World-renowned sculptor Johanna Schwaiger joins New Masters Academy.
Johanna brings over 20 years of expertise in portrait and figure sculpting, having taught
at schools and shown her work in galleries across the globe.
In this series, she will teach you her method for sculpting a female portrait in clay.
Beginning with the fundamentals on materials and basic clay application, Johanna then moves
on to work from a live model, showing you the procedures and methods to
accurately place the features of the head.

Welcome to the first lesson of a series, Sculpting From Life.
Today we are going to be sculpting a female portrait from life.
Before we are going to ask a model in to sit down for us, as a sculptor, you have to make
sure and prepare a few things first.
First of all, you have to think about what material you want to model the sculpture in.
The most common modeling materials are water-based clay and oil-based clay.
Today we are going to be using [water]-based clay.
There are a few advantages and disadvantages about both materials.
Water-based clay is a little bit easier to manipulate.
It’s easier to apply, too.
That’s the big advantage about it.
What’s not so good about it is you need to keep it moist at all times.
It has a shrinkage.
It can crack and you have to keep it moist always.
With oil-based clay you don’t need to do that, but it’s a little bit harder, and
you have to sometimes make it warm first or heat it up so it becomes softer.
This is oil-based clay.
They come in different kinds of colors.
Here is like a yellowish one, red one, and a kind of greenish one.
Sometimes they are harder or softer, but you might want to try out for yourself what you
want to use.
This water-based clay that we will be using today, you can also fire it at the end so
it’s fireable.
Make sure you buy clay that’s kind of smooth so it doesn’t have too much sand in it.
They like to put sand in it to make the body more solid and stronger so you’re able to
build more.
But as a figurative sculptor, you might want to just build the armature really strong so
the clay really holds onto it.
Water-based clay also comes in different comes in different kinds of colors.
If I fired this that would, I think, turn out white.
The next thing we need to have prepared first is the armature.
You want your armature to be solid and strong and not too big.
For a portrait armature, it’s fairly simple.
This is just a 2 x 2 pole that I screwed onto this board.
I screwed a few of these screws on it so the clay has something to stick on it and doesn’t
fall down.
You notice that this comes in an angle, or I made an angle for it.
That’s because the spine is not totally straight.
The spine up to the head is a little bit angled.
This is imitating the human spine and the back of the cranium will be sort of placed
here, and the face will be here.
We have to make sure to center the head straight onto the armature to make sure that the clay
doesn’t fall off from the front or from the back.
This is the armature that we will be using for a life-sized portrait.
I want to show you a few tools you need for portrait sculpture.
First of all, you need a tool to make the major block in the volume.
This tool I made myself.
This is Austrian Oak.
It doesn’t have to have this curvature, but I like it because it’s really easy to
hold in the hand.
It kind of imitates the curvature of my hand.
Here it is flat.
That is important too so it doesn’t have a bump.
On this side you can see this is fairly flat and just comes in a curvature like this.
The reason is I don’t want bumps onto my sculpture.
That’s a very good tool to like make the big blocking shapes.
The further we go with sculpting, you will sculpt from the big massive volumes and go
further and further to the more detailed shapes.
Therefore, you need also smaller tools.
I have a few tools that come in this kind of shape that I just described but in different
sizes.
This one also imitates the shape of the hand so it lays good in my hand.
I can cover my index finger with it, and it’s flat on the top.
That way I can apply the clay easy and just place the clay where I want it and just go
over it, and I can shape it the way I like it.
I have a few of these in different kind of sizes.
This one is smaller for the more detailed shapes.
Then I have a very small one for like very detailed things like eyes and going over the
nose and features of the face.
Those I use to apply clay, to add clay.
Then I have also sort of like knife-shaped tools like this one.
With that I also apply, but at the same time I formed directions or make plane changes.
Therefore, I use what looks like a knife.
I never use the other end.
I always just use this end.
Also, I’m using it to draw onto the sculpture.
If I want to, let’s say, make a shape out of something, I use this kind of knife.
I have it also in different kinds of sizes, depending on if I sculpt something bigger
or if I need a detail so I have a knifey kind of shape like this.
And this I made myself, like this is really depending on the way you like it, but I made
myself some tools that I know I would use.
This is a hard wood.
I think it’s oak too, Austrian Oak.
If you make yourself tools, make sure you use a hardwood, but not too hard.
If it’s too hard, it tends to like break easily because it doesn’t have a lot of
flexibility.
If it’s too soft, it tends to absorb the moisture and also becomes too soft on the
edges.
Oak is good.
I don’t know a lot of American woods, but this is the most common wood that I usually
use.
And then I would like to show you the very small tools that you can use to manipulate
the very finishing.
This is—it has round ends.
These are used to make the inside of the eyes.
Those are really helpful too.
You can make them yourself.
I like to order them at a place called Tiranti.
This is an English art supply store that you can make orders.
There is the so-called B-series that I personally prefer.
But, just look on their website under professional hardwood tools you see all the different types
of shapes, and you can choose from those.
Another really important thing that we will be using all the time since we will be making
a life-sized sculpture, is a caliper.
This is how I measure the model, the heights and the widths.
This is easy to move.
Those calipers come in wood, too.
Sometimes you can use a caliper that if let’s say it don’t work life-sized, you can use
a convertible one that I might show in a different kind of lesson.
One more tool that’s really important is when I want to cut the clay, I’m using this
cutter, which is just a wire attached to two wooden handles.
With that I can just cut the clay really easily just like that.
I can cut big shapes or small shapes, whatever I need.
Before I ask the model in to sit for us, we want to save time.
I think it is important to add already the big shapes onto the armature.
In order to do that, I think it’s important to have a little bit of understanding of the
human skull.
This is a very, very simplified shape of the human skull, but in any visual art it’s
very important that we get into a habit that we go from the most simple information to
the more detailed.
The most simple information on the human head really is like two major forms.
It’s the cranium here, like the big shape, and then the face.
Those are two big major parts that we need to understand first.
Then we go deeper and deeper into detail.
The head has a certain height, and it has a certain width.
It’s all we need to worry about in the beginning, just the basic volumes.
Just the height, the width, and the depth.
That’s the three things that we need to worry about in the beginning.
As soon as we have that locked in, we decide to mark certain things on the sculpture with
the tool that I just showed you, like the knife tool.
Then I use this and just make the major marks on it.
Okay, I will say we will get our hands dirty and get started and apply the clay.

In the beginning you won’t need any tools.
You just apply the clay with your fingers onto the armature.
Just make sure that you press it really well with your thumbs against the screws so it’s
very compressed, and you have a solid ball on top so you can sculpt on it without risking
that something could fall off.
I’m just creating a little ball on top here for now.
I don’t even worry about the shape or anything.
I just want to add a little bit of material to it to have something to build on top of it.
I do this until all the screws are covered nicely with clay
from all sides and all angles just like that.
It’s very good if you get everything done before you ask somebody to sit down for you,
just because you’re wasting time if you have a model sitting there, and you have to
apply the clay and make the basic shapes.
It’s good if you are prepared first.
Okay, that’s enough for now.
As soon as I’m starting to want to create a shape, I will be using tools.
As I showed you, this is my blocking tool.
This is what I’m using in the beginning the most, and one of these knifey-kind-of-shape
of tools to shape lines.
Okay, I have here a plastic skull that’s like a representation of a real skull.
You can get these online easily.
If you don’t have access to an anatomical skull like this, you might as well just start
with the model right away and take the measurements from there.
Since we have that, I can go over with you the basic anatomy shapes and the basic volumes
of the skull.
As I told you, we are not going to go into detail obviously in the beginning.
What we need to think about is only the height of the skull and the depth and the width,
and we need to make sure that we understand that there is a basic shape of the face, which
is like a round shape both ways, and the cranium.
That’s really all we need to worry about.
In order to get a good simple shape of a skull, I want to look at the profile line of the skull.
Profile line means I place my armature in one direction, and I place me skull in one
direction, and I start to observe.
Every time I make an observation, I need to make sure to step back from the sculpture
and from the object I’m observing just because I cannot really see it when I’m really close to it.
At the same time, I have a little bit of a distortion.
I make sure that I step back like three steps and also have both a little bit angled so
I have a really straight view onto a profile view onto my skull and onto the armature.
The clay I have on there was just so I have a little bit of material there.
Now I can start to add the basic shape of the skull.
I want to keep it really lean, like I don’t want to build the ton of masses in the width
and the depth.
I want to just look at the profile line for now and simplify it as much as I can.
The best simplification is from the major turning points of the skull, which are the
hairline, I call it the hairline, which is the turning point from the forehead to the
cranium.
This line, I treat this line straight down to the nasal bone.
I don’t care that this is going in and out and has a lot of information to it.
I want to just focus on the straight line here that has a certain length, and it has
a certain angle to it.
That’s all I need to worry about.
The next part of information is from the nasal bone to the tooth line, and from the tooth
line to the chin.
I keep it as simple as I possibly can just from here to here, from here to here, and
from here to here.
I can use my caliper to make those measurements.
First, I will measure the whole thing real quick and see where I’m at.
It’s good to hold it to your sculpture just to get a feeling of how high it’s going
to be, and also real quick make depth measurement to see where you will have your width later
on, just to get a feeling.
As I said, you need to make sure that you center your sculpture quite in the middle
of your armature to make sure that the face cannot fall off later.
I want the major part of the backside of the skull, like the cranium, I want it kind of
here and the face not much further than this; otherwise, it could fall down.
Bring the height up just a little more just to be safe.
Okay.
Before I’m adding clay I like to roll it between my hands like this and then add it
with my fingers and use the blocking tool to block it a little bit into shape.
As soon as I have a little bit of material I can start with thinking about that point
that I told you, hairline to the nasal bone, nasal bone to the tooth line
and down to the chin.
I can make a quick measurement or say, okay, this is going to be the mark for the hairline.
