CJ, Can You Give Me A Leg Up?

Technically I'm combining a couple of sessions into one post here. The first one was really not that productive - so unproductive in fact that I'm not going to bother posting the pics as there was very little visible progress.

Basically, as was my plan, I continued roughing in the sculpt some more as I made my way down CJ's torso. A tweak here, a tweak there but it was one of those times where I really wasn't "feeling it" and by the time Poirot had solved the mystery I was definitely ready to stop for the day...

(I like to listen to audio-books and DVD commentaries while I sculpt. While working on CJ I've been listening to a steady diet of Agatha Christie stories and Sherlock Holmes radio plays. Besides being entertaining it works as an excellent timing tool - I start a fresh CD when I begin a session each day and when it's over I know I've clocked at least 60 - if not 80 - minutes of sculpting time).

So my first session in a week was unsatisfactory. The next session went much better though! I focused mainly on blocking in his limbs (and in particular his legs).

Here I'm refining the curve of the hips, and the shape of the abdomen, while adding the strange back to front groove that crosses the pelvic area...

All of CJ's limbs had just a thin uniform layer of clay on them. I know Prawns are skinny and lanky but they're not THAT spindly. So the limbs needed bulking out.

I rolled out a few slabs of clay with my thicker set of sticks and roughly wrapped each leg...

Then I concentrated on making the shins more triangular, to match the reference photos...

The "thigh" is semi-triangular but it also has a bulging, rounded section about 3/4 of the way up. You can see the refined leg on the left and the one I still need to fix on the right.

I'm jazzed now! Not perfect quite yet - but again I'm trying to keep the whole sculpt at a similar level of completion so this is good for now. I don't want to add perfect, minuscule detailing to one area only to realize it's out of proportion with all the other body parts.

But it's looking good!

So next time - onto the right leg!