Clay modelling begins…

Just began researching modelling the head, as advised by Lanteri (1986) I began by looking at the busts by Donatello ('The Lawyer') and the head of Lucius Verus, there were great examples and although defined by the style of the era, the proportions, spatial awareness and detail are perfect.

Bought some air drying clay and began my sculpture, I quickly realize why many sculptors work down from a large block or clay. It’s much easier to sculpt down using the negative spaces to create the head rather than starting from nothing and working up adding the features etc as you go along. Found some very helpful video tutorials on clay head modelling...

My first attempt went ok, whereas I found it easy enough to make the clay head look like a human head I found it very difficult to make it mirror my subject. Even though the proportions and features of the face were fine and even looked ok individually, as a whole they didn’t work.

I left this first attempt and started work on attempt version two:

This sculpture had a better likeness of my subject but was still nowhere near close enough. The addition of the hair helped with the resemblance but upon drying became very brittle and several pieces broke off over the following days.

I ordered some ‘Super Sculpey’ online after reading several reviews stating this was one of the best polymer clays for maquettes.