize before calling a piece finished, because you don’t want all of that hard work washed out when you finally put it out for display.
And this is important for anyone working in 3D. How your piece is displayed or photographed can determine how much of an impact it creates (and whether or not it sells if you’re also a merchant-artist). If you can capture and convey a sense of drama (terror, horror, power, presence, foreboding, love, lust, etc.), you’ll sell your audience on your design.
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