BONGO sculpt

Ana wrote:

Very nice painting work, beautiful colors-straight from nature Thank you for showing Harriet

Thank you Ana, glad you liked it

What can I say other than unique,beautiful and amazing!I have not seen any artist your age,Harriet,create such beautiful animals!

Wildheart wrote:

What can I say other than unique,beautiful and amazing!I have not seen any artist your age,Harriet,create such beautiful animals!

Thank you Mihnea!!

Beautiful. Now you don't have to wait for someone to make one. You already have one. Congratulations. You did an awesome job.

So, when is the rest of the family joining her ?

You can't just have one, especially if they are your favourite animal

Rio wrote:

So, when is the rest of the family joining her ?

You can't just have one, especially if they are your favourite animal

Thank you Amy!
Second favourite animal, Okapi is first I was looking at photos of baby Bongos, they are sooo cute, I might make one (or a couple) soon, it will be fun.

Your Bongo's eyes got it all. Knocked me out!

Lasersword1973 wrote:

Your Bongo's eyes got it all. Knocked me out!

Thanks Ron!

Good Work, must have taken you some time to make this scult, you are really turning into a great scultor, already when it comes to the painting of the figure, you are a true artist, i think working on the shapes of the figures is your challenge, but you are becoming better with each model.

Berlinzoo954 wrote:

Good Work, must have taken you some time to make this scult, you are really turning into a great scultor, already when it comes to the painting of the figure, you are a true artist, i think working on the shapes of the figures is your challenge, but you are becoming better with each model.

Thanks Danny. All together it took about two days to make and paint, so not too long. I have to wait a day for the clay to dry, it took me a morning to sculpt and about the same to paint too. Yes, I think you're right about the sculpting, I need to work on that.

I cannot go of the forum for one day, because i will miss all of the great stuff around here...

Another great sculpt Harriet, and nicely painted.
It is like Christophe said, everybody seems to have a new bongo for 2010, only we haven't one yet...
We need to buy clay and paint Christophe! And what then???

Harriet you are doing an excellent job, just keep at it.


A couple of sugestions if i might add, maybe they help you, i'm no animal scultor, as you probably know i have my figures made, but the artist that makes them has over 30 years making sculptures and figures. from small scales to large scales, i learned a lot from him in the last couple of years, so here are some points that might help.


For a starting point find an animal encyclopedia that has drawings of the animals as a whole, the older the encyclopedia the better, i could recomend some to you if you would like, usually the old prints had even more accurate reproductions, in Amazon you could find some real good ones of use for around 5 usd or less.

Get the Encyclopedia and cut out the actual animal figure you are making.

Research the animal stats as far as leght height of body, head, tail horns things like this, keep each mesurement of each body part separated, do not add them up or the formula will not work.

Then find the scale you are working on, the smaller the scale the easier the figure might be since less detail might be possible, but that is not the way to go with a realistic figure, so something like what Phil works on 1:22 might be a great fit.

I work exclusively with 1:12 scale, it is not only one of the easiest scales to convert and understand, but the level of detail possible is unreal. Ad the benefit that you could have something as small as a kingfisher and something as big as a giraffe, it would be very hard or nearly impossible to create realistic figures of certain species in 1:22 or a smaller scale, so think about that, and then decide what scale fits your needs better.

To me it was an easy choice, since i would never want to limit me getting any animal figure based on its scale, and 1:12 is not so massive that you will run out of room.


So once you have the scale figure out, convert each body part, the body, head, horns, tails etc to your scale, use a converting table for this, that you might use in the future. Once each correct measurement is taken, put it on paper, draw it first, the body part along for future comparison as you are making the sculture.

It might be difficult to get stats for certain parts of an animal, like an ear, or a something really small but yet essential, you will need to study the animal and figure certain things out, in my case i'm lucky since one of my best friends in the world is an Head of the mammal collection for one of the top zoos in Florida, a friend in a zoological park might work wonders in this area for anybody interested in making realistic animal figures.

