Wedding Cake Topper

Max and Jessica got married last saturday. 

They chose the greatest wedding cake topper to ever have existed.

Mr. Peanut Disected

I like taking a break between illustrations and doing a little quick side project. This one is something I've been wanting to do since Ringling and just never got around to it. I thought it would be funny to sculpt Mr. Peanut disected and displayed like an insect complete with latin labeling and display case. This is the first sculpt I did. It's OKAY.... but it's missing something.

Aha! A face! It needed that little extra bit that said, this was once a man! ... or living peanut thing..

But something's still not right. I think I went a little to far on the dark disturbing side. I need to tone the face down a little.
A closeup of my Tim Burton-esque creation. I think just a simple mouth and no nose will be a bit easier to look at...

Setup

Just thought I'd show the final setup. I cleared off my computer desk (carefully storing my old computer) and just built everything on top.

FINISHED!!!!!

It took 7 months, over two gallons of resin, and over $200.... but it's finally finished. Ice Cave is done! You can check it out larger at my website, which is now www.sculptwerks.com.

Gone is my past portfolio life of 'brianstuckeyart.com'. Today, I usher in a new era of portfolioness! Join me as I take the world by art!

So far.... so good.

I've been admitedly lazy about this illustration. I'm trying to keep the rigorous schedule up that I had for The Last Breakfast, but Batman: Arkham City and Infamous 2 keep getting in my way.

Anywhoo... I AM sculpting slowly, but surely. I finished the three polar bears tonight and I'm pretty happy with them. I really like the one lying on the floor with his tongue sticking out. The main snow monster stands at 12 inches tall at the moment.

Ice Cave: Preparation

Here's the first resin test. I coated it multiple times to build up the ice. It maintains the detail fine, but I don't like the idea of them all in a thin amount of ice. It implies they stood still for 20 years while water dripped and froze on them slowly. I want this to look more like an instant frozen forever in ice.
This is the thickness of ice that I want. I only sanded a few small areas enough to confirm that you can still see all the detail inside. If you go at this with 80 grain sandpaper and work your way down to 600 grain, I'm relatively confident the detail will show through.

So now we move on. I've taken the computer off the table and moved everything in order to make space for the 15 inch tall sculpt.

2nd to last Illustration: "Ice Cave"

So I've started work on the second to last illustration. I want this one to be an underground ice cave, most of it cast in clear resin. The sketch up above is still very loose and not a tight sketch at all, but I'm moving forward anyway. I'll deal with composition and pose when I sculpt it (not a good habit at all, but I'm tired of drawing and not sculpting).
I'm doing something I've never done before, but should have the whole time. I'm scuplting several maquettes to work out the main figure. I also need multiple maquettes to test the resin on. I need to know how the paint will be affected by resin. I need to see which technique will not warp the light so you can still see all the detail. You'll see what I mean when I start posting final test shots. The whole idea is this little eskimo kid and her dog stumble upon this violent frozen scene while exploring an ice cave. I thought it would be funny to have several polar bears attacking a snow-monster for his 'cola' . Now I could have them all frozen in one huge block of ice, but I think that would look a little too cartoony and cheap. That would be the easiest answer as I would only have to put them behind a piece of plexiglass and sculpt icicles around it. But I want to try having them coated in icicles themselves, hoping that they wouldn't be too distorted through the resin to see detail. Anyway! It will all be clear once I get on with this and start posting more photos.