You don’t always have to use your caliper to make measurements.
You can sometimes just use a straight tool to make measurements like this.
Nasal bone to the hairline is approximately that length.
Don’t worry at this stage to be very precise just approximately.
You want to get the angle and the length of what I just told you.
The next information, when you step back you can see that the tooth line is much farther
than the nasal bone and the rest of the skull.
This is the farthest-out part.
Later on the nose will be farther out, but just thinking of the skull it is the tooth line.
and down to the chin.
I’m stepping back to compare so I can see, okay, from the nasal bone to the tooth line
it has to be much stronger of an angle that I don’t have yet.
I can add here a little more.
I just want to create an approximate, like a round shape here.
Keep it really lean like a pancake at that stage.
Okay, so now I want to add a little bit to the cranium.
A very good way to keep your proportions measured easily, you need to find one point that is
your anchor point that you can use to measure.
You can see it because I put a little bit of tape in front.
Here is the ear opening right underneath it.
You can just choose in the beginning where you want placement of the ear opening to be.
This is my first mark that I’m making.
Okay.
That way you use this mark of the ear opening like a compass.
You can always go back to it and measure everything you need from there.
I can use this point now to measure to the chin, to measure to the tooth line, to measure
to here, to here.
Anything that I need to have measured out I can always go back to the earhole.
I will be using this a lot also when I have the model here.
Here I have another skull to show you.
Just where the zygomatic arch ends, here is the earhole and here would be the ear placed
on top, and right above where the earhole is will be this little bump that we have.
It’s called tragus.
I will explain that as soon as the model is here.
Just make sure that you mark this really clearly, and you don’t lose this information because
you will be building material on top of it so you have to re-mark it.
You will see how important it is because this is our anchor point where I will be measuring
to the chin and will be measuring to the nasal bone to the hairline to the back of the cranium.
All this information I can get from the middle.
It’s like the middle point of our compass.
I will make my measurements approximately underneath this tape.
I’ll be measuring to the chin.
Now I can see, okay, there is material missing.
I can recheck to see what I’m doing by stepping back a little bit and observe.
Always make sure that you don’t apply too much clay at once.
You always use just little bits of clay.
You want to place it exactly where you want to have it in little bits.
We approach the form we want slowly.
Now I add this to the chin, and it’s called rhythm of form.
When I add in the front, it’s always good to also work in the back.
I never finish one side and then finish the other side.
I try to work on everything at the same time and keep it the same level, basically.
I can see now that the cranium needs much more volume than what I have so I step back
again and measure from the earhole to the back of the cranium.
I can see, okay, there is a lot of material missing.
I’m just rolling a little bit the clay and placing it where I think it’s good to have it.
Then I step back again.
Make my observations.
Then I can see, okay, from the top of the cranium down it goes down much farther.
I can just use my blocking tool and slap it a little bit in place.
Don’t worry too much about details at this point.
We just want approximate shape of the skull on our armature so that when our model comes
in I don’t have to start from scratch and I don’t waste time.
That’s all we’re trying to do here.
I’m adding a little bit of the back of the cranium.
Then I can use my caliper tool and make a measurement of the whole thing one time and
see that I’m a little bit underbuilt, which is fine.
We will grow it as I go.
I know that this is not a life-size skull yet.
It’s a little bit smaller.
That’s good because it could be that the skull of my model is larger or smaller.
I don’t know that yet so I keep it a little underbuilt.
Okay.
Now I would like to check the front.
You can see this really very thin.
This is like a pancake shape.
Just in the back I have a little bit more volume.
In the front it’s a thin line, and that’s good because that way I will be able to develop
the profile line of my model really well, and I can observe it really correctly.
We will be learning a method where we can get really close to likeness.
The closer you will be studying the profile line, the more likeness you will be getting
because as soon as I have the profile line worked out really well and the width of my
skull really well it’s like a map of sculpture.
That way we won’t run into problems later thinking, do the eyes have to become higher
up; does the forehead have to be lower or something.
I know that I observe this really well so I can rely on this information
and can use it later.
You will see when the model is here.
I don’t want to add too much on the width yet.
I can add on the back of the skull at the cranium.
The only widths that I’m interested in are the most extreme widths, the most extreme
points, which is the widest point of the skull, which is this point, the back of the cranium.
The back of the cranium is the widest point of my skull.
The second point will be where the zygomatic arch turns.
This is the widest point of the face.
Then the jaw line, the jaw has the widest point approximately here.
Then another really important anchor point or landmark will be the chin, like here approximately.
Those four points we will be using a lot of times.
The way you measure those four points—you use your caliper.
I just measure the widest point of the skull.
Then I go to my sculpture and just hold it there so I get a feeling of how wide I’m
going to go.
Then at that point I just add a little bit of material to the sculpture.
Left and right.
And yes, I measured it, and I have it in my caliper how wide it’s supposed to be later.
Then again, I want to keep it underbuilt because I’m not sure how wide my model’s skull
is going to be.
So, just to get a simple shape of the skull for now is fine.
Okay, now I can fill in a few places where I know there is going to be material later
on and just fill it in from both sides.
I didn’t observe this angle at all before because I was looking at it from the other
side so I can also fill in from this side a little bit.
Use my tool to compress the clay.
I can slap it a little bit to get the material worked in.
Just be careful that you don’t add too much in this part of the face yet because this
is what we’ll observe later.
It’s okay to do that in the back of the skull.
To keep the surface nice and clean, as you can see, it’s not smooth at all at this stage.
When I’m in the blocking stage if it has little holes it doesn’t matter.
Just make sure it’s compressed really well so it cannot fall off.
You can roll with your tool a little bit over the clay so it doesn’t look too messy in
the process.
I’m trying to work clean for you guys.
Usually when I’m working in my studio I don’t care about how the surface looks at
this stage at all, but just so you don’t get confused.
I can add a little bit where I know it’s going to be the forehead.
In this area I’m going to add a little bit also.
So, this is it for now for the material that I need.
On the other side, remember that I marked the ear hole.
On this side I haven’t marked the earhole yet.
I want to make sure that on both sides the earhole is on the same place.
There are a few options to do that.
I could use like a little stick and stick it here onto it, and then I could see where
it is on the other side.
I will be using like a small tool like this.
Stick it into the little mark I made before, and then I can step back
and then approximately see.
It’s just important that I have the same height of it so that way I can see where the
ear hole is on the left side and on the right side.
To double check it, I will also measure it on my sculpture.
Don’t worry too much.
It doesn’t have to be perfectly exact at this point, but just to be aware where the
ear hole will be later on.
Unfortunately, here is the tape on top just because the jaw keeps falling off.
The ear hole is exactly where the zygomatic arch ends.
On both sides it is very important to have it marked.
I can recheck it once the model is here.
On the model it’s going to be, as I told you, where the ear is.
This little bump here that we have is called the tragus; that will be the point we’re
interested in.
So then, again, I can from this side also measure the chin.
I go and measure the chin, and I can already see that I’ll need more material here.
I think I will be putting a little bit of clay on top of it so it doesn’t move around
all the time.
Yeah, that’s perfect.
Great.
Yeah, now he stays.
Okay, I just realized that I will need a little bit more material where the chin is.
As you can see, I don’t care about the whole information that’s going in and out.
I just need like a nice curvature that represents the major points of the skull.
Now I can fill in, make the surface a little nicer.
Roll over with my blocking tool.
Fill this shape a little bit more in.
Then I can also measure down to the jawline.
Then we’ll need a little bit of material here.
You kind of make a mark where later the jawline is going to be just to not lose orientation.
It’s very abstract at this point.
As soon as the model is here, and we make the major measurements with her, it will all
make sense to you more.
We can check our—oh, on the other side we will want to fill in a little bit more, too.
We haven’t filled in much here yet.
Just to make sure that—that tool we don’t need—that you fill in the forms correctly
and don’t just do it anywhere, as I told you, don’t forget that the widest point
is the back of the cranium.
That’s the point.
You can either mark it here.
You can even measure it and mark it to where you want to fill in the forms.
You will also get a little bit of a feeling where to fill it in.
Roll your material.
Remember, to not make the width exactly.
We want to keep it underbuilt, as I said.
It’s very good to already have material there because we will have something to draw
on, something to compare already.
It makes the whole process easier.
Also, if this is your first time sculpting a portrait head, I would recommend you to
go into the anatomy of the human skull and maybe look at our basic lessons of sculpting,
or to sit down and draw the skull or sculpt even the skull, like really detailed, just
so you get an idea what the major parts are
because having a good understanding of the skull will show in the portrait.
The bones are what the landmarks are.
The bones are what the anchor points are.
It’s the structure of it, and it’s also how the bones are turning backwards.
All this information is really important to make a convincing and solid portrait because
most beginners like to jump immediately to the surface without creating a solid structure
of the bones.
That can be problematic.
This technique that I’m showing you or this method is very good when it comes to making
sure that we create a three-dimensional form, like a roundness.
Very often, I’ve seen students make the mistake that they make the face too flat,
meaning like all the information just grows too much to the front here.
When that happens, we don’t have the skull really turning backwards.
In our situation, that cannot happen because we have it really lean here.
We will be marking all the information of the skull where the orbit of eye is, where
the zygomatic arch is, where the lips are.
We will be marking that on the side.
We have the depth of it really correctly.
It cannot happen that we grow their sculpture too forward.
Everything, all of a sudden is on the same level.
Then it becomes too graphic and not three-dimensional anymore.
The exciting thing of sculpture is that it’s three-dimensional form.
It should have a really strong plasticity.
I don’t know if this is a word—plasticity, or three-dimensional shape.
If it gets too flat, all of a sudden it looks graphic and it kind of looks dead.
Making this kind of pancake shape first and then introducing all the forms is going to
help us to avoid that problem.
Okay, I can make a step backwards now and see if like on both sides I added approximately
enough material on both sides.
