Pop Sculpture: How to Sculpt Action Figures and Statues

I've known Alterton Bizarre for a few years. He is one of a kind. I've never known anyone with such a love for the art of sculpture. His was the first site (http://www.thesculptorscorner.com/Alterton.htm) I posted some of my work to. He works in a very difficult and unforgiving material, but through sheer force of will, dedication and a unwavering passion, he's mastered epoxy to become one of the most gifted sculptors in the business. Ladies and gents... Alterton Bizarre!
-TB

Ok my amigos; this is a funny tutorial I used to have at my old site. Why funny? Well because seeing it from today, the technique I used was ridiculous!!! But give me some credit, cause it is not easy to be a commercial sculptor when you are living right down in the ass of the world, right at the point where the wind and the sea collapse under the singing of the whales! Well, I live south of that, and a right turn from there!

When you are starting to sculpt from nowhere, from scratch… without an artistic background and living in a place where these things are not common. Polymer clay? Toy Wax? They do no exist down here, anywhere? And to get them from the States is a real pain in the neck. Not only because of the expensive shipping costs but also because... you might never get them!!! I have been there, and it is frustrating! And expensive!! Stupid mail service!

I remember when I was working for Art asylum, they gave me their precious wax formula, it came with all the ingredients and the grams to be used; well, I still can’t understand what in the name of God is toilette wax. And most of the ingredients were a big mystery to me. So I had to figure it out how to do what I like to do with the things available to me at the local stores.

Now, with all the excuses said, this was my first attempt to get my hands into this wonderful (and sometimes frustrating) commercial sculpture world!

1: These are the tools I use most often; mostly dental tools, also a knife, compass and the magic tool Ralph Cordero gave me.

2: I used human skeleton as reference and a sketch from Chuck Needham's site to build the wire armature. Once I had the wire armature, I covered it with the 10 minute (set time) epoxy, except the joints so I could give the pose to the armature. Once the pose was set, I covered the joints with the 10 min. epoxy putty too and positioned the armature in a homemade stand to secure the piece and to be able to sculpt from here . So far, there is nothing funny all right? Pretty similar first steps in all techniques.

But here comes the funny thing, I used regular plastilina, the one children use at school, like the Play-Doh putty that never drays or sets or gets hard. So with this unusual material I did the anatomy to give shape and volume to the figure covering the armature.

3:. The trick; the most valuable secret to continue with this process of sculpting the ultimate figure was to put the Play-Doh piece a couple of minutes in the freezer

4: That step allowed to preserve the plastilina figure shape and to have a firm base for the next step.

5: Meanwhile I was “preserving” the piece in the freeze, I rolled out a thin layer of standard epoxy putty (the ones that gets hard in and hour and a half) and let it rest for about 20 minutes Why regular "school" plastilina you might ask? Because… well… without polymer clay for the base, the Play-Doh like material allowed me to study the pose and the thickness of the figure, and modify it as I needed to.


6: Once the palstilina was frozen and the layer of epoxy had some body, I re-repositioned the figure on the stand and started to cover it by parts according to the places the pose and volume allowed me to. As you can see, some plastilina parts were not covered with epoxy. I waited the epoxy to set up and put the figure back into the freezer,

7: Another thin layer of epoxy to cover the uncovered plastilina parts, repositioned on the stand and voile! The entire figure covered with epoxy!


8: For the head, I used the same skeleton sketch because of proportions. An epoxy ball worked fine. As the head of this robot had an open mouth, I decided to do both jaws separately.

9: You can see how I shaped the upper jaw. Once it was hard I used a Dremel Tool to give the proper robot shape the design asked for.


10: For the lower jaw, I did a plastilina ball to keep and preserve the space between both jaws and to give shape to the lower one.

11: Once the epoxy was hard, I Dremeled it again, cutting and shaping, adding detail.


12: Here are the cut and keyed parts. For details, I worked in layers; sanded a lot, and added more layers and more sanding, etc. etc. etc. ( as shown in the GOW Boomer’s tutorial.)


13: Here’s a pic of the completed, unpainted sculpture.

14:The finished piece with a kick-ass paint job by Dan Cope!

Reading the old tutorial I wrote for my site, I thought the secrets of the Sculpture Universe had been revealed to me. But, hey, those were my first steps!!! It makes me laugh to read that early stuff. But, don’t you laugh, or I’ll have to kick you where the sun don’t shine!
I hope you liked it! See you soon.

Alterton