The Swan Throne

I finished sculpting the Swan Queen's throne. I've also got the corinthian style column for the virgin bird and the window frame for the rooster stained glass window.

Illustration update.

I've been working Petsmart and the Scenic shop these last few weeks, so I've gotten very little done on the illustration. I sculpted the corinthian style column for the virgin bird, and finished the swan queen's throne. But I think I'm going to wait till after the 2nd of January to really come back to this and work full throttle again.

Happy holidays Everyone!!!

The Virgin Bird

Today was the first day of sculpting on the new illustration! This is one of the statues that will top a column in the corner of the room.

Size test.

It's a crappy photo, but I made a rough set up of the next illustration with cardboard to get all the size issues figured out. The queen is going to be sculpted at 10" tall. The back walls are going to be 2' tall.

The Next illustration

Here's the value study for my next illustration. I just wanted to do a bird themed knighting for some reason. You may remember the bird themed stained glass windows I designed a few months back? This is what they're waiting for.

A gummie medallion

I sculpted a full size Gummie Medallion and took photos of it at the Magic Kingdom! Complete with purple ribbon! Now I just need to make the great book of Gummie.

The legend of the Gummie Medallion.

You receive a package one day. It's contents are three mysterious envelopes and a letter from a lawyer claiming you have inherited a very important part of his clients' estate. The manila envelopes have been in a safe deposit box in the Bank of England for the past 20 years. Inside rests an inexhaustible and ancient power.

More Work from Disney!

The last project I did at the Scenic Shop was putting on vinyl artwork onto giant plexiglass sheets that eventually became the film reels around the Hollywood Studios Christmas tree. We had 8' sheets of white translucent plexiglass then cut out and attached the black film framing on all 20 or so sheets. Then we attached the vinyl artwork individually to each frame, making sure they were clean and centered. It was a lot of fun and it turned out looking great!!

Penny website.

In expanding my 'average man' portfolio, I've remembered that I have another website that still exists. It's a website dedicated to the penny. Visit it! There, you can burn, slice, freeze or even canadianize a penny. Also check out the documentary video I made about pennies in the wild. It's a crazy ride, so hold on!

Click here for penny site

Sand! For only $34.95

This is my first attempt at packaging design. Why? you ask. Well, I have advice for those of you out there with only one portfolio. Make a portfolio for the average man!
When you make a professional portfolio there are a thousand rules to follow; only show the employer 10-12 pieces, customize each portfolio to the style of each company, always include life sketches, have a customized cover letter, the resume must always only be one page long... etc. etc. I have learned that when you show your portfolio to normal people from everyday life (not art directors or HR people), very few of those rules apply. Most people are embarrassed by nude figure drawings, so I've completely gotten rid of them. Also, show a wide range of skills. I'm dividing my portfolio into 4 sections: Sculpture, 2d (paintings), graphic design, and photography. I'm also not holding back on the number of pieces. I've noticed people will flip through and seem to want more than 12. So I'm giving each section 12 pieces. Like four portfolios jammed into one! Of course the cover letter is gone, no one wants to read anyway. I'm keeping the resume, and I've cut slits in the inner sleeve to hold three business cards instead of one. Average people seem to be impressed with business cards. Process work is gone too. I've never seen anyone look at my portfolio and comment on how they like seeing my thought process. HR people and art directors like that, but not John Q. Driveway. Another bit of advice is to keep the thing in your car. I've had tons of instances when my artwork comes up and someone says "oh, you should show me sometime" and it's great when you can say "I've got my portfolio in the car"! I'm also going to carry two in the car, one for the average man, and a professional 12 piece one on the off chance I run into someone who could hire me for a job.
So there you go. This is my first piece into graphic design. A whole realm of art I have NO business being in. But the average person won't know. If they flip by it and aren't impressed maybe something in the other 47 pieces will catch them.

2nd favorite scenic shop job.

I've just finished a project today with the scenic shop. For the last week I've sculpted the rear bumper to the Splash Mountain vehicles. I WISH I could post pictures, but I think I'm not allowed to post them on the internet (if such pictures existed... he he). I worked with an industrial oil based clay that's the same stuff they use to make concept cars out of. It was awesome!!! The clay becomes soft at 135 degrees. Once it cools, you can sculpt textures and details into it. It was probably one of my favorite projects I've had at the scenic shop. You know you have a good job when an 8 hour shift feels too short, four days in a row!

Finally added Text to my headquarters.

It's finally a poster as it was intended to be. Maria and I searched and argued and debated the correct two fonts to use for about a half hour this morning. We both like what we ended up with.

Something old.

Haven't done ANYTHING this month so here's a Halo helmet I did a while ago that I don't think I ever posted.

For a future illustration.

I have this image in my head of a scrawny chicken being knighted by a swan queen in a church all themed to birds.... So I decided to design the windows for this church. I'm either going insane or I've got my next illustration.

Distance runners!

So Maria and I were walking, and as usual I was pretending my hand was a spaceship flying around fences and bushes. It then occured to me if I had a matchbox car I would be doing the same thing, but I'd be rolling the car on any surface that was at a convenient height. Well, what if that matchbox car had a step counter inside it so you could see how far it's traveled? And hey! What a great thing for fathers and sons to do while walking somewhere boring?! And thus "Distance runners" was born. Click on the image for full size.

A fun first attempt.

