Today we’re going to be doing something that a lot of times my students get really
scared of when they look at my ecorché.
That’s the vertebral column, the thorax, which is the rib cage.
The ribs give the abdominal support so later on
we can actually put muscles on the right side.
Both humeri—and I know it’s going to look a little weird to see your ecorché with floating
arm bones without the scapulas or the clavicles, but that’s just the way I designed it.
Just really stick with the program.
You’re going to really enjoy it, and you’re going to really enjoy
how we do the vertebral column.
I can’t wait to show you.
Let’s get to it.

Well, here we go.
In this session what we’re going to be doing is the vertebra or the spinal column.
The thorax, which is the rib cage.
We’re going to also have to put support for the abdominal wall here so that later
on when we bake this we have a ground or floor for the abdominal muscles and both humeri.
Humeri is just a fancy plural for each humerus or upper arm bone.
In this session we also need to know what we want to deal with the arms.
In this case, mine—and not necessary yours—I’m going to keep this rather simple and just
have the arms outward like this.
Alright, so as usual we start with the Vaseline.
I have my little Vaseline here or petroleum jelly product.
I have my clay kind of out here ready.
I have a few random tools.
You know the same things, the X-Acto knife is always a nice one to have around.
The soft bristle brush—and most of us have one of these just laying around that we’re
going to throw out because it’s no longer good for paintings.
These are actually really nice.
This is soft bristle.
When I look at these toes and this and that, it’s a really nice.
It’s kind of like taking your ecorché to the spa and cleaning it up a little bit.
The other thing that’s really useful—you know, I see little debris and little bits
and pieces of stuff imbedded in the clay.
Don’t worry about that because we’re going to bake this, and we’re going to paint it
so it looks a little bit more like bone.
So you just take a little bit of time.
You know, if I had a lot of time I would really clean all this up.
But this will suffice.
The other way to clean things up also is just with your two fingers, two finger method.
Again, just kind of caress and just smooth out some of the rough areas.
I don’t mind too much that this is a little rough.
The whole idea about this project, you guys, is that it is, in fact, a learning exercise
rather than like a finished sculpture.
If you’re really good and if you good job, it can be something that you can put on the
mantle and show off to your visiting company, your friends, but it’s not necessarily the
objective.
So ease up about if your ecorché starts to look at little too rough.
It’s okay.
Don’t worry about that too much.
We don’t need that kind of pressure anyway.
I’m just kind of smoothing it out just a little bit.
It’s almost like it’s a little pet and you’re just petting it, so little lumps
here and there.
Alright, now first thing we do is get the petroleum jelly out and put it on the areas
that we are going to be putting clay on.
In this case, the vertebrae including that tape—never take off that tape.
You don’t need to.
That will get baked in.
When we bake this, it’s going to be very low fire, meaning your oven is not going to
be that hot.
It’s going to be about 220 degrees.
For any of you that bake or use your oven a lot, you know that as ovens go, that’s
not very hot.
I’m going to put this petroleum jelly on this wire here.
I don’t worry too much about this wire because this is a nonexistent part of the anatomy.
It’s not part of the anatomy at all.
Even though there is a little Vaseline on there, it’s really not necessary.
The other area that I need to be really good about is making sure that the rib wire has
jelly on it.
So, we’ll put a little jelly on here, a little Petroleum jelly.
Not too much.
Remember, he’s not going to be swimming the channel.
You’ll need to gob it up with Vaseline.
It’s just a little bit.
I’m putting it on the back as well.
Anywhere you know you’re going to be applying clay.
The good thing about the vertebra is it’s got a lot of wire on it so it’s very craggy.
There is a lot of little nooks and crannies on it, so that itself traps a lot of the clay
and makes it stay.
Excuse me while I just wipe my hands.
It’s important that I wipe my hands at this stage because if I have Vaseline on my hands
the clay is going to keep wanting to stick to my fingers, so it’s important that you
always have just a little bit of—like a paper towel or something next to you.
I’m going to leave this over here.
Fold it nicely so you don’t have to have this unsightly glob of stuff there.
There.
How’s that?
Does that look pretty?
Alright, even set a little tool on it so it looks more decorative.
Alright, now this is easy.
It just takes a little bit of time.
What you need to do is basically put clay on here until it looks like a big old shape.
This doesn’t take any skill; it just takes a little bit of time.
What you need to do is just put little pieces of clay on here.
Do you see what I’m doing?
I’m going to face it toward me just a little bit so I can see a little bit better, but
at the same time make sure that you guys can all see that I’m not doing anything special
here.
It doesn’t take any kind of skill to do this.
You can let one of your kids do this or whatnot.
You could almost get your cat to do this.
Just keep this really simple.
All you’re doing is making almost like a little python, anaconda.
Insert favorite snake here.
There, like that.
Now I’m going to smooth it out a little bit.
This reminds me of what I want you to do with the rest of the bones.
Just kind of smooth them out, make them pretty like that little by little.
We don’t always have the luxury to do this while you’re watching because I don’t
want to spend 100 hours while you guys watch me clean it up.
Just know that you can clean this up quite a bit more.
I think before I bake this I’ll touch it up just a little bit.
I try to do everything on camera so that you don’t see something that all of a sudden,
hey, how did that get there.
So, we’re good about that.
The downside is a lot of times I have to leave things a little it less than perfect, but
then perfect can also be a little boring.
Think about this looking a little bit more like Rodan, like a Rodan ecorché, and you’ll
be happy.
The thing I’m trying to tell you guys is to just ease up.
This whole process is about learning anatomy three-dimensionally rather than you thinking
you’re making a sculpture.
If you keep thinking you’re making a sculpture, it does put a little too much pressure on
you.
Notice I’m putting it all the way around.
Do you see that?
If your big old fingers kind of discombobulate something, like my fingers are kind of constantly
bending the floating ribs here and there.
Don’t worry about that.
Obviously, we can fix them later.
I always try to do as little damage as possible.
If you keep giving yourself that out of ‘I’ll fix that later” then you’ll keep making
silly mistakes, and you get clumsy.
Just keep thinking that you’re trying to keep that down to a minimum so you don’t
have to fix things later.
There.
I just want you to see the backside of this so you can see that you need to go all the
way around with this little snake.
About halfway up this—this is what I call the head spike.
I’m going to impale the head up here.
The other thing that I think is going to be interesting for you to hear me say is that
we’re going to finish the skeleton up in a couple sessions, but we’re going to leave
the skull off, and we’re going to bake this without the skull.
The reason is that I learned that from experience that the skull takes a little bit extra time,
so we could even start the muscles and still be working on the head on the side.
I want you to think about that as well, because it’s going to help you make this a better
project for yourself.
Give you a little bit more time with making the skull.
You’ll see what I mean in the upcoming sessions.
Okay, so now what I’m doing is forcing my thumbs against this and using a little bit
more muscle.
Now what I’m doing is I’m blending.
I’m blending.
Blending is basically caressing.
Caress the clay.
It’s a polymer clay, so it’s really nice.
It takes your skin oils really well.
Because I still have, even though I wipe my hands, this is a tiny bit of the residue from
the petroleum jelly.
It’s actually helping me.
It’s hard to completely take petroleum jelly off your skin.
That’s the whole idea.
That’s why we put this on our lips.
It’s meant to be on our lips.
I’ll just kind of stay there.
I wanted to take most of it because I don’t want to fight this.
I don’t want the clay to keep wanting to stick to my fingers, making it harder.
But because I still have a little residue which was not able to be taken off, it actually
will help and work in our favor.
Notice that I’m not being too neat about this.
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
It just has to be done.
If it’s hard to tell how thick this is, you want to be about this, maybe not even
this much.
This is 1/8 inch armature wire.
Not even that much away from the wire.
So the outside of the clay here to the inside.