I don’t want it to be wide as the skull is because I want to keep it underbuilt.
I want to keep it lean.
The length I can check.
The length can be exactly the same so we go here and here.
My length already is a little bit too long so I just cut off a little bit.
Then I will make a center line here.
That is just helpful to keep the symmetry working so I don’t end up growing on one
side a lot of material and not on the other side.
Symmetry is important in sculpting because, the more you sculpt the more you get a sense
of volume.
The more you will just feel where to put in the material.
In the very beginning, let’s say you’ve never sculpted before, it’s a little bit
hard to keep the symmetry because you don’t have a feeling yet of where to place masses.
Personally, I have made a lot of portrait heads in my life, but still, when it comes
to portrait heads, I need to check myself and I need to have a center line and always
measure both sides so to not grow one side too much.
It’s just, you know, every sculptor has their issues or problems.
As long as you know them and you know how to help yourself and how to measure and how
to avoid things, it’s fine.
You just need to know yourself.
What I’m doing right now is I’m just like a little bit smoothing the surface so it doesn’t
look too lumpy and bump.
I also start to introduce a little bit on the top of the skull, a little bit the plane
changes because notice that the skull, how the skull grows.
There is never a round shape where it’s just round.
It always has like a plane, meaning like not flat but kind of a little bit curved plane.
Then there is always a line where there is a turn to another plane.
The skull is grown in lots of planes that come together.
And so is the forehead and so are the rest of the bones.
We don’t want to go into detail of all the planes, but just the major parts we try to
introduce a little bit.
I’m using right now the tool that has a little bit of, you know, knife shape because
I find it easier to turn, add clay and then shape it in the direction I like to have it.
A little bit like drawing, I mean basically is very close to drawing.
Every piece of clay I’m adding, you can envision it as a pencil line.
You see I really go bit by bit.
I never take a huge chunk of clay and just add it just so I have control over my form,
and I grow it everywhere like on the same level.
I keep the proportions controlled that way.
That’s very, very important.
I don’t add a ton of clay, and just take it off or whatever.
You can see when you compare it to my skull, it’s still leaner.
It’s not as wide as my skull, and that’s good.
We look at it from the side a little bit.
Always remember, when you want to make an observation of the profile line, if you have
a model sitting there or whatever object you have, you know, step at least two steps backwards
because that way you can see both.
You can see a really straight angle.
I think you cannot see that from the camera now, but a really straightforward view onto
my skull and then a straightforward view onto my sculpture.
I would even place it a little bit like in an angle like this.
When I step back I don’t have a perspective change.
I was just filling in a little bit, but what I really wanted to do is check if the distances
to the earhole, which I already blocked, that’s kind of here.
That happens.
You grow in the width and you might use the mark of your earhole, but then you have to
redo it.
If you don’t really know where the earhole is, then make the same thing like I made before.
Go again, stick a little tool to the earhole.
Stick it here on the same side.
Make sure it’s on the same level so you’re good to go.
What I just checked with the tool is the height of it, but I can, you know, so that’s good.
This mark is the earhole.
Now, I can check.
Approximately here will be the tooth line, and then I can check approximately here will
be the nasal bone.
It’s going to come out more, but I just marked the height for now.
Then a very important landmark is going to be the hairline.
I call this the hairline.
It’s the point where the forehead turns into the cranium.
This is a very obvious landmark on the skull that I call the hairline.
I know that the hairline can change and can go more backward.
It’s not exactly where the hair is.
Okay, so I’m just going to make the surface a little bit nicer for us so as soon as the
model gets in we have a nicely organized, simplified representation of the skull.
That’s all we want.
Good, so from the front I’m just filling in the holes a little bit more.
I can think a little bit about the plane changes that I was talking about and start to introduce
them a tiny bit.
Don’t lose my earhole.
I will check one more time from the other side if the cranium has enough volume here.
Then again, I make an observation now.
I will step back.
Don’t forget to step back.
I will look, and I can see just from my observation that I will need a little bit more volume
here or just like adding a little bit more clay here on my sculpture.
I could see with my—I don’t have to always measure.
I see clearly by observation, okay, there needs to be something added.
You can just do it.
You don’t have to always measure, but if you feel more comfortable with measuring,
especially in the beginning where you maybe start off sculpting, you want to measure more.
The length that I just measured is working really well with what I just measured from
the skull.
It’s okay.
I don’t want to make like a nice skull, as I said.
I want to make sure that the cranium has width.
It has good height.
I have this curvature that represents a little bit like the profile line of the skull, and
I have a little bit introduced already, the planes of the cranium.
Good, I will say this is a very good preparation now before we ask the model in to sit down
for us.
And because we’re nice, we clean up a little bit, too.
This is one thing that’s a little bit annoying about water-based clay.
It crumbles and it gets everywhere when you are not careful.
When you clean it, like you brush it off a little bit with a little brush and the dust
gets in the air, it’s actually very dangerous for your lungs.
If you do keep doing that over years and years, clay has silicates in it, and it’s a very
microscopic dust that lays on your lung, and it is not good for your health.
Just be careful with you clean up.
Don’t just brush it with a broom or anything.
Make what I just do here, use a little bit of wet clay and try to get the crumbles in
a little bit so you don’t create a whole dust cloud and breathe everything in.
I think we have a good preparation done.
We have the basic proportions of the skull blocked in.
We marked the earhole, which is very important.
Don’t forget to mark that.
I think this is a good stage to ask the model in and to get started with the actual portrait
that we want to be doing.

Alright, now that we blocked in the whole thing, this where the fun starts because we
will be sculpting from a live model.
That is good because I already have the major forms blocked in.
I already have the cranium kind of blocked in.
I have the front of the face a little bit.
This is what we did before.
Now I have the model here.
Her name is Sahi.
We will be working with her.
I will try at first to make a really accurate profile line of her.
Why I love portrait sculpture so much is we go for a very close likeness, but I like that
you always make an interpretation of a character, too.
You try to make it look as much as like her, but you also have a feeling about it.
You always do an interpretation.
The way I start with a model is I sit her down.
I have my sculpture, portrait in front of her, but I have both of them a little bit
of an angle like this.
When I step back I look at her at the complete profile and also look at my sculpture at a
straight, complete profile.
Don’t change perspective if you know what I mean.
This kind of pancake shape.
It’s not a pancake shape anymore, but it’s way too lean.
It’s very good because now I can just focus on the profile line.
We’ll really try to go from the very simple information to the more and more detailed.
I’ll try not to jump over anything even though it’s tempting sometimes because now
there is a live model and you want to go for all the exciting forms and shapes.
You know, hold your horses.
Really make sure that the length you’re choosing and the angles are working first
and that you’ve really blocked in the proportions accurately, and then go to the next step.
I always have to tell myself that too because sometimes I run forward and I feel like, oh
my God, this is out of proportion and I have to change it.
We try to avoid this so let’s not get too excited in the beginning.
Nice and slow.
And so Sahi will be sitting for us in just a straight position.
You can also choose a model to have a different pose.
You could choose any kind of pose, but especially to begin with we want the pose to just look
straightforward.
That’s the best to do.
Now, I have both set up, and I will step backwards now so I have a straight view on her profile
line and on the profile of my sculpture.
The first information I want to get, remember, we were looking for the ear hole.
That was really obvious on the skull.
I don’t see the skull anymore.
I see now her ear.
On her ear—I can show it on my own ear—this little part of the ear, this little bump that
comes out, it’s called a tragus.
This will be our mark that was before the earhole.
From that little mark I will start to measure things.
I can use just a straight tool.
I don’t have to use the caliper yet because I’m not going to be measuring width.
I’m only going to be measuring length.
I don’t have a distortion line this.
I take the measurement from the tragus to the top of her chin.
Go to my sculpture and see if this is lighting up.
I can tell now, this needs to come a little bit more outwards.
On my sculpture, I don’t care exactly now how the nose is going to be, how the shape
of the mouth is going to be.
All I care about is from her hairline to the tip of her nose, I’m going to make from
here to here, I treat that line as a straight angle.
This is what I’m interested in in the beginning.
I’m stepping back again, and I look at her hairline, and I look at her nose.
If you want to be sure, you can also measure from the tragus to the tip of her nose.
Go to your sculpture.
Then you have a good feeling.
You have how long the whole thing is going to be like.
I start adding there.
And just treat that as a straight line for now.
Keep it simple.
Don’t go into details too soon.
You can double check.
I’m just double checking here.
I’m doing the same thing that I did before.
Wonderful.
Now I’m doing the same thing, measuring from her hairline.
By the way, when I say hairline, what I mean is that point before the skull turns backwards
into the cranium.
That point I measure down to her nose.
Let’s do that real quick.
That is fairly working.
Then I can make the same measurement down from the tip of her nose down to her chin.
I can tell this length is working well.
In the beginning all you have to worry about is that the lines have a certain length and
a certain angle.
That’s all you need to worry about.
Okay.
Now, we want to see a different angle.
Now we’ll just be always stepping back and looking at her profile line.
I use my tools to make marks on a sculpture.
What I just did is I marked the wing of her nose a little bit where it ends.
The good thing is I can always go to her tragus, like to the tip of her ear,
and mark things out.
Then very soon you can also make the hairline and just make a clear mark where the hairline
is going to be later.
In this case, we don’t see the back of the cranium because she’s wearing a turban.
It doesn’t matter.
We sculpt exactly what we see, and we always find landmarks we can rely on.
As soon as I have the length working, I can get more detailed.
What I’m interested in now is where is the root of her nose.
We have now a really straight line.
This is not what a human being looks like so we need to find the root of her nose, and
what I mean by that is—or you can also call it the bridge of her nose or the keystone
it’s also called.
It’s like the farthest point back of the nose just before when it
comes up to the eyebrow line.
This point we’re looking for, and then again I will measure it from the tragus approximately
and make a mark where I think it’s going to be.