So now you have the encyclopedia cut out in full color and showing the complete animal, the scale convertion of each body part and a scale drawing of each. For good measure you should also use pictures of the real animal since animals are like people and not all of them might have the same shape.

There is a scale formula for the weight of the animal that you can covert into the clay but that is something i have not fully understood yet from the grand master.

As you probably already know, start by building a wire skeleton, using your scale formula build a scale wire frame that will support the sculpture, this will help with smaller body parts like legs and others so they do not crack so easily.

"CLAY" your clay is one of your single most important components, so when making your scultures, get the best for the best results. All of the Kaiyodo etc Japanese animal figures just like Schleich have a prototype, a single master figure from where all others come, figures lose about 30 to 50 % of their quality and realism when mass produced i"m told.
The Japanese use Kato clay for their prototype models, it absorbs the paint a lot better, and especially the small details.

As you work on the sculpture make sure that all of the animal parts are in scale, you could allways add sharp and thing horns after the initial sculpture has been completed, pay close attention to all of the details and descriptions of the animal body, and you will have you sculpture.

Practive is a key, and eventually you could go and do any pose for the animal you prefer, but for starters it would be good to duplicate the pose on the animal encyclopedia drawing, if the final result does not match the illustration, then something is wrong.

When painting the animal just let your talents go, i have seen some of your drawings and they are really good, so just think of the sculpture as paper.

Hopefully this helps you, i think that if you follow some of this notes, your skills will only improve, and with God given talent, the result will be there.

Very very instructive and interresting reply Danny

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A very nice family Harriet

You improve each time and I'm you will improve again and again. I remember your first birds... Looking at them, we can there is already a HKH touch, it's good to feel this

Thank you so much Danny for your very helpful reply, I will do that, it's sounds brilliant. If you could recommend some good encyclopedias, that would be great. At the moment I just use Wikipedia and pictures from Google Images. I have tried using a wire frame for my models, but the clay doesn't stick to it and it spins. The clay I use is called Mungyo sculpt dry, it's quite hard to get hold of in England. But I love working with it, it's very strong once dry and even when it's not dry, things like the legs don't fall off, they stick really well.
Yes, scale is a problem for me, I was going to do the Bongo in scale with my Okapis, but it turned out too big! I have to say, the bigger the model is the better, I love doing detail. But I have to spend more time and research like you said. I think with me, I get to excited about making and do it too quickly.

I would really love to sculpt as a living, it's something I enjoy doing.

You've really helped me already, I can see sculpting from a different view point now. I'm eager to try out what you have said. What animal should I try this out on first? I was thinking another Okapi, as they are my favourite, so I know them very well. Even though my sculptures of them look quite stylized, I know I could do better now.

WILLYBACOMAN wrote:

I cannot go of the forum for one day, because i will miss all of the great stuff around here...

Another great sculpt Harriet, and nicely painted.
It is like Christophe said, everybody seems to have a new bongo for 2010, only we haven't one yet...
We need to buy clay and paint Christophe! And what then???

Thank you Willy!! Glad you liked her.

Kikimalou wrote:

A very nice family Harriet

You improve each time and I'm you will improve again and again. I remember your first birds... Looking at them, we can there is already a HKH touch, it's good to feel this

Thank you Christophe!

Berlinzoo954 wrote:

Harriet you are doing an excellent job, just keep at it.


A couple of sugestions if i might add, maybe they help you, i'm no animal scultor, as you probably know i have my figures made, but the artist that makes them has over 30 years making sculptures and figures. from small scales to large scales, i learned a lot from him in the last couple of years, so here are some points that might help.


For a starting point find an animal encyclopedia that has drawings of the animals as a whole, the older the encyclopedia the better, i could recomend some to you if you would like, usually the old prints had even more accurate reproductions, in Amazon you could find some real good ones of use for around 5 usd or less.