There is just a little bit.
Maybe a 1/16 of an inch, just a little tiny bit.
I need to be able to cut into it.
You’ll see what I mean once I do it.
Perfect.
Now, there is 24 vertebrae.
There is 5 lumbar, 12 thoracic, 7 cervical vertebrae or your neck bones.
But, we do not—and remember I said this—we don’t need to count each vertebra.
We’re not doing something that’s going to be for the Franklin Mint.
We’re not going to do something that is so precise, so we don’t really need to count
vertebra.
We’re going to indicate the vertebra.
And that’s going to be a little bit easier for you to take in.
At this stage, what I could do is this: I’m going to take a needle tool.
This is a store-bought one.
It’s a little dirty, a little grungy, but it’s mine and I’ve had it for years.
It’s a needle tool.
If you don’t have this you can actually open up a paper clip and use that.
I don’t care.
You could have like a toothpick.
You could use that.
I happen to have this tool.
So what I’m going to do is I’m going to use it on my finger first.
What I’m going to do there is go from side to front to side like this.
Now, what carefully because it’s really very easy.
I’m going to use his arms apart like this.
Like this, like this, like this.
It’s about like a quarter of inch.
If this is 1/8 inch it’s two times that, so like where my fingertip is right in here.
Well, here we go. In this session what we’re going to be doing is the vertebra or the spinal
column. The thorax, which is the rib cage. We’re going to also have to put support
for the abdominal wall here so that later on when we bake this we have a ground or floor
for the abdominal muscles and both humeri. Humeri is just a fancy plural for each humerus
or upper arm bone. In this session we also need to know what we want to deal with the
arms. In this case, mine—and not necessary yours—I’m going to keep this rather simple
and just have the arms outward like this.
Alright, so as usual we start with the Vaseline. I have my little Vaseline here or petroleum
jelly product. I have my clay kind of out here ready. I have a few random tools. You
know the same things, the X-Acto knife is always a nice one to have around. The soft
bristle brush—and most of us have one of these just laying around that we’re going
to throw out because it’s no longer good for paintings. These are actually really nice.
This is soft bristle. When I look at these toes and this and that, it’s a really nice.
It’s kind of like taking your ecorché to the spa and cleaning it up a little bit.
The other thing that’s really useful—you know, I see little debris and little bits
and pieces of stuff imbedded in the clay. Don’t worry about that because we’re going
to bake this, and we’re going to paint it so it looks a little bit more like bone. So
you just take a little bit of time. You know, if I had a lot of time I would really clean
all this up. But this will suffice. The other way to clean things up also is just with your
two fingers, two finger method. Again, just kind of caress and just smooth out some of
the rough areas. I don’t mind too much that this is a little rough. The whole idea about
this project, you guys, is that it is, in fact, a learning exercise rather than like
a finished sculpture.
If you’re really good and if you good job, it can be something that you can put on the
mantle and show off to your visiting company, your friends, but it’s not necessarily the
objective. So ease up about if your ecorché starts to look at little too rough. It’s
okay. Don’t worry about that too much. We don’t need that kind of pressure anyway.
I’m just kind of smoothing it out just a little bit. It’s almost like it’s a little
pet and you’re just petting it, so little lumps here and there.
Alright, now first thing we do is get the petroleum jelly out and put it on the areas
that we are going to be putting clay on. In this case, the vertebrae including that tape—never
take off that tape. You don’t need to. That will get baked in. When we bake this, it’s
going to be very low fire, meaning your oven is not going to be that hot. It’s going
to be about 220 degrees. For any of you that bake or use your oven a lot, you know that
as ovens go, that’s not very hot. I’m going to put this petroleum jelly on this
wire here.
I don’t worry too much about this wire because this is a nonexistent part of the anatomy.
It’s not part of the anatomy at all. Even though there is a little Vaseline on there,
it’s really not necessary. The other area that I need to be really good about is making
sure that the rib wire has jelly on it. So, we’ll put a little jelly on here, a little
Petroleum jelly. Not too much. Remember, he’s not going to be swimming the channel. You’ll
need to gob it up with Vaseline. It’s just a little bit. I’m putting it on the back
as well. Anywhere you know you’re going to be applying clay.
The good thing about the vertebra is it’s got a lot of wire on it so it’s very craggy.
There is a lot of little nooks and crannies on it, so that itself traps a lot of the clay
and makes it stay. Excuse me while I just wipe my hands. It’s important that I wipe
my hands at this stage because if I have Vaseline on my hands the clay is going to keep wanting
to stick to my fingers, so it’s important that you always have just a little bit of—like
a paper towel or something next to you. I’m going to leave this over here. Fold it nicely
so you don’t have to have this unsightly glob of stuff there.
There. How’s that? Does that look pretty? Alright, even set a little tool on it so it
looks more decorative. Alright, now this is easy. It just takes a little bit of time.
What you need to do is basically put clay on here until it looks like a big old shape.
This doesn’t take any skill; it just takes a little bit of time. What you need to do
is just put little pieces of clay on here. Do you see what I’m doing? I’m going to
face it toward me just a little bit so I can see a little bit better, but at the same time
make sure that you guys can all see that I’m not doing anything special here.
It doesn’t take any kind of skill to do this. You can let one of your kids do this
or whatnot. You could almost get your cat to do this. Just keep this really simple.
All you’re doing is making almost like a little python, anaconda. Insert favorite snake
here. There, like that. Now I’m going to smooth it out a little bit. This reminds me
of what I want you to do with the rest of the bones. Just kind of smooth them out, make
them pretty like that little by little. We don’t always have the luxury to do this
while you’re watching because I don’t want to spend 100 hours while you guys watch
me clean it up. Just know that you can clean this up quite a bit more. I think before I
bake this I’ll touch it up just a little bit. I try to do everything on camera so that
you don’t see something that all of a sudden, hey, how did that get there. So, we’re good
about that. The downside is a lot of times I have to leave things a little it less than
perfect, but then perfect can also be a little boring. Think about this looking a little
bit more like Rodan, like a Rodan ecorché, and you’ll be happy.
The thing I’m trying to tell you guys is to just ease up. This whole process is about
learning anatomy three-dimensionally rather than you thinking you’re making a sculpture.
If you keep thinking you’re making a sculpture, it does put a little too much pressure on
you. Notice I’m putting it all the way around. Do you see that? If your big old fingers kind
of discombobulate something, like my fingers are kind of constantly bending the floating
ribs here and there. Don’t worry about that. Obviously, we can fix them later.
I always try to do as little damage as possible. If you keep giving yourself that out of ‘I’ll
fix that later” then you’ll keep making silly mistakes, and you get clumsy. Just keep
thinking that you’re trying to keep that down to a minimum so you don’t have to fix
things later. There. I just want you to see the backside of this so you can see that you
need to go all the way around with this little snake. About halfway up this—this is what
I call the head spike. I’m going to impale the head up here.
The other thing that I think is going to be interesting for you to hear me say is that
we’re going to finish the skeleton up in a couple sessions, but we’re going to leave
the skull off, and we’re going to bake this without the skull. The reason is that I learned
that from experience that the skull takes a little bit extra time, so we could even
start the muscles and still be working on the head on the side. I want you to think
about that as well, because it’s going to help you make this a better project for yourself.
Give you a little bit more time with making the skull. You’ll see what I mean in the
upcoming sessions.
Okay, so now what I’m doing is forcing my thumbs against this and using a little bit
more muscle. Now what I’m doing is I’m blending. I’m blending. Blending is basically
caressing. Caress the clay. It’s a polymer clay, so it’s really nice. It takes your
skin oils really well. Because I still have, even though I wipe my hands, this is a tiny
bit of the residue from the petroleum jelly. It’s actually helping me. It’s hard to
completely take petroleum jelly off your skin. That’s the whole idea. That’s why we put
this on our lips. It’s meant to be on our lips. I’ll just kind of stay there. I wanted
to take most of it because I don’t want to fight this. I don’t want the clay to
keep wanting to stick to my fingers, making it harder.