And then I cut this out.
We need to change here, the perspective.
I will just cut it out where I think the so-called keystone is and
make a clear mark here.
Remember to really draw clearly on your sculpture.
Don’t forget what your little marks mean.
Sometimes I have drawings all over my sculpture,
and then I forget what I was trying to remind myself.
Just mark those things that are really clear landmarks.
Clear landmarks are always a change in direction.
This would be a clear landmark.
You can mark this.
Or, if like a prominent bony point, that would be a clear landmark to mark.
You don’t always have to measure everything.
You step back and observe from a distance.
Remember to really always step back and really observe the whole thing because this is important
to capture the right proportion.
At this point, we can start to indicate the ear even though we will grow this more in
the width.
We will grow this much further.
We will indicate the width a little bit.
We will indicate the ear a little bit so it become less abstract.
You can imagine this a little bit like as a child.
You probably know this game when you make a shadow of a profile onto the wall and then
you draw it out.
I don’t know if you did that in kindergarten too, but it’s a little bit like that.
You want to have a cutout profile shape of your model, but you don’t want to think
too much in organic line.
I treat all the lines very straight in the beginning, and then I break it up and they
become more and more detailed.
So, when I step back and I look at Sahi and I look at my sculpture, I can tell that I
have some proportional changes to make.
For instance, her forehead is much longer, and also her chin is much longer.
I will take now a caliper, and I will just go to her without hurting her and just really
see how long the forehead is.
We see that we need much more material on top.
This is most fun part in my opinion.
The blocking stage is like a big puzzle.
You start with information, you start with some indications, and then the whole picture
has to come together at some point.
At this stage it doesn’t have to look like anything yet.
I’m just trying to get the big proportions together.
As I said, the simplest information that we need is the length and maybe the width of this.
So, to make sure that I have that right, I take my caliper and I will measure her real
quick, like the whole of her face one more time.
That would be pretty good, what we have, knowing that I will have to come higher up here.
It’s funny that you have to do this measurement over and over again even if you thought, okay,
I measured it already.
Since it’s clay we just keep adding, and it changes.
Keep in mind you may have to do the same measurement over and over again.
So, when I’m stepping back, and I see now that I’m looking at her, and I can see the
proportions are not correct yet.
I can see that the forehead needs to grow a little longer.
It needs to come out much more.
These are just visual observations that I’m making.
I’m not even measuring that.
It’s just really my visual observation.
Always remember to take a little piece of clay, put it where you think you want it,
and then use your tool and shape it to, shape it with the tool, like with the straight part
of the tool to what you think is good.
Okay, sculpting is a little bit like dancing because you will be going back and forth and
back and forth the entire time.
That’s a good thing because don’t make observations from too close.
You cannot tell the proportion from close.
The model is too far away from my sculpture to really be able to tell the proportion,
so make sure you get into the habit of walking back and forth the entire time.
It’s a very physical thing to do.
It’s a little bit, you know, it’s very close to drawing, really.
My teacher used to say it’s drawing in space.
Robert Bodem, he even wrote a manual on it.
He called in “Drawing in Space.”
That’s really what it is.
Every piece of clay that you’re putting on is like a mark with your pencil.
Just really keep going back and forth, just really checking my proportions.
I can tell now—excuse me—from the wing of her nose down to her chin on my sculpture
is still too short.
I will go maybe to her even and take my tool and make a clear—you know, the way you do
it is you really hold it to the tip of her nose to down to her chin.
Actually, the length is working.
What probably was a bit distracting is that I haven’t placed like the mouth yet and
not the real distance to the ear yet so that’s why I thought it is too short, but actually
it’s real good in its length.
You don’t want to rush too fast forward.
I was tempted for a second to introduce the mouth, but then I was thinking that, no, it’s
better to wait a little bit and really work out the length of the forehead to the tip
of the nose.
That’s a very important length.
You have to make sure it’s really working.
While you keep fixing your proportions, make sure that you also work a little bit on the
surface at the same time.
Now, I’ll be measuring one more time from her ear tragus from the tip of her nose.
Real good.
We’re good.
Okay, the next thing I would like to know.
It’s good to introduce a little bit interior information.
Not because I want to sculpt it yet, but just because if I have it there it’s easier for
me to see the profile line because it’s less abstract.
As soon as I know the corner of the eye, the corner of the wing of the nose, corner of
the mouth.
As soon as I have introduce that information here, I will be able to see better what’s
going on on this line.
What I’m really interested in is this line really.
I will walk over to her and measure one more time like from the tragus to the corner of
her eye and just make a mark.
I make this mark quite long, as you can see, because I know the distance here.
I don’t know exactly the height yet.
I make a mark that’s a little bit kind of like a circle movement from the tragus.
Everywhere here is where the information will be lining up.
The same thing I’m going to do with the corner of her mouth and make a mark here,
clear mark.
Then I will be measuring the corner of her wing of her nose, and it’s here.
I don’t worry so much now about where the heights are.
I just measure it from the depths so it’s easier for me judge.
Now, I will step backward again.
Now it’s interesting, since I made this mark here, I can all of a sudden tell the
distance to the bridge of the nose.
I can all of sudden tell that her nose, like the nasal bone has much more of a curvature
that I’d have.
Just because I made this mark her.
I wasn’t able to see it before so well,
and I guess this is just how human psychology works.
The important thing about sculpting too is that you never try to resolve one thing perfectly
and then go to the next.
You try to keep everything on the same level.
This will change a lot still.
I want to work a little bit here, work a little bit there.
It might get a little bit confusing sometimes,
but I'll try to keep you updated with what I’m doing.
There is no right then when to do what.
You just have to make the proportions work together.
Sometimes I will be working on her chin.
I will be working on her teeth, like bone on that side.
I will be working on the bridge of her nose.
This now is a very fluent process so I can’t really say, now this, now that; it’s very fluent.
As soon as you feel like you can’t see anything anymore, it’s good to introduce information
here in this area, interior information.
All of a sudden you see better and you see more.
For instance, now I could make the triangle of the eyes.
I walk over to her, measure the distance again from here.
And then I measure from down, up here, and then I make a triangle shape like this.
Okay, also what helps a little bit is to draw out a little bit wing of her nose.
Even though we are not sculpting it yet it’s just helping me to see the profile line even better.
What we don’t have yet at all is the mouth, but we won’t worry about it too much for now.
I made a mark here for the corner of her mouth so I know the distance to the ear.
I don’t know yet where the philtrum comes out and where the upper lip and lower lip
are, so I might want to make a little bit of introduction of where this is.
I’m going to walk in front of her and just measure it in front of her.
It’s easier for me to do.
The length is working, and now I want to know the length of the chin to her lower lip.
I’m going to make a mark her.
This is where her lower lip starts.
Then I can do the same thing measuring from her chin up to her upper lip.
Go to my sculpture, and then I make a mark here.
Since I have this marked out, I can visually also compare it with what I just did.
Since I know, okay, here I have the corner of the lip.
I will try to draw in the lip already a little bit.
Remember, the upper lip is farther out than the lower lip.
Not always.
There are people that have an underbite or something, but most cases the upper lip is
much farther out than the lower lip.
In her case, it’s very prominent.
The movement—this is called the philtrum from the nose down to her upper lip.
This is very different on everybody, like how this is shaped.
Do you know what helps me with movements like this?
I imagine sometimes like a dropdead, maybe we can, I imagine a little piece of waterdrop
that’s running down my profile line, and then I could see here it would run really
fast, and then it would run even faster.
Then it would slow down.
This is a little bit of a trick that helps me to see angles better.
You could image a little sphere that’s going down here.
Sometimes it’s really difficult to judge the tilt of an angle and how much it is tilted.
I would look at her and imagine this little drop running down her profile line.
Then I look at my sculpture and would imagine if the same drop would run down on my sculpture
the same way.
Okay, I still don’t feel like I have her character captured so well because her chin
is much more prominent, and she has fairly strong features.
I want to get into that a little more.
Also, what we don’t have at all is like an indication of what her neck is going to be like.
This will also help me to see the profile line better once I will get this.
You will see now that this is really helpful that the pole is at an angle.
It’s not straight because the neck is not straight either.
It’s angled.
I will just add clay.
Make sure that you press it really well with both hands onto the pole.
Just make sure that you make them same, like you can measure them from—yeah, so here
we need to add a little bit.
One time we need to measure the width of her neck.
Introduce that and hopefully we are not running into the armature.
This is very close.
It’s good that we did that at this stage.
If we grow the face even farther out, the armature and this is going to be a problem.
It’s going to be too wide.
I just need to remind myself at these stage to not grow this out even farther so I have
enough room.
So this is not getting too wide at
some stage.
I’m trying to make her chin a little bit pointier, you know, remind yourself what is
the characteristic of her chin?
How is formed really?
I’m going down from the lower lip to the top of her chin and then up to jawline.
Bring this in a little bit more even.
This is becoming more like her chin shape.
It’s also good at this stage to divide maybe the upper lip and the lower lip a little bit better.
Then since I already know that I need to come closer to my armature since my neck is getting
a little too wide, I try to slowly bring the face backwards just a little bit.
This is where the eye is going to be.
What’s also helpful is to mark at this stage where the eyebrow line will be later.
Again, not because I want to make the eye at all.
This is just a mark that helps me see the profile line better.
I will use the tragus again and just measure up to the top of her eyebrow and come to my
sculpture and then make a mark here.
I can also step backwards and compare visually.
It’s always good to measure but also compare visually becomes sometimes it’s difficult
to get the measurements lined up with your sculpture correctly.
You need to look visually, too.
This is where her eyebrow is.
I will mark that really clearly.
What I find a little distracting at this point now is that our cranium is really small.
That was just because I needed to block it in and have something before the model comes in.
But when I look back and forth, if something jumps to you and is distracting, just change
it immediately.
