Step 4) Space Shrimp Sculpting!

Applying the first layers of clay – I would roll out big slabs of clay between two sticks to get an even thickness. I have two sets of sticks I use (the smaller ones, which result in thinner slabs,are to the right in the first pic). I’ve also been experimenting with putting clay through an old pasta machine which you can just see the edge of next to the rolling pin (right). The pasta machine works alright but the clay sticks to it a little too much.

I would take a slab of clay, warm it with a hairdryer till it was soft, and then wrap it around the armature. I would either cut away the excess or warm it some more and blend the edges in.

By the way – the clay I’m using is primarily Chavant Soft (along with one block of LeBeau Touche).

Temporarily testing possible eye placement (yes, those are ping pong balls)...

More bulk added, and the placement of the first details sketched in…

This is again why I didn’t glue the arms into a fixed position – so I could move them out of the way or remove them all together (see right) to get at other areas of the sculpt.

With the ping pong balls eye blanks back in and more bulk added to the head. (Although something was bugging me at this point – he was starting to look more like a Corythosaurus than a Prawn…)

+=???

Further bulking out of the head and torso…

And this is suddenly where it all started to go horribly wrong…

Step 3) Faced With A Face Full Of Foil

Bulking out the armature with aluminum foil…

This was supposed to help save on clay and weight by filling out the center of the sculpt (and the rough texture of the foil was supposed to give the clay something to cling to – except I got overzealous with the electrical tape…. That’s ok though, because the clay I ended up using was quite sticky when warmed. I didn’t have any trouble with it falling off the sculpt)

You can see I also wrapped wire around the limbs – again to give the clay something extra to grab onto.

I didn’t want to add TOO much foil though, since, if I needed to, I wanted the ability to carve deep into the sculpt. I tried to leave myself at least an inch (more like two) all the way around.

In the end though I VASTLY underestimated the amount of clay I needed to order. In fact I had to order clay twice because I ran out before I’d even finished roughing out the sculpt the first time.

* * *

This is a short post before an extra long one but since I've got a little time I just have to show you this little bit of D9 fun I found.

I was visiting a friend just in time for her annual, spectacular Halloween party. We were packing up the various bags of treats and decorations to take over to the event hall when she hands me what looks like a green, metallic novelty pen.

"Here," she said. "I thought you might like to have this."

Seeing antennae and guessing as to why she deemed it an appropriate gift for me, I chortle "Oooh! A Prawn pen!"

Then I turned it over for a closer look...


Hey - It really WAS a Prawn Pen! An Angry!Wikus Pen no less! XD

This is why I have awesome friends - they know me MUCH too well!

(Hmm something tells me I'll be commiserating with Angry!Wikus here before this project is out...)

Step 2) Artfully Arranging Armatures and the Sorrows of Soldering Space Shrimp!

After gathering my photos and other reference material it was time to actually build the armature (the support system which would hold up the clay for the sculpt).

I decided to use ½” copper and plastic pipe attached to a wooden base. The red bits are strips of electrical tape marking where I should cut the various lengths for the armature (if you look closely you can also see the little arrows reminding me to CUT ON THIS SIDE OF THE TAPE, DUMMY!)

Both the copper and plastic pipe cut easily with a regular hacksaw (especially the plastic pipe – like butta!)

A rough first assembly of the armature that will one day be little CJ! Nothing in this shot is permanently attached or even taped yet – in fact it’s all being held together with elastic bands. I’m using an old sculpting base in this shot, as I hadn’t built the new, sturdier one yet.

The beginning of the proper base – a ¾” galvanized steel flange and the matching 4” length of ¾” threaded galvanized steel pipe, bolted into a nice sturdy inch thick piece of wood leftover from renovations we did this summer.

This is where the full-sized plans came in handy – it made it very easy to double check the angles for the armature against the drawing.

My first attempts, ever, at soldering after a quick down-and-dirty lesson from my father. The “pelvis” (left) went together easily enough (and was then reinforced with a bolt) but I ran into difficulty with the area around CJ’s “shoulders” (right). The pieces wouldn’t hold together with solder or, if they did, slipped out of alignment while they were being soldered.

So I went out and bought some more copper pipe fittings and assembled them into a new, sturdier “shoulder” piece (middle). Along with being sturdier this new rig was much easier to adjust to the angles I wanted.

Here’s the armature with the arms and legs attached. I used plastic pipes for the limbs because it’s less expensive than building the whole thing out of copper. The core was built of copper for strength (at least that was the plan *insert FORESHADOWING OF DOOM here*).


I also wanted to be able to detach the limbs later to be able to sculpt the torso more easily and that was easier to do with the big plastic joints rather than the copper ones.

Now it’s time to bulk out the armature…