But because I still have a little residue which was not able to be taken off, it actually
will help and work in our favor. Notice that I’m not being too neat about this. It doesn’t
have to be perfect. It just has to be done. If it’s hard to tell how thick this is,
you want to be about this, maybe not even this much. This is 1/8 inch armature wire.
Not even that much away from the wire. So the outside of the clay here to the inside.
There is just a little bit. Maybe a 1/16 of an inch, just a little tiny bit. I need to
be able to cut into it. You’ll see what I mean once I do it. Perfect.
Now, there is 24 vertebrae. There is 5 lumbar, 12 thoracic, 7 cervical vertebrae or your
neck bones. But, we do not—and remember I said this—we don’t need to count each
vertebra. We’re not doing something that’s going to be for the Franklin Mint. We’re
not going to do something that is so precise, so we don’t really need to count vertebra.
We’re going to indicate the vertebra. And that’s going to be a little bit easier for
you to take in.
At this stage, what I could do is this: I’m going to take a needle tool. This is a store-bought
one. It’s a little dirty, a little grungy, but it’s mine and I’ve had it for years.
It’s a needle tool. If you don’t have this you can actually open up a paper clip
and use that. I don’t care. You could have like a toothpick. You could use that. I happen
to have this tool. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to use it on my finger first.
What I’m going to do there is go from side to front to side like this. Now, what carefully
because it’s really very easy. I’m going to use his arms apart like this. Like this,
like this, like this. It’s about like a quarter of inch. If this is 1/8 inch it’s
two times that, so like where my fingertip is right in here.
Each one of these is about ¼ inch. Remember, I’m not counting these. I just do not want
to waste my time. If when you’re totally done, and you have a friend that starts counting
these and tells you that the count is wrong, I would probably just get rid of that friend.
You don’t really need that in life. It’s too persnickety. It’s not worth it. It’s
not anything that you need to worry about. We know that there are five lumbar vertebra.
I’ve had back surgery, and this is the area that got operated on. I have a lot of metal
parts in here like from a hardware store.
I lost that rib. Well, here it is; it’s hiding. There, a little floating rib. It’s
neat to have bionic parts. There. You keep doing this all the way up. I’m doing it
now because I think it’s going to be easier than when I put all the other stuff around
it. It’s not going to be just this. It’s going to take a little bit more. We’re going
to do more. You’ll see. This part, not that it’s hard. It’s just that you have to
just do it kind of carefully and take a little bit of time and patience anytime you have
to do something that’s repetitive. Notice that I’m not going the back. I’m leaving
the back alone. As a matter of fact, I’m just going to kind of flatten it out a little
bit like this. Do you see what I just did? I just basically smoothed it out. The back
is going to be done totally differently, and you’re doing to like it.
Okay, there is that. Now, let’s keep moving on with the vertebra. These little demarcations.
I’m just indenting these right in here. Remember, this is indicated. Indicated is
just—your giving the idea of something. You’re not doing it literally. So what we’re
doing is just making the idea of vertebra. Each disk is very unique. But the way we’re
going to do is we’re not going to do that. We’re just going to indicate vertebra because
each vertebra, each little segment of your vertebral column is actually very unique and
very beautiful in itself. It’s very sculptural. I’ve often thought it would be neat to see
like a big, huge sculpture of a vertebra like in front of a bank building because it’s
so almost abstract and really wondrous in its design. I didn’t like that one. I’m
going to cut that one in half. It got too big so I think it might be better like that.
I know it doesn’t look real great or anything, but it’s actually okay. Don’t worry about.
It’s just all of these little disks put together. Some of them are a little bit bigger.
Some of them are a little bit less big. Who cares?
Okay, now what I’m going to do is I’m going to look for like a brush handle. I happen
to have one right here. I know it’s a tool. Right here I have like a needle. This is a
sewing needle. The other end is just an old brush handle that I put into a pencil sharpener.
Do you see that? It’s a little bit bigger than this. It’s about 3/16 of an inch. I’m
just going to let you see it because I’m sure somewhere around your house, maybe a
barbeque skewer, something like that might suffice, just anything that’s cylindrical
like this. What am I going to do with this? I just picked this up randomly. It was right
behind me in my little tool table. Put another mark here.
Watch what I’m going to do. Now you see that I have little cuts on this snake. In
between each one—watch what I do. I’m going to indent each vertebra. Once again,
this is very simple. I’ve even had my 8-year-old daughter do this. She loves helping daddy
with vertebra. So, think about it. If my 8-year-old daughter can do this, it’s got to be easy.
And it is. And I don’t want you overthinking this. You’re just indenting each one of
these. Now, if you want to be a little bit more careful than I am right here do that.
You know, what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you how I do things. But if
you want to take it a little bit further, that’s totally up to you. Each one of these,
you just have to be patient.
Now, as I go up further, I get less picky because what happens is later on it’s going
to be harder to see some of these vertebrae, so it’s really not going to be that important
for this to be done exactly the way you started. This could be just indented. None of these
are going to be really visible so I’m not going to care about those. These are a little
bit more visible, so I’m going to make these indented. The ones inside here I don’t spend
as much time in. Let me make sure my hands aren’t in the way. You can see this. They
are also like kind of a slight slant, and that’s really not going to bother me. It
shouldn’t bother you. I’ll tell you when you need to be really picky about stuff. Right
now this is not the time. Don’t worry about the vertebra on the backside, you know the
part that everybody gets afraid of, like, how’s he going to do that. Don’t worry
about that. I’m going to show you.

Okay, so there it is.
Remember, in this session we’re going to be doing the vertebra—it’s almost done—and
the rib cage.
I’m going to take a little piece of clay like this.
Do you see that?
That’s about the size of a pea.
Roll it.
Boy, I’ve got a lot of stuff in my hands.
I don’t care if it’s like a little dirty.
I just don’t want it to be distracting to you to see how much stuff gets picked up off
my hands by this clay.
Because if you look at this clay funny, it gets dirty.
But I don’t want you getting too worried about that because we are going to bake this.
We are going to paint it so it will hide all of that.
In the painting I don’t want anybody being nervous about that.
It’s really easy.
For any of you that have ever spray painted anything, that’s what we’re going to be doing.
Okay, do you see what I’m doing—I’m rolling out.
Even that pea that I saw with this is just much too long, so I’m just going to cut
it to about like—it’s going across three of my fingers.
I don’t want to keep using inches or whatever.
Then we have to convert it or you have to convert it to metric.
We all have fingers whether you’re in France or Los Angeles.
So here it is, about three fingers across.
You’re not going to need this much anyway.
Okay, now, do you see how thin this is?
This is thinner than the wire that we use.
Can’t tell you how thick it is, just look at it.
It’s about as thick as maybe his fingers would be.
Can you kind of picture that like this?
Each one of these is going to be a rib.
We’re going to have to do these one at a time.
This where you’re going to have to be really patient,
because this is going to take about 40 minutes.
I don’t know if it’s maybe that long.
Maybe half an hour.
We’re going to see.
I want you to be patient.
I don’t want you rushing through this.
I’m going to have rush through this because we’re going to just keep the cameras rolling.
I’m going to start by doing this one very slowly because I need you to see what I’m
going to do with the first one so that I can tell you, okay, I’m going to do this 11
more times.
You cut that little piece.
Start with a little ball.
Roll it out until it’s about the size of his finger.
Then, if you know anything about ribs—the cross-cut of ribs.
For any of you that have ever had a rack of ribs on your plate, you know that they cut
the ribs in a cross-section, and they’re ovals.
