...head case

Finally some hands on modelling!

For this lecture cum workshop we talked about techniques, tools, materials and also odd tips you might not have thought of. I was so looking forward to this as I felt modelling was very high up on the list of directions I wish to pursue - Luckily I still feel like this after the lesson and am going to be working on developing my skills as much as possible.

It was surprising to learn about the different ways to create the desired effect - what I really liked was that there only seemed to be one rule with regards to modelling - "If it works, do it". Having hard set rules as to how to do something is what I find difficult as the 'official' way might not be the easiest or simplest way for everyone.

Gill Bliss, the modelling lecturer, not only taught us the basics of how-to's and such but also gave us lots of individual feedback as well as hints and tips on how to improve personally. Tips were things such as, using the 'juice' from baby wipes to smooth out the plastacine skin or to use miliput dipped in latex to form simple hands.

We made ourselves a series of clay heads, which demonstrated our initial ability as well as our individual styles. I found this not easy, as it was definitely difficult getting the 3Dness of the facial features such as brows and cheeks, but found it natural (whereas I find drawing animation to be an awkward progress where I play a game of hit and miss).

I found that I had much more of a personal style when it came to modelling than when I am drawing - when it comes to drawn animation, I tend to lean towards generic 'how-to book' characters but with the modelling I found it a lot easier to bring a uniqueness to the characters. We'll see if this keeps up when I have to make something more scary than just a head... maybe a whole body!!