Get the Encyclopedia and cut out the actual animal figure you are making.

Research the animal stats as far as leght height of body, head, tail horns things like this, keep each mesurement of each body part separated, do not add them up or the formula will not work.

Then find the scale you are working on, the smaller the scale the easier the figure might be since less detail might be possible, but that is not the way to go with a realistic figure, so something like what Phil works on 1:22 might be a great fit.

I work exclusively with 1:12 scale, it is not only one of the easiest scales to convert and understand, but the level of detail possible is unreal. Ad the benefit that you could have something as small as a kingfisher and something as big as a giraffe, it would be very hard or nearly impossible to create realistic figures of certain species in 1:22 or a smaller scale, so think about that, and then decide what scale fits your needs better.

To me it was an easy choice, since i would never want to limit me getting any animal figure based on its scale, and 1:12 is not so massive that you will run out of room.


So once you have the scale figure out, convert each body part, the body, head, horns, tails etc to your scale, use a converting table for this, that you might use in the future. Once each correct measurement is taken, put it on paper, draw it first, the body part along for future comparison as you are making the sculture.

It might be difficult to get stats for certain parts of an animal, like an ear, or a something really small but yet essential, you will need to study the animal and figure certain things out, in my case i'm lucky since one of my best friends in the world is an Head of the mammal collection for one of the top zoos in Florida, a friend in a zoological park might work wonders in this area for anybody interested in making realistic animal figures.

So now you have the encyclopedia cut out in full color and showing the complete animal, the scale convertion of each body part and a scale drawing of each. For good measure you should also use pictures of the real animal since animals are like people and not all of them might have the same shape.

There is a scale formula for the weight of the animal that you can covert into the clay but that is something i have not fully understood yet from the grand master.

As you probably already know, start by building a wire skeleton, using your scale formula build a scale wire frame that will support the sculpture, this will help with smaller body parts like legs and others so they do not crack so easily.

"CLAY" your clay is one of your single most important components, so when making your scultures, get the best for the best results. All of the Kaiyodo etc Japanese animal figures just like Schleich have a prototype, a single master figure from where all others come, figures lose about 30 to 50 % of their quality and realism when mass produced i"m told.
The Japanese use Kato clay for their prototype models, it absorbs the paint a lot better, and especially the small details.

As you work on the sculpture make sure that all of the animal parts are in scale, you could allways add sharp and thing horns after the initial sculpture has been completed, pay close attention to all of the details and descriptions of the animal body, and you will have you sculpture.

Practive is a key, and eventually you could go and do any pose for the animal you prefer, but for starters it would be good to duplicate the pose on the animal encyclopedia drawing, if the final result does not match the illustration, then something is wrong.

When painting the animal just let your talents go, i have seen some of your drawings and they are really good, so just think of the sculpture as paper.

Hopefully this helps you, i think that if you follow some of this notes, your skills will only improve, and with God given talent, the result will be there.

Thank You Danny for this lesson, very much! i agree about drawing in scale-it's very helpful to keep the right proportions. I do it before sculpt every model too. Usually I'm unable to find info about ears length. But body length and high, tail length-these are usually easy to find.

By the way, one day I must try this 1:12 scale. I'm very curious how does it work

Great lessons from Danny, who is experienced in this field, so very worthfull!

Go on Harriet, you only can get better everytime!

I'm glad you can use some of this methods Harriet, i'm confident that with a little bit of practice, you will do great things.

The Okapi figure, sounds like a great idea to start, not only is a beautifull animal, but as a sculpture it is not the most complicated model to make, add to that you have already done models of it, so it will be a good start.

Not familiar with the clay you mentioned, but remember that the clay is your blood as a scultor, if you have excellent brushes, and quality paint, you should try to get the best available material for the model as well, Kato is the top of the food chain, but if you want to start out with something just as easy to work with and not as expensive polymer clay is a good choice.