This is an oval.
If I cut that, you’re going to see a circle because it’s cylindrical.
Once again, I need to clean my fingers because I have a little bit—I could tell—a little
bit of residue from the petroleum jelly.
It’s really almost impossible to get it off completely
unless you wash your hands thoroughly.
But I’m going to try because I need to tap it.
What I’m doing here is I’m tapping it so that it’s no longer cylindrical.
It’s flat on both sizes.
Once side is being pressed up by the base, and the other side on top here is being pressed
by my finger.
So, together the base and my finger are flattening out both sides.
Now, because there is Vaseline on here, petroleum jelly, what I’m going to do is I’m going
to take the side that was facing down here because it’s a little bit flatter, and I’m
going to place this on the first wire that I did.
I’m going to break it off right at the chest, at the sternum.
Now, I need to tell you this.
Do not think that the wire is inside that clay.
It is not.
The clay is sitting or laying right on the wire.
Do not force the issue.
Since this side is open, I’m just going to tap it.
If you were to look underneath here, if you had a little camera at the tip of my finger
you’d see the wire.
This clay is sitting right on the wire.
Please remember that because it’s easier than you think.
The only thing about this is that because there are 12 of them it just takes a little
bit of time.
You just have to be patient and just go with each one of these.
Like I said, this is going to take a little while because you can’t speed this up.
There is just no way of making this go faster.
Unless you speed up the film and just press forward.
Oh, this one is way too short.
You can see that I start with two—I was trying to get away with having to not do that
again.
Sometimes I see my students do this.
They’ll take a piece of clay and roll out a really long strip and just cut it up into
little sections.
You can do that.
But because I have such a small surface here and I don’t want to be off camera with this
big long snaky thing, I’m just going to leave it right here.
This looks pretty good.
Definitely long.
I know this is longer than the rib is.
I’m going to make sure that each one of these is uniform.
Once you start with a certain sized roll then you have to keep it consistent so that the
ribs don’t look off.
Big, small, small, big, medium but big, super big.
You don’t want that.
You want them to be pretty uniform.
Tap each one down.
Put the flat side—the side that was on the board here was much nicer than what my finger
was able to do.
I’m just going to just lay this right on top and then break it.
So it’s sitting on the second rib.
It’s going to test your dexterity.
Your fingers are all big, clumsy like mine, and it really teaches you to just be patient
and have the patience of a surgeon.
All artists can have that almost surgeon’s steadiness.
As I get older I get a little bit more shaky.
If I can do it, you can do it.
I’m going to roll them out.
It’s almost like being in a pastry class.
Just rolling it out, rolling it out.
You’re making pastries for the morning.
You tap, tap, tap, tap.
It’s like making cannolis and little éclairs.
There is another rib.
Do this 12 times.
It’s going to make the rib cage look really sophisticated.
Darn it to Betsy, too short.
I’m going to make sure I go longer rather than shorter.
We’re up to three.
Sometimes when you look at this arm wire you have to kind of like bend it out of the way
so that you try—the only problem is like the first and the second ribs because of this
support wire that’s holding the arms right there.
It’s getting a little bit tricky.
If you have to do something about that, do something about that.
If you think like the wires in the way like mine, you’ll notice I put a dip in it, kind
of bent it out of the way.
Then just do it.
There is a lot of leeway that you could use to make this work for you.
So, if something is in your way figure out a way of bending something so that it doesn’t
impede you.
Each one of these is about three to four fingers right now because they’re getting longer.
Each rib is getting longer, if you remember, from when we made the armature wire frame
just a little bit ago.
Tap, tap, tap.
Flatten.
Not too flat.
It’s just like if you could imagine a cross-section would be an oval.
You can see that the three-finger method, boy, it just barely made it here.
With the next one I’m going to go a little bit longer just to make sure I have enough.
It’s always easy to break it off.
As you can see, when I make this too short then I have to start it again.
I’d rather just break it off.
You’re not losing any clay, so don’t get cheap.
Use it again.
Watch this.
I’m going to make this one longer.
Now look at the size ball I’m starting with, about like that.
Remember, if you don’t have Vaseline on these wires this just simply would not work.
There is just no way that these would stick on there.
It’s like that glue that you need.
It’s got to be on there.
I wish there was a little bit faster way for me to do this, but this is it.
This is the way I designed this ecorché, and I just want you to be patient about this.
When you’re doing this at home, have a radio on or music or TV.
It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to do this is what I mean.
You could actually be doing something else.
Have a book on tape.
Learn another language.
Do something while you make ribs.
You’re learning ecorché anatomy with Rey Bustos, and you’re learning French or German
or Spanish.
A lot of this is just very therapeutic.
You’re not thinking; you’re just doing.
Once you get the rolling and you get the hang of it, you’re hands know what to do.
For any of you that like to cook, you’re not thinking, that’s why it’s such a great
thing to do when you’re cooking or something is have somebody in the kitchen.
You’re chit-chatting.
This is something that happens when I teach this in the classroom.
I hear some really wonderful conversations because there is no model in the room.
This is the project everybody is working on.
Everybody has their little ecorché and everybody just starts talking to each other.
It’s a really wonderful—I don’t allow any cell phones or anything like that or any
gadgets in my room so everybody has to just communicate with each other.
Nobody can have anything plugged into their ears.
That takes them away from being with each other.
It’s really important that for me that I get that across to my students that those
gadgets are actually taking from life rather than adding, and it’s isolating you.
What you want to do is not be isolated.
Really just listen to your thoughts rather than somebody else’s bad music.
Learn to think while you work, and it’s really pleasant.
Now I’m ready for the next little rib.
What I was doing was kind of moving some of the ribs because they were getting too clumped
together.
You could see that once you start putting the clay on these that inadvertently you’d
tap or you’d hit a rib wire and it moves too close to another one, and you have to
just kind of make them behave again and put them where they belong.
I mushed the back of this just to make sure it stays anchored to the back vertebra.
One, two, three, four, five six.
Got the sixth rib right in here.
Then the 7th one is where all the other ribs kind of start combining.
The other thing is I know that there is like a cartilage over here, and I’m going to
start trying to make it look like it changes direction but sometimes that could be a little
scary because you can mess thing up.
I’m going to be really careful about that because I don’t want to do that and confuse
you guys.
I want to try to keep it pretty straightforward.
Okay.
More ribs.
This is a long one so I want to make sure I have enough.
I’m going four fingers.
I don’t want to take a chance.
It’s easy to break off.
I just can’t add to it.
Seven.
Okay, so those are the true ribs.
Remember, we talked about this.
Seven true ribs, and then there are three false ribs; 8th, 9th, and 10th.
They’re all going to basically merge in this area.
Actually, in real life they merge together but it’s cartilage.
We’re going to have to try to simulate that.
Let me just get this.
This one should also be about four fingers wide, 3-1/2 or 4 fingers wide.
Notice that I’m kind of blending them together over here a little bit because this is going
to simulate the cartilage.
It won’t be gray but it’ll be pretty good.
These are shorter.
I don’t need to go quite as long.
The 7th and 8th ribs are the ribs are the widest area, usually the 8th rib.
In my case it’s like the 7th one but it’s okay.
Then it starts coming back and being smaller.
Talk about the rib cage.
It’s widest at the 8th rib.
There, like this.
I don’t know what I’d do without that petroleum jelly helping me stick this on there.
It’s even tricky with it.
Without it it would be really impossible.
I’m also tapping it onto the wire.
Remember the merging of ribs in this area.
It’s actually the cartilage of the rib cage.
Not bad.
Looks pretty neat, doesn’t it?
We get little debris stuck in there, falling.
There.
Okay, this one is a little shorter.
I don’t need quite as much of a little sneaky guy.
I’m going to tap it, tap it.
Tap it.