Otherwise, it’s going to bug you the entire time.
We don’t see the back of her cranium.
What I’m doing is I will add a little bit of clay to just give it a little bit of volume here.
He or she has lots of volume from her turban, so I want something there.
Otherwise, it distracts me when I’m looking.
This is a very visual observation, the whole process.
As soon as I add the volume of her turban.
Later on when we’re going to the turban and we’ll try to design it really well.
For now, I just want something to be there to not be distracted too much.
Okay, that already helps me much better.
Good.
I think we’re good.
What we need to check now is lots of interior information again.
What I keep checking is where the keystone is, the bridge of the nose, also called nasal.
That’s where the nasal bone starts, really.
Okay, so I checked that again.
Perfect.
We’re happy about ourselves.
I checked the corner of the eye.
Perfect, we’re happy about what we did.
I will check now, again.
I did that before, but I keep checking it again and again.
The nose wing, the line of the nose wing.
That could come a little bit more backwards, actually.
Since I noticed it now that the nose wing can come backwards just a little bit, I want
to check again the tip of the nose also.
We’ll go to her and just really measure the length of her nose, which is fine.
Okay, now we can get into a little bit more—I can step backwards again, and I look down
from the nose down to her lips.
Have that blocked in.
This probably is not so much of a curve here, so it’s a little bit straighter.
Go inside.
Make a mark to the corner of the nose.
So, for very long it’s only going to look good from one angle, but we will be turning
her very soon.
I would check just the proportions one more time.
What I will check now since I have lots of information that we can change the perspective
for a second.
I introduced a lot of information already, so what I want to check at this point now
is really the basic proportions one more time.
I know we checked it already, but you know, better check it many times before you move
on because later you don’t want to run into problems.
Again, the chin up to the nose where—I think we’re happy.
I don’t know.
I think I need to measure it a little bit better.
Yeah, we’re happy.
So now, again, from the tip of the nose to the point where her skull is turning backwards.
Let’s see if we’re happy with ourselves.
We are.
Yeah, we are.
Pretty happy.
I’m checking now a little bit of the angle of her jawline.
That’s pretty good.
Make the surface a little bit nicer.
I feel like from that point up to her actual hairline is not correct.
So, I measure this again one more time.
Yeah, so the length is fine.
It’s just that the angle is too much.
It’s like going in much more subtle than what I did.
Otherwise, it looks like she would have too much of a bump.
I’m filling in this area here.
I’m adding a little bit here so it moves back a little more subtly.
Then I make a clear mark where her turban is going to be later.
Okay.
I’m pretty happy now with the profile line that I made from this side.
Now I will after—my model is going to take a little bit of a break.
I will turn the whole thing around and look around from the other side.
Then I will notice, oh my God, nothing is its place.
We are not going to freak out about it.
We just have to line up the information that I found here and apply it on the other side
as well.
It’s very important.
It’s the next step we are going to do.
Once this is done and we feel like, okay, the profile line is really kind of a looking
like her and we go a little bit more into the details, a little bit into the lip, and
just like a little bit more love into the whole thing.
Then we will turn it from the front, and then we go to the width.
Okay, since we are quite happy with what we did just now, we will take a little bit of
a break for the model, for myself, just for everybody it’s important to take breaks, too.
We will take a five-minute break, and then we will do the whole thing
from the other angle.

So now that we took a little bit of a break, it’s important to keep the clay moist at
all times because it’s starting to get a little bit dry in some areas.
Just get a water bottle.
You can also get a water bottle that you don’t have to pump all the time, but pump from the
top, and you don’t have to do it all the time.
This one is fine.
I just spray it a little bit from all sides to make sure to keep it moist.
Don’t spray the model.
Good, so we continue.
In the last session, I made the profile line as good as I could, and now I will be turning
the whole thing and also will be turning Sahi.
So now first I’m turning my sculpture into the direction because all I’m interested
in still is profile line.
Then you look at the other side, and you probably will be shocked because we didn’t work on
this at all.
When you look at it you’re like, oh my God, did I do this?
That has nothing to do with what I just sculpted.
But it’s fine.
That’s just what sculpture is.
You need to look from different kinds of angles.
All of a sudden you will be shocked because from another angle it just doesn’t look
as good.
You need to make every angle work.
This one we will line up.
Now we will turn Sahi.
Okay, I need to again make sure that the profile line of my sculpture and the profile line
of my model Sahi is really lining up and I’m really looking at the same thing.
Again, just reminding you.
Make a tiny little bit of an angle like this so when I step back I look at both things
from the same perspective.
That’s very important.
What’s good is—can we change perspective for a second.
I still have this mark from the earhole here.
That’s very good because now I have something to rely on, and I can start measuring all
that information that I took from the other side, and we try to line it up before, so
I can rely that this on the same spot as on the other side.
So, that’s good.
That’s important to do.
I didn’t introduce any interior information, of course, because I wasn’t working on it.
The good news is, psychology, like now the profile is turned around so I will see more things.
At some point the eye gets a little bit tired, and I don’t see the proportions well, all
the details.
When you flip it to the other side all of a sudden you see better.
You see more things.
I’m going to step back now and just observe for some time.
I’m just like, you know, it’s good to spend a lot of time in the distance and just
looking, not like jumping too fast forward and just acting before you really know what
you’re doing.
Okay, the first thing I would like to work on a little bit is the nose area.
I want to make sure that this lines up.
Okay, I will make general measurements like from the point to the tip of the nose on her,
and then apply it to my sculpture.
We’ll walk over to her, use my caliper this time.
What I think is happening right now because I can see, okay, there is way too much missing
that my mark doesn’t line up exactly with the other side.
I’m just going to check here that the mark is lining up from both sides.
Okay, so I just need to bring the mark backwards a little bit because also I just noticed that
I have it on the other side a little bit further back.
This needs to line up before we take any measurements.
That’s very important.
Now I clean up the surface just a little bit, and now we get started.
Okay, now I want to have a little bit more interior information here in this area.
I walk over to her and measure from the tragus to her eyeline to the corner of her eye and
make a mark like I did on the other side.
Then I do the same thing from the tragus to the corner of her lip.
Walk to my sculpture and make a mark there.
Then I step back again and then just check what I just did.
Okay, so now we’ll step back again and from a distance look at the line from the nose
to the upper lip, from the upper lip to the lower lip, to the chin.
This is going to be the area I want to have worked out now.
So, I will step back and spend a little bit of time just looking on how I want to do this.
So, I can tell now that the distance from the nose here to the wing of her nose to see
if this distance is working.
Then I’m measuring from the nose to the upper lip.
Come forward a little bit with it.
Now it’s a little bit about details so you probably won’t see it as well on a distance.
I won’t be doing this for long because I already did a fairly good job on the other
side so we won’t have to change as much.
We don’t have to work on this side as long as we worked on the other side.
Just lining up the information that we had.
Jawline.
Now we’ll be stepping backwards again.
I just noticed—you know, when I’m sculpting and making the profile line that the contrast
to the background is almost nonexistent so it’s hard to see.
I’m just going to change the background for a second to make it obvious to you guys.
Is that good?
Now that I’ve put a piece of wood there, I have a much better contrast and I can see
the profile line much better.
Okay, so now what I’m observing now from her brow line to the bridge of her nose is
much more subtle.
I’m using a tool now to create the little subtleties.
Also, I’m thinking that maybe the nose length, like my nose is a little bit too long, so
let’s just check that real quick.
That was helpful because now I’m winning a little bit of space between the nose and
upper lip, which I was hoping to get because I could see, you know, she has full lips so
I want to make sure that I have a lot of room to like really pronounce the lips.
Okay, I won’t take too much time on this view.
I just need to line up the information that we observed from the other side.
What I also can see is that the forehead is maybe on my sculpture a little bit too titled
backward so it’s like a little bit more straight on her.
And the little thing, this is always just a tiny little bit, but that matters.
It changes the whole picture.
This is like really characteristic because there is people that have a forehead that’s
a little bit tilted backward, tilted forward, but if I don’t do exactly what I see on
her, I’m going to change the whole character because she has a prominent forehead.
It gives her like a sense of pride.
Her whole facial features are very elegant.
You need to make sure that the angles are really working at this stage.
If it doesn’t, it affects the whole view.
We’ll be going back to the profile all the time.
Always when I start sculpting I look at the profile line first
because this is the most important.
This is how you get the likeness of the model.
If you work out the profile line in the right proportions and the right angles of the lines
and everything, this is how you get the likeness of the model really close.
Take time on this.
Don’t rush over it.
Really make sure that you recheck also the subtleties.
For instance, the philtrum, how it goes into the upper lip.
That turn is very different on every person so you want to observe it really close on
your model.
This is what I’m doing right now.
Also, the direction of the jaw line is very important.
Hers is going upwards a little bit more than what I have.
I’ll add a tiny bit here underneath.
If you’re not sure, just take a tool—it maybe a longer tool than I just had.
You take this tool and you go backwards and you hold it to the jawline to see if you have
the right angle.
You can only see that from a distance.
This is what I’m going to do.
I’m at a distance.
I close one eye and hold my tool in the angle of her, and then I go back to the sculpture
and make sure that the angle of the jawline is really what’s happening on the model too.
In this moment I’ll also recheck the length for a second.
Okay, so my jawline is a little long.
Okay, so I just will mark where the ear is going to be.
Then we will check the whole profile one more time before we start to build up the width.
So, to clean up the line, I’m using a tool, something like this, I made it myself.
I think it is cherry wood.
Like all kind of fruit wood works really well.
If it’s too hard, as I said, it’s not flexible enough so it breaks easily.
But, this is, I’ve had this for a long time.
Sometimes you have tools for just really long and you love them, and this is one of them.
This tool I’m using to clean up the lines.
First I’ll clean up the tool a little bit in order to not create bumps in my lines,
so it’s really flat here.
