Confederate Relief done

Here's the finished sculpture. This will go into the mail at the begining of the week for casting.





Into the homestrech

The Confederate relief is almost done. There is some cleanup work along with some minor back filling and other minor things (like adding the bugle cord) before it ships next week. The photograph shows the pieces that make up the sculpture. The small tassel that hangs off of the hat will be permanently attached. The bugle and saber blade are the only separate pieces.



Sculpture in progress

Here is how the piece has progressed as of today. Though some areas look finished I'll still go back in for further refining.



Let's begin

The first step involved scanning the art and then reducing it to the actual size of the finished piece. I took a piece of acetate and traced (yes, I cheated) the painting. The acetate "tracing" was taped to a piece of white paper and traced again sing a piece of waxed paper. A fine point Sharpie worked fine for drawing on the waxy surface.


The tracing.



A mixture of Sculpey Firm and Sculpey III was mixed together and rolled into a ball. It was then placed on a piece of black floor tile and flattened by pressing down on it with another tile. The wax paper tracing was pressed down over this once the Sculpey was flattened to where the design fit. I then poked through the drawing with a pointed tool. The purpose of this is so an outline of the drawing is left so the forms can be sculpted.

After I finished poking through the entire drawing I slowly peeled the wax paper off. To my surprise the drawing transferred to the Sculpey in addition to the holes from the tool. I thought maybe the tool carried some of the ink though, I'm not really sure.

Ready for sculpting!