There are various way of making ecorchés.
This is what I came up with, and I really like this method of making an ecorché, and
I like the fact that you can bake it and make it hard so that when you’re putting muscles
on here it’s on a hard surface.
I know the size might feel a little small, but I also like the size of it—16 inches
tall, 8 inches tall.
The head in this case being 2 inches tall.
You can see where all these ribs merge and congregate and kind of melt together.
Sometimes you can see there are like little openings.
The ribs appear to be kind of melting together like that.
That’s kind of like the idea.
Do you see that?

Okay, so I hope that wasn’t too challenging for you.
What I try to do is I try to show you simpler ways of doing things.
I’m hoping that felt reasonable.
It’s never going to be super easy, but it was probably much easier, at least my students
always think so.
It’s much easier than when they see the finished product—they’re always like how
do you do that?
How do you do this?
It’s nice to see an ecorché with actual separate ribs rather than starting with a
big block and just kind of carving.
It’s not good or bad.
It’s just I kind of like being able to see the rib cage like this.
The one thing I haven’t done, and I totally forgot—we’re still not finished with that.
I have a clump of clay here.
The only two things I introduce is behind me I had my big clump of clay, and I just
took a meatball sized piece of clay out like this.
Because I’ve had my clay firming up in between paper towels, this feels pretty significant now.
It’s nice and firm.
But I still have my little floating ribs, which I almost forgot about.
They’re so cute.
They’re just sitting there all by themselves waiting for a little attention.
And I’m going to give it to them now.
I’m just going to take another little piece.
I’m going to clean this up for you.
I don’t things looking unsightly.
I’m kind of picky about that.
There.
I want to clean up before I have company come over, and that’s you.
So there it is.
I’m going to make it a little smaller.
Okay, flatten.
It’s sticking to my hand.
Flatten, flatten.
I’m going to probably just leave it at this.
Alright, so remember, the two floating ribs.
The two that protect your little kidneys, there is one of them.
The 11th rib.
Last but not least—well, it’s last and least as the 12th rib.
It’s like a little spike.
You know, it’s just a little tiny wires on there.
Notice I’m just rolling out a very small piece.
It’s all I need.
Flattening it out.
It’s not going to end up in the front.
I try to give it a little bit of a point or a little taper.
This might be enough.
I’m not sure.
There.
Hopefully you can see that a little more clearly.
Notice I didn’t get too noodly about anything in the back.
You might be wondering—gosh, that back is totally unfinished.
You know why?
The back is totally unfinished.
I’m going to show you how to do that.
It’s fabulous.
You’re going to like it.
Again, it’s going to be kind of like a cooking class.
I’m going to show you how to do the back as if you’re doing some kind of fancy pastry.
I know they’re a little wobbly and all that, but it’s okay.
The good thing about this is that if yours are a little wobbly, mine is a little wobbly.
You don’t think you have to be especially talented to do this.
I’m not actually a sculptor.
I just make things three-dimensionally.
There is a big difference.
I’m not thinking of this as something that is going to go on my mantle.
This is something that I learn by doing, so I want you to think the same way.
At the same time that’s something I’m hoping that you’ll be really, really proud of.
Okay, now we did the left finished rib cage.
What we need to do is take like the big meatball, and I’m going to take this and shape it
kind of like that other rib cage.
I usually tell my students that I try to take like a left ear.
See my left ear?
It’ll be like that.
It sounds kind of silly but it works.
So, I’m going to make a left ear.
The bottom part of your ear is a little bit more tapered on the top, etc.
Make me a big old Abraham Lincoln here.
Nice big ear like this.
It’s also substantial.
Do you see this?
Can you sense that this is thick?
It’s not going to fall apart.
It’s about this thick.
I don’t want it to be too thin.
Don’t try to get cheap on me.
What happens is it’s going to fall apart.
This is the right rib cage, and we’re going to do that like a shell.
What I’m going to do is I’m going to take this ear shape and turn it upside down so
hopefully this will work.
Big old elephant ear kind of shape.
Like this, like this, like this.
That’s too much.
Let’s see how this is going to feel.
It’s hard to explain the size and shape and everything.
I just want you to visualize it because we could cut this.
We could add to it.
We could alter this a little bit.
The back part I’m making a little bit flatter.
I want it to be stuck on the back rib cage.
This is really important because we’re going to be doing a shell of a rib cage on the right
side.
Oftentimes, the natural tendency for my students is to try to match this side.
I don’t want you to do that.
I want you to make it smaller because this may be too big for you to put muscles on,
but if this is a little bit smaller than we could accommodate that by putting muscles
on top of it.
But if it’s too big to start with, then when you put muscles on it becomes bigger
and bigger and bigger.
I’d rather start with something just a little bit smaller and not have it match the other side.
I’m going to put this right across here.
Now, watch what I do when I turn this around because it’s not done, but it’s substantial.
It’s thick enough where I can still manipulate it.
Do you see what I’m doing?
Mushing it just indicates that I am blending it into the vertebra.
See, I’m really pushing my fingers into it so that it’s not stuck on there.
It’s a part of it now.
That’s really important with Sculpey.
You make it a part of the other clay that you’re adding it on rather than sticking
this on there.
If there are any gaps it will break off.
So right now it’s looking pretty good.
It’s thick enough where I could still go underneath this rib cage with my fingers and
attach it to that front wire.
Do you see what I’m doing?
I’m rolling it over.
I’m sticking my pinky finger because my pinky finger is the only thing that reaches
in there, also pulling as best that I can without messing anything up.
It’s not always possible but we’re trying really hard.
Now I’m going to take my X-acto knife.
See how substantial this is.
This is really big and it’s thick.
I could push in and shape it from the inside and make that egg-shaped.
Do you see what I just did?
Just making a big egg shape.
Don’t worry about the shape of it or anything.
Talk about like the opening.
Blend this in really, really good.
I just hit one of these wires.
One of these ribs a little too hard and discombobulated them, so I’m going to bring them back.
I didn’t want to damage them, and I did.
I want to just bring this back.
Same thing may happen to you.
Your finger is slipping, you hit something.
That’s exactly what I did here.
Guess what?
I never breathe too hard.
Everything is always okay with me.
Don’t let anything get me down.
Too many fabulous things to think about than getting frustrated.
Okay, can you see that?
It’s nice and blended.
That is a part of the vertebra now.
There, there, there.
When I look at it from here it looks like he’s going to start having too big of a
belly, like there is something protruding from this abdominal wall, so I’m just going
to chop that ever so slightly.
We’re going to be putting a sternum on here as well, a breastbone.
That will kind of clean some of this unsightly stuff up almost like unfinished look because
it is unfinished.
I’m also trying to pull some of this excess clay into the sternum just to help it stay
there better.
Now I’m going to take my chopper and start shaping this better.
See this?
This is the other tool that I introduced in the session.
It’s this.
If you don’t have anything like this, you can make something like this.
At the hardware store I see these edgers for painting.
It almost looks like an old blind.
You hold it and it’s longer.
You push it up against the window sill or door jab, and you could paint.
Your brush does this and it keeps it clean.
You can take something like this and have these flat metal tools.
These are great.
Or these in the clay section of your art store.
If not, you could always find something around in the junk drawer.
Something that will be nice and flat.
It allows you to chop.
The X-acto knife is, of course, incredibly valuable for making precise cuts like this.
Now you can see how nice and easy the rib cage on the right side was.
At least I hope you think it’s easy because it felt easy to me.
I’m not being facetious like, oh, you know, I’ve done this before; it is easy.
There is going to be an abdominal support there, so I’m not going to be too concerned
with anything that doesn’t look quite perfect just yet.
This side is going to be engulfed in muscle, so I’m going to take this and push it right
into that vertebra, and it will be okay for me to do that.
Okay, you get the idea of the rib cage on this side.