I will go a step backward and just look at my profile line one more time.
Look at her profile line one more time, and then I will just react to like little things
that I’m seeing and just make it a little bit sharper, a little bit more cleaner.
Reduce things where I think I should reduce them.
For instance, underneath the nose—I’m going to turn this a little bit more, yeah,
you have the full profile.
Underneath the nose, now this is very sharp.
Later this is not going to be so sharp because there is a little plane between the philtrum
of the nose that we will make later.
I will place this in here.
Okay, this is a little bit simplified, too.
I didn’t react to every single little bump that I was seeing, but I need to capture the
most characters.
I’m going to check the length of her chin one more time because I’m thinking I made
it a little bit too long.
Yes, I did.
Okay, so I’m still cleaning a little bit with what I’m seeing, and what I don’t
have from this angle at all is where, you know, interior information is,
and I’m introducing that as well.
Good, I’m quite happy so far with what we have here.

Okay, now we worked on the other side of the profile for some time, and very soon we are
going to fill in the width.
That’s why I changed the lights a little bit so we can see the forms better.
I’m going to make from this profile view, I’m going to make a little bit more marks
so I have it marked where I want to fill in the width.
If you remember, in the beginning I was telling you there are four important points that are
marking the width of the skull.
I’m going to repeat them.
The widest point of the head is the cranium.
It’s this point.
It’s three fingers above your ear.
This is the widest point of the cranium, and then the widest point of the face is the zygomatic
arch that’s like two fingers approximately in front of the ear line.
It’s right here.
The jaws are missing, but you get the point.
The widest point of the jaw, that’s what we need, and then the widest point of the
chin.
That’s all we need to mark.
Those point I just pointed out, I want to make a mark on my sculpture where they are
on her, like measuring on her, bringing information to my sculpture and then I’m turning it
around and filling in the width.
This is very important to do so we don’t fill the width somewhere,
but we are in control over it.
That’s very important.
Now I will go to her, and now I’m interested in the sight of the
widest point of the zygomatic arch.
I will take again a tool that I can measure with, go to her, and again from the ear to
the widest point, you can see the widest point on the model by just observing the light.
Right before it turns to the other direction, if you look closely you can see where that
point is.
Then you just go to your sculpture and kind of make a mark on that.
The same thing you do with the jaw, which, you know, is a little bit more approximate,
but the zygomatic arch is important that you marked it correctly.
Then I would like to make another mark which is from the forehead right before it turns.
There is one more mark I want to make here.
If you change the perspective for a second you can see where I marked just now.
This is the point, this is like a clear point.
You can see it also on the sculpture where the eyebrow line starts.
This clear line, I mark it.
You can see it on your model clearly too so you will try to find it, measure it, mark it.
This is what I just did on the sculpture also.
I made those few marks.
You could do that from the other side also, but I will just like approximately do that.
Now I’m going to turn my sculpture toward me, and it’s going to look a little crazy.
It’s going to look like an alien little bit for now, just because the front is really
lean like a fish and the back is wide.
It looks a little like a fish for now.
But, we will change it and get it under control.
So, Sahi, if you’re ready, I will turn her towards us.
Now I need you to look straightforward.
Perfect.
I have the model looking to me.
The sculpture is looking to me, making sure I look at both from the same angle.
Then now I will need a lot more material.
Make sure you have your clay accessible and maybe you had cut it before.
We need a lot of clay now.
We will have to start building.
The first measurement I told you will be the zygomatic arch.
I will use a caliper for this.
Now I have a little bit more delicate one that I’m going to be using to do—I will
show you on me first, and then I will show you on her, too.
You can try on yourself because you can feel where this point is, where the zygomatic arch
is turning so maybe you want to try on yourself for a second before you go to the model.
Don’t, you know, pierce the model and be gentle with her.
That’s what I’m going to do.
I see it from the front, the widest point.
I will measure this, and then I will go to my sculpture and hold it there.
I just get an idea how far I can go with this.
Okay, I will just now take material and fill it up here.
I know that I can add here.
While I’m adding I can keep my caliper with me, like I have this width in here and just
keep holding it there where I want it and just fill in the shape in that area.
Then I connect a little bit the forms.
The best would be to use now a tool that has—here we are—a tool that has a knifey shape.
If I need to add a lot of material, and also with a knife kind of side I can turn it to
the direction I need it.
Something like this.
While you fill in, just make sure you don’t go over the borders, meaning you keep it a
little bit underbuilt and you don’t grow it too much forward.
You want to make sure that the turn backward is present.
On both sides I will add—so I’m adding into the eye orbit where the eye orbit is
going to be here, you leave that open.
It’s going to be look a bit weird for some time.
You can also turn it towards you.
Just fill in the shapes knowing the skull.
Just don’t come further than the eye orbit is going to be.
When I’m filling in this side I can also turn Sahi a little bit again into this direction.
Okay, so I’m looking from this angle, and I’m looking at the zygomatic arch to the
nose, and I just take material.
I like to roll it in my hand before I apply it.
Carefully add to the mass.
I’m carefully adding, filling in the forms just in those areas where I’m sure I’m
not too wide.
For some time it’s going to look very abstract.
We can put a big chunk back here because we know this is where she will have her turban.
So, this process here of the filling-in process where we need to make sure to have some material
here for the width, that’s very fluent.
There is no first this and then that.
You need to like just fill in where you know is good.
As soon as you get insecure—should I add here or not—you need to turn her and you
need to look from a different angle.
I’m just observing her a little bit too.
Leave the eye orbits open, very important.
Okay, now I’m getting like, I don’t know what’s going on in this area so I will turn
her to the other side.
Okay, perfect, so I turn my sculpture also a little bit more.
We keep filling in the shapes so we have something to work with.
Keep the eye orbit open.
We add.
Slowly coming forward.
Then again, don’t forget to also step back two steps maybe to just, you know, two steps
to observe.
Okay, what I’m doing here is I’m looking where the zygomatic arch is ending, like where
the eye opening is ending on her.
I can see that clearly like this.
I try to either mark it or compare it with her and try to not build forward too much.
Otherwise, it gets too flat.
You can either go to the model, you know, from the ear again.
Measure that point and make sure that you don’t come forward too much.
Again, I see shapes that are from the zygomatic arch going down to the lip area into the cheeks,
and just fluently fill in the forms in the area.
Just be careful that you don’t end up adding too much.
In all those areas where you feel like I know that I have to add here, I know that this
is going to be wider, this is what you do.
Let’s say you added a little bit too much in certain areas, it’s clay; we can also
reduce it again.
But, let’s just have a habit of thinking before we add something and wanting to be
sure that this is where we want the clay to be.
I’m showing you sometimes also to the camera the view I’m seeing.
This is the exact profile view I’m seeing.
I try to introduce the form and come a little bit forward with the form.
As I said, it’s like drawing in space, so I react to shapes.
I showed it on my cheekbone.
I react to shapes that I see it in that area.
I see also that’s why I changed the lights, too, because I see the light reflection on
the cheekbone down to the jawline.
I see the turning of the light reflection.
I see it on her, and then I try to introduce it on my sculpture, like drawing, basically.
As soon as I feel like I’ve filled some shapes in, I want to turn the sculpture toward
me, and I want to turn her toward me, too.
Always when you turn your model and you turn your sculpture, make sure you look at both
from the same angle.
Always this looks a bit like a triangle shape so when you step back you look at both really
from the front.
Alright, so I told you those four points are important.
The widest point is the skull, the cranium.
I can tell now that this is too lean from the front.
Now I can tell here is a lot of mass missing.
Here is a lot of mass missing obviously.
There is a lot of mass missing at the jawline.
Now it’s getting crucial.
I could easily build out here too far because she has a very lean jaw, and now I need to
start to measure and really compare with her.
This is how I use my caliper.
Things that are obvious I will do first, which is the cranium that I need to add a little
bit more.
I don’t see her cranium because she’s wearing a turban, but that doesn’t matter.
I will still like—excuse me, did I hurt you?
I will still try to get the widest point that I can see and try to remember where that was
on the model and where to get that.
You hold that there just to give you an idea how far you need to go.
You know, okay, that’s great.
I can add here a little bit and add here a little bit.
Remember what I told you about symmetry?
This is now the crucial part where symmetry can get really wonky if you don’t watch out.
We want to be safe and make a center line.
This center line, psychologically, just because we have it here, immediately it’s reminding
us to keep the symmetry.
Meaning, if I add here, I need to add on the other side immediately also.
This is very important.
Okay, so I’m adding the widest points.
I’m thinking because the human head and human body is very complex so I try to make
it for myself as simple as I can.
I try to simplify to only four points for now that I focus on, which is the cranium,
zygomatic arch, the jaw, the widest point of the jaw, and then the widest part of the chin.
This is really only what I focus on, and then I connect those.
I just made that measurement here, and then I can hold it again.
Distance gets to be wider a little bit, but if I don’t come to the actual width yet,
that’s fine.
I like to keep it underbuilt for some time.
It’s okay.
We approach the border step by step.
So this is just taking a little bit.
Don’t worry that the surface looks all over the place and messy for now.
It’s really about the volume only.
It’s not about the surface yet.
The surface comes later.
Don’t be shocked if this looks a little bit like all the clay points and dumpy and
lumpy at some point, but it’s really only about the volume at this stage.
Okay, so this area I can measure it again.
I’m really close now, so I want to just add a little bit to the left and to the right.
I want to give myself a little bit of space so I’m not sure if I need to change the
point or something.
I don’t go exactly to the borders, but close.
That’s enough.
I measure this point.
Now I will be going to the model and will be measuring the
widest point of the zygomatic arch.
I told you how to find this front the front.
Then I go to my sculpture and then hold it where approximately where I think it is.
Okay, I have room here also to add a little bit, but then again, I don’t want to add
to much already.
Okay, so I add just on both sides.
