Portfolio - Sculpting & Modelmaking

Throughout my career so far I have actively chased the chance to explore and work within a wide range of processes across puppet and art departments. From sculpting in different materials to mould making and casting, soldering and armature making.
 

Please scroll down for some examples of my work and skillset, and be sure to click any images to open them in full size (and gallery view)!

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Chuck Steel - as a Junior Sculptor/Additional Animator, my biggest role on Chuck Steel was to sculpt, maintain and repair the plasticine heads of the full puppet cast, and produce bespoke sculpts and expressions to briefs from the Director.

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Morph - begun

in modelmaking workshop with

Jim Parkyn

during

Aardman Academy

Torso study - speed sculpts in clay

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Funko Pop Customs - created from scratch for a private project. Sculpted and baked in super sculpey, then hand painted, and paired with digitally designed and assembled box replicas that I created in Photoshop.

Armature building - using joints from John Wright Modelmaking, I created my own bespoke ball & socket armature for my third year character animation showreel. I had numerous workshops within the UWE Fabrication Centre to learn how to independently use various tools and machines, including the pillar drill, lathe and dremmel; cutting, assembling and soldering together my little character. With no intention of fabricating it, I purposefully gave him exaggerately larger features for charm.

Tree puppet - During my second year group film project, 'Back to the Burrow', one of my roles was to create the Tree character. Beginning his life as a thick wire armature (with smaller animatable wire for the moving arms), I bulked out his shape and applied layers of latex dipped scrim foam which I shaped into bark, and finally painted. I also gave him socketed eyeballs to make them animatable, and made several stages of blinks out of Sculpey which I then baked and painted.

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I pushed to organise various practical workshops whilst at uni, giving myself experience and practice in lasercutting, 3d printing, woodwork, metalwork, and sewing - but most importantly mould making and casting for animation.

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My first animated short project during my Foundation Diploma in 2012, 'Being Bristolian' was a short celebration of Bristol as my hometown, and the project gave me chance to explore modelmaking in a range of materials.

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The puppet (a miniature self portrait of myself) was made in a workshop with Aardman modelmaker Ellie Weston, and I later went on to sculpt his features and shoes from sculpey, and hand stitch his fabric outfit.

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Developing low-cost bunny armatures for the main characters using materials and techniques from previous workshops.

A Levels & Art Diploma

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Growth & life

meets decay & death

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Self portrait clay head (to scale)

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Clay hand (from observation)

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Facial features study, carved in plaster

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Exploring human biology in mixed media

Life Drawing

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Capturing form & expression, 2 minute poses

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As understanding movement and capturing strong

key poses is crucial in character animation, I attended as many life drawing sessions as I could to improve my eye for posture.

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Long poses

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Exploring shape & scale, 10 minute poses

Pencil Portraiture

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A lot of patience and an eye for perfection is needed to survive as an animator, so it's just as well I'm used to spending hours on one piece of work as I've grown as an artist over the years (I take pencil portrait commissions when I can as a hobby on the side).