I don’t care if it’s left a little choppy like that because this is going to be all
covered up with lots of muscle.

You may have been wondering about the back of the vertebra.
Unfinished.
Not very pretty.
Now we’re going to take care of that in a very easy manner.
I have my roller here, but this had been already rolled out from when I was drawing my clay.
But what I did is I took my clay that was rolled out from the pasta maker,
and I doubled it up.
If you don’t have something like that then you can just use any kind of roller like this.
You can see that this is about as thick as the wire is thick.
Do you see that?
About 1/8 of an inch thick.
Now watch what I do because it’s easy but I don’t want you thinking I’m doing anything fancy.
Do you see that?
Okay, and we’ll just cut it off right there.
I’ll explain what I’m doing after I do it.
Okay, so what I did is I took a rolled out piece.
This is pretty thick.
You don’t want it to be any thicker than this.
Even this might be a little too thick.
Remember, I want to keep it about the same thickness that that wire is thick, about 1/8 inch.
This is much longer than what I need.
This is going to be the vertebra.
Every once in awhile you can turn things around and you can look to see if there is anything
that might look a little funny.
These ribs.
Do you remember, I hid these pretty good.
I want to fix these again and just get them back to an orderly position there.
Notice that this session here is a little bit wider than the top.
It’s basically like this.
Once you see the top of the vertebra there you can chop this off as well.
Is that about right?
Yeah, it’s about right.
You don’t measure.
You just eyeball.
Now you’re going to see how cool this is.
Let me turn this around.
Well, you know what?
I’m going to leave it like this.
The back is going to be the start of the show right now.
I’m going to clear all this stuff just so you’re not distracted by my little mess here.
Okay, so what I have now is this section.
About half of an inch wide over here.
A little less than that up here.
It’s pretty thick.
What I do now is I lay this down.
This is a tool I made with a hairpin.
If you have a store-bought tool kind of like this that might do as well.
What I like about this is because it’s a hair pin it’s flat wire, and that cuts a
little bit better.
Having the wider part towards me—remember, the wider part is the bottom.
This is the top.
The top part away from me, the bottom part closer to me.
This is where me make the pastry chef kind of mark.
I’m going to move this out of the way.
I’m going to keep everything as clear as possible so that you’re not seeing anything
that might confuse you.
Watch what I’m going to do.
I’m going to dig in like this.
Then I’m going to pull up without breaking that.
We’re going to make these little alligator teeth kind of things.
Touching the one I just made, that’s going to be a spinous process which is part of the
vertebra, the part that sticks out on the back.
Sometimes on really thin people you can see on their backs there is what appears to be
a roll of beads in their back.
That’s these guys, spinous processes.
Some of you have what I call the peapod where part of is open.
You can see the little dot, dot, dot.
Some of you have it on top.
Some of you have it on the bottom.
Some of you have it all the way up.
Some of you just have a crease all the way down your back.
There are different kinds of backs just like different kinds of noses.
Watch what I’m going to do.
I’m touching the one I just made, and I’m making the next one.
Remember, these are just indicated spinous processes.
It’s just to fool the viewer’s eye into thinking that you did something that requires
incredible skill.
You and I know that it’s kind of like making a little pastry, a little decorative trim.
Do you see what I’m doing?
Look at that.
Isn’t it interesting?
You make these little alligator teeth kind of things by pushing, pulling, pushing, pulling up.
Pushing into the clay.
Pulling up until it creates that little tooth or cog.
See that?
Trying to keep my fingers out of the way so you can see this.
It’s really quite simple.
The youngest student I had make an ecorché was 9 years old.
She did a great job.
She loved doing this, thought it was a lot of fun.
Everybody thinks it’s a lot of fun.
It’s a way of fooling the viewer’s eye into thinking there is a lot more detail there
than there really is.
As you can see, it’s really simple.
I just go all the way up until I run out of clay.
The way I space them is I just touch the one that’s right below it.
We end up with these little teeth.
You can see kind of what I’m trying to get to.
Do you see that?
Now, only on the left side, I take something else, whether it’s the same tool or anything
like this store-bought one.
If you don’t have anything like this, make it.
I don’t even match them up with anything.
All l do is cut and take these little bites.
Do you see that?
Just keep biting into this.
Bite, bite, and etcetera.
Only on the left side because on the right side I’m going to use that extra clay to
mush it in and to make sure it’s secure.
I’ll show you a few little tricks like this.
This is going to impress all your friends and family alike.
All these things you just come to from doing this for years and years.
Start learning how to simplify things.
It’s not so much that this is a project I do.
This is a project I get my students to do.
The way a sculptor would do it if he was doing something for a job is very different than
the way we make an ecorché because the ecorché is just a learning process, and that’s the
way you want to keep remembering this.
Take a look at this magic little thing.
I’m just going to roll that up there.
I’m going to just take care of some of these little loose ends almost like split ends on
your hair on your head.
I’m going to blend this in on the right side.
See how my thumb is pressing in over here on this side.
It’s just a way of securing it onto the body.
Keep blending, smushing, push into it.
This is not going to go anywhere.
Secured.
Secure.
Push, push, push, push.
There.
It doesn’t have to match up with any of the ribs, nothing.
Nothing like that.
Don’t even waste your time trying to have things match up.
It’ll take you like half a year to do it if you wanted to do it super accurately.
We’re indicating.
You just need to know the general idea of the rib cage and the vertebra.
Now, to make it just a little more effective and to help it in staying on the vertebra,
usually I take like this little tool here, any kind of knife blade type of tool, letter
opener type tool, and oftentimes I just cut into each one of them like this.
Just to separate each one of these.
This is if I want to.
Sometimes just here and there.
They’re already pretty mushed together.
Just to make the illusion more effective sometimes I separate them.
At the same I’m pushing it into the vertebra and getting rid of any of these those ends.
Sometimes there is what appears to be debris.
Pretty neat, eh?

There.
That little rib is bothering me.
It just does not want to behave.
I’m trying to get that to just stay there better.
Okay, that’s going to have to do because I have other things I want to get to besides
trying to take care of this unruly rib.
His 12th rib got knocked around a little bit.
I don’t mind telling you that because the same thing might be happening to you.
Just fix it.
I’m just going to look over the ribs one more time.
If one of them is a little too far apart from the others, just move the whole rib and wire
up a little closer.
I’m looking over here to see what I can change and make it a little bit nicer.
Take a rounded stick.
This is just something you do afterward and just go in between each of the ribs just a
little bit.
Now I’m going to make—it’s going to look like a little necktie, but in fact it
will be the sternum right down here to the end here.
Got it?
I had that little extra piece over here so I’m going to start with that and just use
this to help me out.
The sternum looks like a necktie because the necktie was designed with the sternum in mind.
I don’t know if you knew that.
Somebody thought, you know that sternum is kind of neat.
Let’s make an external sternum and call it a gentleman’s tie.
Check this out.
This is the knot part of the necktie called the manubrium.
It sits right up here.
I’m going to mush it down.
I’m going to really squeeze it down.
I don’t care about the right side because the right side is going to be the muscle side.
The body part of the sternum is kind of wavy.
Sometimes you can see this on thin models.
It kind of has this wavy look to it.
I’m also going to indent in between the ribs again.
Making it look like they’re all kind of part of the same system.
See what I’m doing?
I’m just softening it up.
I just knocked one of these off the wire.
I’m going to put it back.
This got really unruly.
It just didn’t want to behave, but there it is.
This one is really giving me some issues.
See what it looks like on the back.
It might be a back issue.
There.
Alright, let’s take a look at our handywork now before we move on.
Now what we need to do is create support.
I’m going to show this to you, though.
There are some issues here.
Look at that vertebra.
Doesn’t that look neat?
It just looks a lot more complicated than it really is, but that will be our little secret.