More and more slowly it’s becoming more human.
It has a little bit like an alien look at a moment.
That’s fine.
We have the eye orbits open.
We don’t want to put anything there.
We just work slowly to the width we want.
It’s going to look a little too lean for some time, but that’s good.
This is still the measurement that I took from the zygomatic arch.
I’m going to hold it too my sculpture and see, okay, I still haven’t a bit of room.
I will just add a tiny bit.
I don’t need to go to, as I said, to the borders immediately because I want to give
myself some room to even add later if I need to.
The next measurement I need to take is the widest point of the jaw, which is like you
can feel it on yourself.
You have a dip that is really sticking out, like really sharp kind of bone that’s sticking
out so we’ll go to my model.
From the side we can see where that bone is, and very gently take that measurement.
Go to my sculpture, hold it where I think it is on my sculpture and see, okay, this
is how far I need to go.
That just gives me an idea of how much I can go to the left and to the right.
We’ll start adding.
Those will be anchor points.
It’s interesting that if I get this right exactly how the model has it in the right
width and in the right length, it already kind of has her likeness.
This is the phenomenon.
If you noticed ever if you took a photo a long time ago and it’s really small and
you still can recognize a person.
You don’t really see the person’s facial features so much.
You don’t see the shape of the lip or the eye or anything, but what you see is the proportion
of the skull on that little photograph.
We kind of detect people from those proportional shapes of the bones really, so this is why
it’s very important to be very precise, taking measurements from the model and be
precise and applying it to the sculpture if you want to go for a good likeness.
Okay, so I’m looking if my jawline needs a little bit more, and yes it does.
The next thing I will be doing is measuring the width of the chin.
You will be surprised because very often people underestimate how wide the chin is even with
female models.
Here is has like a prominent width.
I’m going to start to add here also.
Then I still have the measurement on my caliper.
I’m not on my borders yet.
I’m going to add a little bit here.
Make sure to step back.
Look at both on your model, on your sculpture.
Compare it.
It’s about the contour line of the face, and I’m trying to compare this.
You see a little bit like, you know, maybe asymmetrical parts, and then you can fill
them in.
From a closer look, what I’m filling in now is a little bit like in the front also
because I have nothing here around the mouth area.
I’m going to fill in a little bit of that.
Also, that gives me something to draw on because very soon I will start to draw out little
shapes that I’m seeing.
Okay, so slowly it’s growing and it turns from a kind of fish-like alien more and more
to a female human being.
What I’m doing right now is just filling in forms where it’s obviously I need to
fill in where I can’t get into trouble.
You know, be careful.
Like don’t, always just use a little bit of clay and fill in slowly.
Keep all the forms that your making at the same level so I’m not filling in one space
completely in and finishing it and then the next one.
Keep everything sort of on the same level so you grow it slowly.
If you notice, where the eye orbit is, I did not do much yet, I didn’t fill in a lot
yet because I want to measure that from the side.
I want to see where the eye orbit ends from the side.
That I want to keep open for now.
This is a little bit intuitive, too.
You just have to get used to a little bit where to feel forms.
Okay.
I still have my measurement on my caliper the measurement of the chin.
I will check it for now.
That’s good.
I’m going to check those four points I was just talking about, and then I will turn her
to the profile again, and then I will observe the depth of the information I can see from
the profile side.
Now, I go again to her cranium.
In her case, I’m not using the cranium, but the widest part of the head that I’m
seeing because she’s wearing a turban.
You can see, okay, there is a little bit more room.
We’ll add a little bit more.
Just add a tiny bit more on each side.
Then again, the zygomatic arch will go to her.
We’re really close here, so we shouldn’t add to much here anymore.
Now, the point of the jaw.
Also, just be sure where you applied it.
We’re really close.
We don’t want to add too much anymore.
One more time, the chin.
I can just see on the right side I added a little too much or more, so we’ll just add
on the left side.
Good.
So, we’re happy or I’m happy.
So now, slowly it turns into a human being.
I want to look at the profile side now.
I will turn Sahi again.
A little more.
Yeah, that’s good.
I filled in a lot of the forms.
We can have that from a different angle for a second.
I filled in a lot of the forms so you can read it a little bit better, where the forms
are starting to appear.
Before it was from the front, and I just filled in those things I could.
I measured those four points and it just filled in at that area.
I was really watching out that I don’t come forward too much because as I mentioned before,
it makes the sculpture too flat.
We want to make sure that the information and the depth is placed correctly.
That’s why I want to—I can show it on myself for a second.
From the point of my ear to the zygomatic arch to the eye opening to the first plane
change of my forehead, all this information I want to draw onto the sculpture.
And then I know, okay, I shouldn’t sculpt forward.
I get this information from my model, mark it here, and then I can keep filling in those
areas.
What’s really important to see now is the corner of the eye and the eyeball is really
next to the eye orbit.
If you touch yourself and you move your eyeball a little bit, like the bone of it is really
next to it.
This is a really good landmark to use.
The next measurement I will be using is from the ear to the corner of my eyeball, not of
mine, of the model of the eyeball and apply this information here.
That’s a very important landmark.
We’ll go over to my model.
I don’t need a caliper at this point.
Just a straight tool is working.
It’s here.
That’s very interesting information.
I just mark this here.
With the form I filled in it’s way too much backwards, but that’s good because I wanted
to be careful.
But now, I can feel safe and say, okay, I need to fill in here because I need mass here.
I’m just using my fingers for now.
The more I get to the border, I use more tools.
There are other sculptors that would advise you to always use tools, like always just
applying clay and then immediately use the tool and make it really nice and clean.
I think this is taking a long time, and when I know I have to add in this area anyways,
and I will, this surface I will treat differently why not just using my fingers and just adding
the volume at this area.
The good thing is you will get really strong hands after some time.
Okay, so other information that I want to use is a really clear—I will show you on
the skull.
Here you go.
Here.
This is a really clear direction change here.
Here is like a triangle shape that you can see very clearly on the model too.
This shape I’m talking about.
This line here is very obvious on everybody.
The forehead is not just like a round form, the forehead has lots of very clear plane
changes that I will show to you, but this is the most important one that I’m going
to measure out and introduce onto my sculpture.
So, I will walk over to my model, measure this line, draw it.
I drew it before, but you know, we keep measuring things because it’s so, it’s changing
all the time.
I keep adding things.
It’s changing all the time.
Okay, at this stage I’m just filling in very obvious shapes that I’m seeing.
It’s time for a direction change, so never work too long on one side because you will
just develop it too much.
Now I feel like I want to look from the front again.
I turn the sculpture towards me, if we can change perspective for a second, and I will
change our beautiful Sahi also.
There you go.
Perfect.
It still doesn’t really look like her, but what we are starting to do at this point,
I added a lot here in the zygomatic arch area, jaw area, and cranium area.
Also the chin area.
What I didn’t add at all is her facial features yet.
That’s why it looks really lean here and kind of fishy still, like a fish or something.
I want to mark the width of her lips, the width of her nose, the width of her eye, not
eyeballs but the corners of her eyes.
I want to measure that width.
And then also the distance between the eyebrows.
As soon as I have that drawn onto my sculpture it, again, will give me much more information
and I will see just more.
So, first thing first.
Just relax your lips for a second, please.
Thank you.
Width of the lips.
We’ll walk to my sculpture.
Okay, I will make a mark here knowing, okay, this will be the width.
I know that here is a lot of volume still missing because here is like the, you know,
the teeth are underneath it so this is like a very wide point.
You can even, if you feel comfortable, measure a little further up too so you can see, okay,
here is a lot of form still missing.
But, this mark is very clear for the corners of the lips.
I do the same thing with the nose.
Now I measured the width of the nose and also will make left and right very clear mark.
Pierce it really deeply so that when you look from the front it gives you an idea where
that stuff is supposed to be.
Now we will measure the corners of the eyes.
So, Sahi, just close your eyes gently.
I will just measure the corners of your eyes very carefully.
This is what I need.
Okay.
The corners of the eyes.
Make it centered.
Now we’ll be measuring also the distance of the brows.
It’s also a good indication.
It helps me to fill in just more forms.
The distance of the brows here.
Okay.
I measured all those points, and it’s good to take a break in between and also give the
model a break, of course.
After we go on a break, I will try to fill in eye and nose area and mouth area, and then
it starts to make more and more sense.
Let’s take a well-deserved break for now.

So, we are back from our little break.
I was starting to introduce the width of the features, the width of the nose, the width
of the mouth, the width of the angles and eyebrows.
I just made marks on my sculpture that help me to find where to fill in the rest of the
forms, and it still doesn’t look quite like her yet, but that’s okay.
We slowly grow to the width that we need.
I made the measurement of the nose, so I will observe on her and try to make a connection
to the widest point of the nose and fill just in obvious things I’m seeing.
Not too much, though, because I don’t know really how much I can fill in because I can
see it better from the side than later, but I just fill in things that are very obvious.
Now I’m starting to use more and more my wooden tool because I’m getting closer to
the surface, and I don’t want the bumps of my fingers to be in the clay, so I will
start to be a little bit more precise and cleaner with the surface that I’m using.
From the front I will introduce a little bit the wings of the nose by looking at her and
looking at how it’s shaped from the front and…remember when you do something on one
side you immediately have to do it on the other side also.
Otherwise, you will get confused, and it’s going to get out of symmetry.
What I just did on that side, introducing the wing of the nose and the wing a little
bit, you know, the volume of the teeth.
I will do that on the other side as well.
Now I want to start to use my tool more and more.
I’m trying to find my cherry wood tool.
I’m introducing a little bit more the wing of the nose.
I can shape that from the side also.
I’m going to add a little bit on the lips on both sides.
I made a little mark before where the width of the lips.
I’m going to measure the width of the lips again, like the corners of them exactly.
Go to my sculpture and see, okay.
I want to really get her really full nice lips.
