New Client, New Figure

Howdy, All!  How is everyone?  Well, I’ve been pretty busy over here.  Over the past month, I got a new project underway.  An old friend of mine from high school emailed me.  He’d seen pictures of some of the other ventriloquist dummies I’ve made, and he requested that I make one for himself.  He is just learning ventriloquism, but thought what fun it would be to incorporate ventriloquism with the lessons he teaches in Sunday School at church.  So he asked me to make him a ventriloquist dummy of Thomas S. Monson, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). 

Wow!

Needless to day, I was blown away.  Not only was he going to actually PAY me, but he wanted a realistic figure of a living person, something I’ve never done before.  I was very apprehensive, but challenging though the project seemed, I got to work!

Now, this guy whose face I’m sculpting is definitely no dummy;  by the members the Church, he’s regarded as a holy prophet.  Even if you don’t believe that stuff, he’s a really nice guy who is respected the world over, by people of many different religions and nationalities.  Not exactly a candidate for bad caricature, so I’ve got to do the best job I can.  As if I ever do anything else!

My friend asked me to take occasional pictures of my progress during the building of this figure.  So, naturally, I thought, what fun it would be to post them here.

Preparation

Before beginning any sort of build, you have to have a plan, or at least an idea of what you are going to be doing.  Since this figure is based on an actual person, and a well-known person at that, I began by studying photographs of him.  Through the internet I found hundreds, taken from various angles, which was incredibly helpful since, of course, this is a three-dimensional project.  Once I felt I had a pretty good idea of the “landscape” of President Monson’s head, I prepared a couple of drawings.

OK, maybe I’m not that great at portraits.   But my aim was to get a general idea of what he looks like so that the figure I make will look like him as well.  Besides, I’m not only using these drawings as a guide, but also some actual photographs.

Beginning the Build

The first step is to build an armature.  A ventriloquist figure has a hollow head, so we have to make some kind of head-like object to form that space.  For this build I used wads of newspaper and aluminum foil, mainly because that is all I’ve got on hand.  I would have like to have used non-drying modeling clay, but I’m on an almost non-existent budget, and I didn’t have the money to buy any this time around.  I could have used paper mache, and probably should have, because when you make an armature, you want it to be stiff enough to hold the clay you apply to it.  And it’s best if your armature holds its shape, so that the figure’s head doesn’t warp as it dries.  The problem with using newspaper as a clay armature is that the paper soaks up the moisture the clay gives off as it dries.  This makes the newspaper soggy, and the armature can collapse if you’re not careful.  For various reasons I wasn’t able to use paper mache, so I just encased the newspaper with lots and lots of masking tape, which helped avoid this problem.

I don’t have pictures of the armature, but it was essentially head-shaped, a bit smaller than the figure’s head would end up being.  I’m making this figure out of Paperclay.  When I first began building figures, I used various things like wood, wood pulp, epoxy putty, etc.  They worked OK, but my problem is that I live in a tiny apartment, and don’t have a workshop.  I wanted something easier to work with in a small, confined area.   I was told about Paperclay by a very well-known sculptor and doll maker named Bill Nelson.  Paperclay is amazing stuff.  It’s lightweight, works just like clay, and can be easily sanded and carved when dry.

I began building up the face on the armature using small, wet pieces of Paperclay.  Keeping the clay wet made it easy to work.  Once I got a fairly even coating of about ¼ inch or so, I began building up the nose, eyes, cheeks and mouth.  Once I had a fairly basic structure completed, I let it dry.  I used a fan to help speed up drying, and let it sit for about 12 hours.  Normally I’d have let it sit longer, but I knew my armature was mostly newspaper, which would soak up the water.  In order to prevent the head shell from warping under a wet armature, I removed the shell from the armature before it was completely dry.  Using a pocket knife I cut the head into two shells and carefully removed them from the armature.  I then let both halves of the head dry completely, using various sized popsicle sticks to help prop the hollow opening, so that both halves would fit when dry.

Once the shell was completely dry, I continued adding details to the face, using my drawings and photographs as a guide, trying to make sure everything looked right.  This,  in my view, is the most difficult part of figure building.  You’ve got to make it look good, since this is what everyone will be seeing and interacting with.  In fact, this  process is pretty much ongoing until the figure is painted.  Even when I get the head installed with mechanics, I still may be carving or adding clay to some feature I feel may need prucing up.  I’m a perfectionist in this area, so it is always the most lengthy step.

Here I have cut the mouth out using a pocket knife.  I made the lines as straight as possible, but they are still not exact.  But that’s OK; any gaps will be filled in after the pivot rod for the mouth is installed.  First, though, we’ve got to build a box for the mouth to sit on.

The mouth box is made of wood, and is basically the interior of the mouth, and the hardware that attaches the mouth to the pivot rod.  This is an important step, since you want the mouth to open and close as smoothly as possible, so everything must be measured.  I’m using basswood from a hobby shop and a small hobby saw to cut the pieces for the box, and wood glue to glue them all together.  Once the pieces are glued together, I fasten rubber bands around it to hold it together as it dries

After the mouthbox is dried, I must glue the box to the back of the clay mouth piece.  This requires some shaping of the mouth box with a knife and sand paper to make a close fit.  I let this all dry for another 24 hours, to make sure it is strong before I continue to the next step.

This is where I am now.  Next post, we’ll install the pivot rod and fit the mouth in!

Michael