The fact that you mention not being able to place the wire skeleton inside the clay, tells me right away, that this clay is not what you should be using, it will be night and day i promise, i think Ana is already doing the wire skeleton as well, maybe she can tell you what clay brand she is using. But for the best quality in each model it will be Kato.

Not only it will be easier for you to mold it into shape, this particular clay is designed to work well once the mold is finished and curated, so there will be no cracks, and anything you add to it will work well with it.

There are certain animals that require extra materials like old pieces of rug and things of this nature, that you can't really mold into shape with any type of clay. But that is something a little more technical that i should get back to you after you have some experience with the clay and feel confortable working with it.

As an example look at this two pictures the same animal species a kudu and a zebra both made by schleich, and two artist scultures, the material makes the difference, even the original clay schleich model would not stand a chance without the correct material.
Once you have the correct materials it comes down to your skills, and like Willy said, it will take some time and practice, but they will eventually fall into place and you would be able to create any animal you want, a collection beyond anything that any Mass production Toy Company could ever or would ever bring you.

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Hi Ana,

It is my pleasure to help any way i can, it is really not a lesson, since i'm not an amimal scultor myself, but i do have invested thousands of hours in this passion of mine that is a beautifull world in miniature, so i have taken a lot from the great people that honor me with their work.

I have allways told you Ana that you are a true gifted talent, to wake up one day the way you did and decide to do this is one thing, but to actually go and do it in a way that it seems like you have been at it for years is truly outstanding, and you have brought joy to Phil and many others in this forum, and that is the gift of talent.

I'm glad to know that you are already using the scale body parts drawing, and if there any other areas that i can provide any help with let me know. As far as the ears, teeth, claws and things of this nature it is real difficult to find everything you need, there are a limited amount of books outhere that make reference to all of this details.

I know that the artist i use has a collection of very old zoological boocks that describe in detail all of this characteristics, books with no pictures but lots of sketches and so on, i have seen them once, never been able to find them online, not even in private book clubs that usually will sell antiques like this at a very good price.
Each animal is a huge challenge, since we can not settle for anything else than true perfection, so i consult a very good friend of mine, that works with the mammals collection in Miami Metrozoo, any stats you ever need that you can't find just drop me a line.

And last about the 1:12 scale is really simple Ana, it is to me, one of the easiest scales to understand, it is also called the scale of 1, since 1 inch equals 1 foot,
the average human figure would be 5 inches to 6 inches, everything else you would use the same formula.

Something like a gazelle with their thin legs would be very difficult to make in proportion in 1:22 scale, the detail would be hard as well, but in 1:12 you will hardly ever run into that problem, i have from little detailed dart poison frogs to very large mammals like Giraffes and so on and in perfect scale to eachother, the really small animals would be impossible to create in really small scales and that would be a huge limitation.

Berlinzoo954 wrote:

And last about the 1:12 scale is really simple Ana, it is to me, one of the easiest scales to understand, it is also called the scale of 1, since 1 inch equals 1 foot, the average human figure would be 5 inches to 6 inches, everything else you would use the same formula.

1:12 is not so easy to understand in the metric system, maybe that's why some use the 1:10 scale ?

Berlinzoo954 wrote:

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Oh these models almost make me cry, they are so beautiful! Thank You Danny for showing these MASTERPIECES

Berlinzoo954 wrote:

I know that the artist i use has a collection of very old zoological boocks that describe in detail all of this characteristics, books with no pictures but lots of sketches and so on, i have seen them once, never been able to find them online, not even in private book clubs that usually will sell antiques like this at a very good price.
Each animal is a huge challenge, since we can not settle for anything else than true perfection, so i consult a very good friend of mine, that works with the mammals collection in Miami Metrozoo, any stats you ever need that you can't find just drop me a line.

This is very very kind from your side Danny! Thank You very much Be sure I will ask many things

Who made the zebra and kudu?