I don’t add immediately the lips necessarily.
What I add is the bone structure of the width of the tooth line which has a quite prominent
width that I haven’t introduced in my sculpture yet.
I’m making sure that I have this width left and right.
I guess that gives me room to shape the mouth a little more.
It’s not at a stage yet where we get close to nose, mouth, and lip.
It’s really still growing the width of the skull really, but it helps me sometimes to
just make marks of the features so I see better, so I can see better where to apply more clay.
I’m still adding left and right lips.
You know what is really helpful too at this stage, to look at the model from underneath.
That way you can see from underneath the turn of the mouth and also the volume.
What I’ll do is I’ll go down on my knees and look upward.
That helps me really well to really see the turn of the whole mouth area from underneath.
Now I’m not using my finger at all anymore because I’m really coming closer to the
surface.
I’m only using—I apply the clay and then immediately use my wooden tool and shape it
to where I want it to be.
When you do that just make sure you don’t come too much forward.
You know, the corners of the lips, they have to in the depths of the side of the sculpture,
like on the side, don’t come too it forward.
That’s a bit tricky or tempting in this stage.
I’m marking, the center line is very important to keep the symmetry, as I said.
In between, like where the center is, this little thing that we have underneath the nose
is called the philtrum, and I like to mark it at least where it is.
It also influences the shape of the lips.
I’m not making the lips really carefully yet, but it’s still about the width of this.
I’m introducing the philtrum.
Then again, I can use my caliper and make a measurement of, let’s say, the chin for
a little bit.
That’s good.
Make a measurement of the lips one more time.
We’re good here.
I think it’s time to turn the sculpture into another direction.
Before I do that, I think I should add a little bit at the neck area just because it’s growing
here a lot, and there is nothing here.
It’s a little bit distracting.
You want to keep all the volumes a little bit on the same level, as I said.
If you notice, one area is totally underdeveloped, just make sure you change that becomes a little
distracting.
I’m using my blocking tool for this.
If I need bigger masses.
Okay, now I’m really interested in the side view because I’m starting to think that
I should introduce a little bit more on the cheek area, also like eye orbit.
That’s a little underdeveloped.
I will turn, I will look for the profile line again and then turn to the side or so.
Okay, very good.
What I’m doing now with the side view is looking at the cheek area.
I can feel in here much more, and then I also want to make sure that this plane that moves
towards—I’ll show on the skull.
From the ear there is a plane before it moves forward.
This plane I want to observe on the model.
Okay, what I can see really clearly on her now is underneath the zygomatic arch it turns
inward.
She has such a very prominent, and I can also see her zygomatic arch.
It’s good to draw on the sculpture and make this line here where I need to move inward
a little bit and then pronounce a little bit more the zygomatic arch also.
Okay, so now, also what’s important is to start to introduce the eyebrow bone.
It’s very prominent on her, too.
This little mark I just made is where I will place the eyeball later, but we are not at
all at the point where we want to place the eyeball.
I just made a mark there because then I know where it’s going to be placed later.
What I’m also interested in is where does the eye orbit start here?
I will just measure that on her and mark that again.
Now I’m just filling in forms that I’m seeing obviously on her, like really clearly.
Okay, I’m stepping back a little bit to look at my model and to look at my sculpture
a little bit more from a distance again.
I filled in much more forms now in the cheek area, and now I will compare the profile line
again.
Whatever reason, if I introduce here more then I can see the profile line better, too.
What I can see is that like her, the back of her nose has a little bit more of a curvature
than what I have.
Also, the lower lip as a little bit more volume, so I’m looking at that, too.
You know, a very common mistake is that where the nose ring, the line of the nose ring to
the tip of the nose where the philtrum comes out, this area, most people make it way to
far back.
But really, it is in the middle of the nose, like from that point from the corner of the
nose wing to the top of the nose, the philtrum comes out in the middle.
Not further back.
This is a very common mistake a lot of people make.
Just be aware of this.
So yeah, I just fixed it a little bit the profile line that I was making.
Keep cleaning up the shape here.
Now I’m just filling in the forms that I can see obviously.
We’re still not at absolute width yet.
Like where I placed the ear, it’s going to come out more.
It wouldn’t make sense to make a nice ear at this stage because I will add to it later.
We’ll leave this area alone for now.
I’m adding.
Really, what I do from the side view more is depth information, meaning corner of the
eye, corner of the nose.
Where is the cheekbone coming out?
Where is the corner of the mouth?
Really what depth information, not so much width information.
The width information I take from the front, and the depth information I take from the
side view.
This is very important that you understand this difference.
If you build up from here, much more from the side, you can’t judge, you can’t tell
how far it’s coming out, so that’s why.
Good, so I think we did a fairly good job from what we can see from this angle now.
I’m just going to fill in here because this is still very underdeveloped.
Always when you see a part that’s underdeveloped and no clay at all, just make sure that you
fill it in immediately, that you keep up a little.
I know I just said don’t make width choices from the side, but I know that I’m going
to fill in here anyways.
I just, you know.
Also, I can start to introduce the neck muscle called the sternocleidomastoideus, like I
can’t just like a drawing mark where it comes down.
And I guess you just have to watch me for a moment.
I’m just trying to find more and more shapes.
Okay, we will turn the model again.
Now, I’m interested in seeing the other side of the my sculpture, the other side.
I’m checking depth information from this side.
Same thing.
Same thing as I did from the other side, so I’ll just.
You know, remember this area?
Then I can add… slowly I’m starting to clean up the surface a little bit to make
it a little less rough as I’m filling in forms still.
I’m trying to treat it a little bit more, you know, gentle.
I’m checking the corner of the eye again.
I can see, alright, I have more room here.
I can add here more, much more.
Notice, also, the angle of the ear, what I just did.
The ear is not straight, like it has an angle like this.
I make this angle to be easier.
It’s easier to compare, like the angle down to the jawline.
As I did from the other side, I need to introduce the neck muscle called the sternocleidomastoideus.
I want to introduce it on that side also.
Okay, you can just watch me do that for a second, and then I want to add a little bit
in the back too because this is a little underdeveloped.
I’m marking the sternocleidomastoid.
I’m marking a little where the turban is going to be.
Just like obvious points that you’re seeing, you can mark.
Clean up a little bit my forms.
Then what I marked from the other side, you know, where her zygomatic arch ends that’s
very clearly on her.
I want to draw that onto the sculpture so I see the shape really clearly.
Yeah, I’m very happy for this side for now.
I think I’ll leave it for now, and now I want to look from the front again.
Okay, good.
Now, I can see from the front that I introduced a lot of things from the side, and now I need
to match them from the front, like the width.
Notice that the eye orbit is still open.
There is nothing in there still.
I don’t want to fill it in now.
It comes much later.
I can start to build up the width a little bit here and inside.
I don’t want to make the eyes at this stage.
So now we’re reacting also a little bit to the plane changes of the forehead that
you can see on her really clearly also, but you can also look at the skull if it helps
you.
I want to show you that on the skull.
There is a very clear frontal plane that’s facing us.
It’s has like five corners.
It has this kind of shape, and it’s slightly rounded and goes inward a little bit.
This is almost like a corner, and then it turns backward again.
This kind of shape you see here, that we can even draw onto our sculpture, that kind of
shape, and fill it in a little bit more.
I want to introduce at this point plane changes of the head.
I’m also reacting—see this corner?
Like, I can see this on her also.
This is going backwards.
Now what bothers me is I don’t have a background at all here.
So I want to fill this in just a little bit because I can see clearly on her that this
is really present and obvious.
Don’t worry about the shape of it.
I’m just adding volume to it just so I have something in the back of the sculpture.
So, that’s fine.
Now I’m introducing a little bit like the eyebrow bone, like this area here.
On my skull I can show you what I just did, which is I introduce this bone here.
It’s very present here also on my sculpture.
It’s here.
Okay.
Sometimes I forget that when I do something on this side I have to immediately do it on
the other side also.
Just remind yourself that when you make changes here you have to make changes on the other
side immediately also.
This is what I’m just doing here.
Also, like on the bone.
Okay, so very quickly from just this kind of fish view, we grew it to the width a little
bit more.
I didn’t make the eyes at all, and it’s still a little too lean as a whole.
It still does not have the width that she has.
She does have a little bit of a leaner face, but it’s still not the width that she has.
I’m going over those four points again.
You can see, okay, there is still a little bit of room in the four points; zygomatic
arch, jawbone.
There is a little bit of room which is good.
Yeah, exactly.
Sorry.
This is not what I wanted to use.
This is what I wanted to use.
Exactly.
Okay.
Today we introduce the most important width, the profile line, and that’s all you can
do for one session for now.
I’m going to go over it one more time, over the profile line.
I will turn Sahi one more time.
I’m going to look like you guys see that here.
That’s what I’ve been doing.
I’m going to go over this one more time…with this method.
I will step back one more time, look at Sahi, look at my sculpture.
You know, after one session sometimes the eye just gets tired.
You don’t see clearly anymore what you want to do next.
It’s okay to, you know, end the session at this point.
Before you end it just make clear marks so the next time when you start again you know
what you marked.
For instance, you know, this plane change that I showed you here, you want to mark it
clearly.
You’re going to mark clearly the corner of the eye.
You want to mark clearly where you had the wing of the nose, where you had the corner
of the lip.
Those marks just make them really clear, so next time when you wrap the sculpture and
then you invite the model in again that you know what information to look for, and you
know what you made the last session.
So, in this first lesson today we went over the materials to use.
We looked at what the armature could look like for a portrait.
We also asked a model in, looked at how we can get started, and then we built the profile
line from a side angle and we blocked in the major proportions of the profile line and
started slowly to build up the four major points that I was pointing out, the four major
bony points of the skull and introduced them onto our sculpture.
That was a successful lesson, and I’m looking forward to the second lesson, where we are
going to the next step of keeping building up the forms.