Tutorial - Silverback Gorilla

Wow, great! It's gonna be amazing sculpture!
And I see you have some really great tools The brushes are particularly interesting

Thanks Ana ... here's the web link to the tool set - http://www.d-anatomystore.com/complete-sculpting-tool-set-special/

Work is progressing really slowly now as it's time to concentrate on detail.

1. Made a major change to the back (lifted the skin folds higher). Involved cutting away large pieces and repositioning, blending & re-texturing)
2. He wasn't fat enough! Ribs showed too much so added extra fat (photos before and after blending)
3. Detailing feet - cutting away small pieces with the scalpel, smoothing/blending with ball end tools, further smoothing with clay brush, adding toenails & creases in the skin with a pin and then finally using the clay brush lightly to blend the creases.

Wow, he's very impressive. Great work!

MiniZoo wrote:

Thanks Ana ... here's the web link to the tool set - http://www.d-anatomystore.com/complete-sculpting-tool-set-special/

Thank you for the link! I will think about getting them too, aren't cheap but can be very useful

! Thank you very much for this tutorial really interesting I'll put all your contributions to knowledge;
to make my more realistic figirines;
Very good tip for the wings of birds
Thank you very instuctif changing your gorilla;
is great, I can not wait to see it in paint

This is SO fascinating

Now I understand how your models are so unique and awesome, - hard work, talent, and enormous attention to detail + more hard work and an extra bucket of talent

So, will this thread get the honor of being a sticky?

This is just amazing. :O

Thanks for the great comments above  Today I'm showing how I make the hands.

Firstly it's so much easier to make them separately from the body then add them later. I've made one and now I can step through how to make the other one. Gorilla hands are very leathery and creased so this is the look we're going for.

1. Take a similar size piece of clay, 2. Lay the template hand over (to get the same size) and cut away excess clay, 3. use scalpel to further trim as needed


4. Round off the sharp edges and draw a crease where the fingers join the palm, 5. mark in the fingers and add extra clay for meatier parts of the palm, 6. mark extra creases at the finger joints and blend the extra clay. I also pushed the middle of the palm in with a ball end tool to hollow it slightly.


7. added more creases on thumb and palm and used small clay brush to smooth and give better shape to fingers, 8. flip over to do the back using scalpel again to cut away any excess and improve shape, 9. mark fingers and place a small roll for the knuckles.


10. draw in fingernails, shape knuckles, add creases etc as before, 11. ready to attach... final smoothing & touch ups will be done to the back of the hands once attached. The inside of the hands will be too hard to reach once attached but I'm satisfied that there is enough detail there.


I know that was a long post but hands are tricky, so I hope this has been useful!

Awesome

It looks so easy when shown like this, but it must have taken you hours to make

Fantastic work

I can't believe I am now just seeing this wonderful tutorial! Such beautiful work so far, I just can't wait to see this!

Thankyou Kelsey

After another 2 or 3 hours of fussing over little details he is finally ready to bake!!

Because Ozzie is heavy & standing on one leg I'm inserting a pin through his foot and up into the leg to provide extra support when he is glued to the display base. I've used fencing wire (a lot stiffer than armature wire). The pin is then removed prior to baking but the hole is there when I need it later.



Now to the oven... Super Sculpey requires 15mins per 6mm. Measure from the middle of the thickest part to the outer edge. Don't forget to allow for bulking materials inside your model when making your calculations - Ozzie has some in his chest but not his belly so I have to allow for 20mm - so roughly 45min will do.

Wow!
Awesome details, the only thing I don't really like is that the face is a little long. But I think that's only because the view.
I can't wait to see him finish.

This is a GREAT topic I can't stop watching the process again and again

arafan wrote:

Wow!
Awesome details, the only thing I don't really like is that the face is a little long. But I think that's only because the view.
I can't wait to see him finish.

Thanks for watching Kikimalou & Arafan and for your constructive comments  The face may appear long as he is charging forward trying to appear scary - so his hair is standing up adding size to his overall head shape. and also being an older gorilla he has more hair under his chin. The skull size is in proportion with his skeleton if we believe the template that was used on page 1 of the tutorial.

Okay, so final steps before painting:
1. tiny little balls of clay build up during the texturing process. I remove most of these with a small clay brush before baking
2. after baking he is removed from the armature which exposes the hole in his back. This gets filled with a small amount of air drying clay. I then added the hair texture to match the rest of the back
3. after baking there is usually still some little clay balls that I've missed so I just chip them off with a pointy end tool



Now ready to paint - I love this part of the process

MiniZoo wrote:

Now ready to paint - I love this part of the process

This is so exiting

Thanks Susanne - so glad you're enjoying it!

Painting... first stage - undercoat:
1. I'm going to spray paint Ozzie's undercoat as he would take ages to hand paint. Also the spray can get into otherwise really difficult places to reach like the inside of the hands. I use the Warhammer paint range and seeing as he's a gorilla, chaos black is the obvious choice. Here is my little spray booth - definitely do this outside!



2. Half done - I've done the back first, now rolled over to the front. Have to be careful not to build up too many layers of undercoat (use sweeping, short spray bursts and turn model regularly) and also allow drying in between sprays to prevent paint runs. Something dramatic about this photo I really like it!



3. Finished undercoat - starting to look like a Gorilla now   almost tempted to leave as is.

YESSS!!! He is GORGEOUS

I think his name is Chaos

There's so many steps to painting and it's a very individual thing so I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

Stage 2:
* Nuln Oil Shade - this is a very runny paint which is applied liberally over the whole model. The pigment settles in the crevices without affecting the raised areas greatly and helps give a nice 3D effect. It helped get the black into the mouth and nostrils where the spray paint didn't fully work. For this model it was black shade on black undercoat so the effect was very subtle. It also toned down the shininess of the undercoat.
* Fire Dragon Bright - I needed an orange to colour the head, this was washed over with an orange shade. It looks ridiculous at the moment but it will be toned down and blended later on.
* Administration Grey - very lightly brushed (using minimal paint on the brush) over the raised areas to give the effect of grey tipped fur for Ozzie who is a very old gorilla, but with the black still clearly visible underneath.
* Black - for touching up little areas here & there

Still a lot to do on the paintwork.

This is ( also ! ) one of the fun parts

I really like it!
Is it a mountain gorilla?

Looks great!

Beautiful, fantastic! I can't wait to see him finished
I think it's Lowland Gorilla like the one from first picture?