Well, here it is, my first attempt at stop motion animation. I'ts only 16 frames. I guess if it were the standard 24 fps it would look a little smoother. I put the whole thing together in photoshop. I'm going to try it in after effects to see if it looks any better there.

It is done!

Finished! Welcome to the headquarters of the Sculptwerks empire. Here, work is paradise.

Done sculpting!

All the sculpting and painting is done!!! Now I just need to light and photograph everything! In this photo you can see the final foreground hill. The cardboard shape on the floor is going to be the shade of the tree with little patches of light coming through.

In the near future...

After the current illustration, and after the rocketeer sculpt, I'm going to do my first little claymation thing. It will be an animation of hemmingway running in the gear.

Almost there....

I've been procrastinating for a while. I had the urge to completely redo my website since Max told me how to use the lightbox application. But now that it's all done, I'm back to sculpting. As you can see here, I've finished sculpting all the tree elements. The base is also constructed and covered with clay (it's not shown here). Tomorrow, I'm going to start sculpting the people. Honestly, it's the thing I've been holding off the most. I hope it all works out well.

Sculptwerks box

I made a little box for a wedding present. The present goes in the box, it's not the box itself... that would be terrible. I found some awesome potato sack-like material to line the inside, and wal mart has tan shredded paper that looks like packing straw. And I finally found a perfect use for the sculptwerks logo stamp I made in college. I can't tell you what goes inside because the wedding hasn't happened yet. It's an awesome present though.

Hill 2 done!

Hill 2 is done. I'm taking a small break for a few days and I'll start the last part of this illustration on wednesday. In the meantime, I'm updating the layout of my website a little bit.

The Start of hill 2

I started 'hill 2' three days ago, and I'm very happy with how far I've come. I just need to sculpt one more tree and the jogger. And then it's just paint and GO!

1/3 Finished!

On Tuesday, it will have been a month since I started working on this (I'm counting the start from when I had a finished tight sketch with the composition worked out). I'm thinking this illustration will take three months to complete. I've got two more large sculpted sections left to sculpt. Luckily, I have all the time in the world. My prospects look non existent right now, and until the recession ends, I'm just biding my time, doing stuff like this for my portfolio and washing dogs at PetSmart.

So far, so good...

Mountain is baked and painted. The assembly of the buildings is almost complete. Next step is installing the monorail.

The sculpting begins!

The mountain that the sculptwerks headquarters rests on will be the largest sculpt I've ever done. I've spent all morning sculpting hundreds of tiny trees in what will become the forest covering the mountain. It's slow, tedious work, but it's fun!

Though it dosn't look it, the first image is all the architectural elements that will adorn the top of the mountain.

A new compostition

I've completely re-worked the compostion and made a tight sketch. I've got a color study done as well, but I'm going to go ahead and start sculpting.

The Sculptwerks Headquarters

Here's a sneak peak at the next illustration. It's going to be an employee motivational poster for the sculptwerks headquarters.

Finished

And there you have it! A finished Mr. Toad bobble head! He actually bobbles very well. The collar keeps his head from tilting too much and spring is loose enough to let his head go crazy.

Back on Track!

As you can see the new head is far better than the old. It actually looks like Mr. Toad now. This is a good lesson in stopping when you know you've screwed up. There were so many times throughout college when I would feel something was wrong during a project, and I just ignored it. They would ALWAYS catch it during a critique.

Anyway, the base has been sanded, stained and the stone walkway that he's standing on has been sculpted.

Screwed up!

Looks finished right? No. I've completely screwed up the head. Look at the sketch from the last post. Now notice that the head I've sculpted looks like he's screaming. The mouth needs to be smaller and far less open. And I haven't started the base yet. Back to the sculpey...

Power/Plant Arches: An idea

I was walking to the bank and hated that the sidewalks had no shade. In Florida, shade is a precious commodity. As an environmentalist I dislike that on either side of the sidewalk, grass had lazily been the decision as filler between the sidewalk and the road. So I came up with this:

http://brianstuckeyart.com/Blog/sidewalk.jpg

It would cost a lot to set up, but if you have one of these every six feet on the side of the road, you'd have a veritable power plant. They could each connect directly to the grid and reduce the strain on the existing power plants. And if each one was individually hooked up into the grid, a car crash would'nt interrupt anything. Having three levels of plant boxes is a much better use of space. you could double the amount of vegitation per square foot. Grass isn't the best thing for the environment. It creates very little oxygen, retains very little water, and isn't drought tolerant. If you plant native grasses, flowers, and bushes they would survive better, and require less maintenance. But I don't want to put lawn mowers out of a job. I think you could use the very same people to maintain and repair these arches.

anyway.... just had to get that out there.

A little furthur

Arms, head, collar and bow tie have been completed. The bobble spring is working okay so far, but I'm hoping I can improve it. The grey clay is sculpt apoxy, a wonderfull two part compound that dries super hard and dosn't need to be baked.

Original sketch

Here's the original sketch for the bobble head.

Mr. Toad Bobble Head

I'm starting a bobble head for my next project. It will be of Mr. Toad from "The adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad". As always, I'm using sculpey clay.

For Maria's birthday, I sculpted a personalized mirror hanger for her car. She's got a Ford Taurus, so she call's her car "Ferdinand".

A small begining

Looks like I fell in with the bandwagon. Here's my blog.