What I want to do is support that abdominal cavity right in here.
That opening just won’t work.
What I have here is I have the clay that I’ve had drying out, firming up a little bit.
I could just take strips of this, making sure it’s long enough.
Let’s see if it’s going to stay underneath here.
I think it will.
I’m trying to make it a little smaller just to make sure I get manipulated in here.
I’m going to attach it somewhere, anywhere in here in the inside.
I’m really forcing it because I need to.
I’m forcing it onto the pelvis like this.
There.
That’s pretty darn good like that.
You’ll notice that there is a little hole over here.
I need to patch that up.
Look at all these little random pieces.
It doesn’t matter because it’s just support.
Just take any of these random pieces and make them fit in here.
Here is another little random one.
Notice I’m also putting on the inside part of the pelvis and right up to the thorax or
what I call the Thoracic Park area of the body.
I’m trying to bridge these together just so I can blend them so when it’s baked it’ll
be supportive and not loose.
It really challenges your fingers to really be delicate when you’re touching this.
Make sure that there isn’t like a big potbelly.
We’re going to try to keep it somewhat trim because this is just support for the muscles.
It’s not the muscles themselves.
This isn’t anything anatomical.
It’s support.
See how nice that is?
It’s going to bake and it’s going to be hard.
That’s coming up in a few short sessions.
We’ll be baking that.
So don’t go away; we’ll be baking soon enough.
You just bake this in your own home oven.
You don’t need anything fancy.
The standard size oven is fine for this project.
That looks pretty good.
The other thing I’m going to have you do is this.
See this area between here and here?
We need to fill that.
Just take a clump of clay like this.
It’s almost like you’re making a cone, and the cone is on the body.
The tip of the cone is at that shoulder.
I’m trying to blend this together.
Anyway, so here it is.
It’s almost going to replicate the pectoral muscle.
Watch.
This is also the way the pectoralis major is going to appear.
You’re just making a line from the chest to the shoulder.
It doesn’t have to be pretty.
It’s just support.
All of this is support.
Later on when we put the muscle clay on there—if you’re doing it the way I’m doing it you’re
going to be using the chocolate colored Sculpey, and we’ll be doing that shortly.
Before you know it you’ll be putting muscles on here.
The hardest thing about this ecorché, I think, is the skeleton.
Know that it’s not that it gets easy, but I think it gets easier.
Then I’m going to do the same thing with the backside.
See how there is a big gaping hole there.
What I’m going to do is fill that.
I’m going to take some random pieces off my table surface, my work surface, and put
these together and do the same thing.
Go from the back to that point.
See that?
It’s just like a big wad of gum.
Nothing fancy.
It’s just support.
I’m going to put this on there.
Remember how thick this wall was?
Now you can see why because you really manhandle this.
This is going to be handled pretty roughly oftentimes.
Because of that, the rib cage cannot fall apart.
Okay, I hope you guys could see that.
I also want you to know that I wasn’t doing anything too fancy.
Do you see that right there?
It’s just support.
It’s just a big wad of that clay.
I’m creating almost like a cone from the body to the very point where the arm is going
to come out of.
Blend.
This blending is what makes this one.
Now it’s one piece rather than many pieces put together.
Okay, now we’re getting it.
See that?
Look around for if there is anything I need to push and pull.
Okay, now we can make humeri.
At some point we’re going to need to figure out what we need to do with the fingers.
I’m going to try to keep this ecorché pretty straightforward.
I don’t want it to be too straightforward because you might not learn as much if I get
too crazy with the pose or whatever.
I’m bringing that shoulder down to match the other one just a little bit more.
Do you see what I did?
Those two points are somewhat a little bit more uniform.

Humerus.
It’s been awhile since I put Vaseline on there.
I just didn’t want to take a chance because it’s invisible.
I want to put more on there because it’s invisible.
I’m not 100% sure.
I’m pretty sure I did, but it doesn’t hurt to put just a little bit more.
Once again—let me get my handy-dandy cleaning device.
I’ve got a little bit of that excess off my fingers.
Now we’re ready for the humerus.
I’m going to do the left one first because the left one is a little bit harder.
It’s going to look kind of funny for a little bit because we’re not doing the scapula
and the arm is actually attached to the scapula.
There is a reason for all of this first.
We need to do this fist.
I want to put clay around here.
It always works better to put a little bit more than what you need.
The humerus has kind of a little cap around it.
It’s a ball that goes into the socket, and the socket will be on the scapula.
Interestingly enough, that’s how it’s attached to the skeletal system.
It doesn’t really have much of a connection.
The ball touches the socket, and the socket, which is on the scapula, only touches the
clavicle.
The clavicle only touches here.
By extension your home is only touching a bone—that bone is only touching right here.
That’s what gives you so much mobility with your arms is that they’re actually almost
a separate part of the skeletal system, as opposed to your legs which are really tied
to the rest of the body in the chassis of your body.
There is a little what’s called a corona which exposes two of these tubercles right
in here and a little groove where your biceps muscle, the tendon of it is going to run through.
I’m just going to kind of leave it like this.
That’s the bulbous part of it.
Now I’m going to do the shaft part of it.
Maybe I can just take a bunch of clay and just surround this area and then trim it all
through a little bit.
That’s all one bone.
It’s much bigger than it needs to be right now.
It’s easy to work bigger first.
Work a little bigger first and then you reduce.
I just think it’s a little easier.
At the end of the bone it flares out, and it becomes your funny bone.
I’ll push this down just a little bit.
It might be too long.
Take my X-acto knife and just start trimming this bone because it’s really big.
Now that I’ve trimmed a whole bunch of it off, I can shape it a little more easily.
The inside part, the funny bone is pointy.
The outside flares out just a little bit.
The whole thing has a little bit of a curve to it towards the front.
I’m just caressing it and shaping it all around by pushing my fingers all around by
pushing my fingers together, with the bone, the clay in between my fingers.
Then, of course, you have to rotate it to make sure that you’re being consistent with
the thickness of it.
It’s all wobbly, so you take your X-Acto knife and you just keep trimming until you
start getting it to be the right size.
It can’t be too big because you don’t want it to compete with your femur.
It looks pretty good right now.
It’s pretty close to the wire.
Distally is what we call it in anatomy speak.
Proximal, distal.
Distally it flares out a little bit.
The bone is a little wobbly, so I’m going to straighten that out.
All that is is just redistributing the clay.
It’s not the wire.
The wire is fine.
The clay is getting a bit wobbly, so I need to change that a little bit.
Since I lost that bicipital groove I’m going to put that back.
It’s a little notch right at the end right after the ball.
That’s pretty good.
I bent that wire because I wanted this to curve a little bit more, if you didn’t see
what I just did.
That was just one of those last-second things that I felt it needed.
I curved it towards us a little bit more.
When you look at it from the side here you can see it curving toward the front like a
little scoop.
The funny bone is pretty prominent.
Good, because we need that to be.
When we do the next session, it should be the rest of this short of the skull will be done.
This little guy right here where I’m pinching it is where the deltoid tuberosity.
That’s the deltoid tuberosity.
It’s a little raises area of the bone.
Like this.
That looks pretty darn good.
This is going to suffice over here.
There is a little triangulation.
There is a little like a capitellum and trochlea over here, which is a fancy way of saying
there is all spool over here where my fingernail is, and over here a little ball.
You have both a ball and socket and a hinge joint.
It’s the only place that you have that.
That allows you thumb to rotate or pronate.
The radius and the ulna pronate like this.
This is supinate like you’re begging for soup.
It’s up like that.
Pronate is like this.
I’m going to keep this supinated because it makes it easier to study.
That’s why in anatomical charts and stuff like that the body is always just kind of supinated.
It’s just more straightforward and easier to understand.
I’m trying to create a little bit more space between the radius and the ulna at the beginning
because my wires got a little bit too close together.
What I’m doing here is separating them just a little bit.
I think it’ll be easier and better to work.
I’m also trying to create a little bit more of a clean arc rather than wiggly little wire,
so it’ll be easier to put clay on there.
Okay, so now that I did the humerus on this side—this is the left side, so it has to
be a little bit neater.
The other side I could get away with just doing something like this.
I want to put a ball here, everybody, and just almost leave it like that.
It might not look good to some of you, most of you.
That’s not my concern.
It doesn’t bother me.
This will kind of almost finish up this session, and then we can move on to the next session,
which will be the radius and the ulna.
The scapulas so that it just doesn’t look like it just has these floating bones.
I’m going to shave this down a little bit.
It’s a little unruly.
Caress it as well.
If you see the little arc there where the deltoid would attach.
If you work out a lot, this eventually gets bigger.
You could tell on a skeleton what kind of life a person may have had.
You know, if it feels kind of sedentary or worked out a lot or worked the fields or did
some kind of real manual-type labor, you could actually see that on the bones.
Over here it doesn’t have to be so neat and pretty so I’m going to leave it almost
as rough as you see it.
I definitely need a medial and lateral epicondyle.
Or your funny bone and the lateral part—so basically this part needs to look right because
that is exposed bone, and it’s also where we’re going to have to attach muscles onto.
Your flexor muscles, at least the ones we talk about as artists, are going to be attached
to the funny bone right in here.
Literally over here because this is the muscle side.
Your extensors will be on the back of your hand and attached from here.
The flexors that make you do a fist will be on this side here.
That looks pretty good.
It’s going to look kind of silly, but it doesn’t need to look really beautiful.
If you want it to look a little bit better for picture day then you can trim a little
bit of it off if it really bothers you.
I’m doing a little bit of that just so it doesn’t look so bad on camera, but you know
I don’t care because I know later on the muscles will cover up all that imperfections.
I do want to leave the deltoid tuberosity, though.
There is your funny bone right in here.
Nice, sharp and defined.
See how much we got done so far.
Look at the tummy.
See how it’s starting to protrude out a little bit.
I’m going to push it in a little bit.
Before this gets baked, I want to make sure that this does not stick out to much.
I’ll blend it in pretty nicely.
I think it’ll be okay because that’s kind of bothering me that it might break or something.
Put a little bit of clay there.
I invite you to do the same.
If you feel like there is an area that might be too weak.
But, I don’t want it to stick out too much.
I just wanted to add a little bit more support on the back there.
There is support there and now it feels really strong to me.
This next part I want you to really look closely.
Take a look at this next area here at the groin.
There is a muscle.
Those of you who eat meat know it’s called the filet mignon.
It’s on the inside part right over here where your vertebra is, of course, on a cow.
On us it’s right over here and it pours out, and it goes back to the lesser trochanter.
But I need to actually cut a little hole here just so I can do that with my clay.
Now, this is an option, but since it’s really easy to do I might as well just tell you what
I’m doing and why.
I have this little hole that I cut out right there for the iliopsoas muscle or the filet
mignon muscle.
That muscle comes back here from where my finger is hiding, pours out of here, comes
out of here, uses this as a fulcrum, goes back to this spot
so when it shortens it raises the knee.
It also helps you to do sit-ups.
Oftentimes when you’re doing crunches you’re actually building up that muscle.
Secondarily would be your rectus abdominis or 6-pack muscles.
Some of you that might do pilates or yoga, your instructor, facilitator might talk about
the iliopsoas muscle and how important it is.
It’s one of the core muscles right in here.
That benefits you if you keep that really strong.
Stabilizes the pelvis and it helps you bring your knees up.
Muscles oftentimes do multiple jobs.
There is a little rip in here, and I want to fix that because I don’t like it.
I know my hand is in the way, but all I’m doing is pinching that right in here.
Okay, that’s not bad.
Remember, this doesn’t have to be pretty right there.
There is always a part of me that really wants to try and make it pretty for you.
Unfortunately, that’s not always possible when we’re doing a quick little ecorché
like this.
I’m going to take my tool here and show you how to help yourselves out if you do have
little wavy areas.
Use whatever tool that you can to kind of straighten, fix things up a little bit.
There, that’s not bad.
That’s pretty good.
This is good.
Since we’re finished with this session it’s time to do an overall…look around, see how
you can fix this and that.
Tighten things up a little bit.
I’m going to take my X-Acto knife and kind of trim some of this.
Make it cleaner like that.
Didn’t want you to not see what I’m doing because it’s nothing fancy.
I’m just making sharper, delineated cuts so it looks a little bit more finished.
This tool is great because it’s kind of like a shaver.
It’s flat at the end.
If you have something like this, great.
If not, make something like this.
One of the best things that you could do is buy hairpins
and just make a few little tools that replicate some of the store-bought tools.
This one is good because it’s like shaving the clay down, reducing it, cleaning it up.
Because we’re getting close to finishing this whole thing up, it’s really good to
before you go to the next step is to really give it another good view.
Look at it from different points and see what you can fix a little bit.
I’m just going to reduce this because now this is looking kind of big compared to that
beautiful and elegant femur because I just shaved that down.
I feel the need to shave this down.
Do you see what I’m doing?
I’m just reducing.
You could do it anyway that you can, even if you have a razor blade or your X-Acto knife
or whatever.
Make it a little bit more elegant.
Smooth it out with my fingers and make it really pretty.
Here is another thing that I did with the femur that I’m going to do now.
With this little tool, this little sewing needle, I’m going to pit it.
Remember that I did the pits just a little bit ago?
Now I’m going to do the same thing with this humerus, which reminds me, that’s why
in the United States we call it the funny bone over here because it’s on your humerus,
this little spot.
There is really nothing funny about it.
If you’ve ever it an edge of a table or anything like that you know it hurts like heck.
You get that electric shock kind of feeling.
The ulnar nerve goes right over that.
When you hit it’s just like an exposed nerve in your mouth.
You bite into something.
If you have an exposed nerve on that tooth it hurts like heck.
That’s what happens.
You always have that exposed nerve right at the edge of the inside of your humerus, and
it hurts like heck.
I’m going to pit this because I think it’ll look better once we paint it.
Put little pits.
Is this good enough?
Yeah, I think this one is good enough right over here.
I want you to look at that because I don’t want you thinking that this side has to be
totally and completely finished.
This is enough for that.
I need to make sure that the fingers are behaving again, the wires.
Now we’re going to go into the next session really
which means that these are going to be important.
I want to really look at these one more time.
When I start the next session I will go over that once again.
I want to keep this somewhat simple.
Talk about the pose of the hands, maybe curl the fingers a little bit like this.
I want to go over the ribs again, making sure that they look okay to me.
Once they’re baked that’s pretty much it.
There.
Even though this doesn’t have to be pretty over here, it doesn’t have to be messy either.
There.
Pick up all the little loose ends.
Got it one more time.
Nice ball there.
Remember, I know every once in awhile my hands get in the way or whatever.
I just don’t want you thinking I’m doing anything fancy.
I’m just looking around seeing if there is anything that really just stands out.
I want you to do the same thing.
I want you to just kind of look at before we go to the next step.
Here is the tuberosity for the deltoid.
There is the lateral epicondyle.
I’m going to curl it towards us right in here.
I’ll push it towards us.
I’m trying to get that really nice and that’s it.
Okay, so as I promised, that vertebral column as a lot easier than you though.
Now that we have the abdominal support it’s going to be ready to accept any kind of muscles
we put on there.
We did the humeri, so now we’re going to be moving on to beginning the skull, and we’re
going to be finishing up the arms and the hands.
Basically, it’s going to be almost done.
So, we’ll see you next time.