June 5, 2012

Pharyl the Country Pigeon

Pharyl the Country Pigeon

I've been developing a story about a pigeon named Pharyl who was raised in rural France on a farm. He and a couple of his friends go on a life changing adventure to London where Pharyl finds his true identity and destiny.


Here is primary group of characters! Pharyl is insecure, sarcastic, humorous, and just wants to find a place where he fits in. Little does he know he is a small carrier pigeon with a big destiny!

Fleur is a pig with OCD about cleanliness. She is timid but sincere. 

Olivia is fun loving, care-free, and wildly attractive. 

Victor is strong willed, courageous, and a little bit dense. 






To better develop my character, I created a sculpture of him out of Super Sculpey! And let me tell you...that stuff is awesome!


The first step is to create an armature, which is essentially a wire skeleton, of your character. Using 12 gauge wire helps the skeleton to be nice and strong. This armature is inserted into a wooden base, and the joints are reenforced with epoxy putty.  




Around the skeleton, I put aluminum foil, which helps build up the sculpture, and helps the sculpey to not be too thick. Thinner Sculpey= less chance of cracking!


This is Pharyl when he is roughed in, and without legs. It is best to smooth the sculpey as much as possible at this point because once it's fired, smoothing gets pretty tricky. I smoothed the surface of Pharyl with moisturizing hand sanitizer which seemed to work well because of the lotions and the alcohol. 



This is Pharyl, post firing. You fire a sculpey sculpture in a regular oven. I baked Pharyl at *200 degrees for 7 hours or so. Hardly any cracking! Yes, his eyes are beads :)





 Before the paint was applied, I smoothed the fired surface with dental tools, wet/dry sandpaper, and fine grade steel wool. The final step is to spray with a matte grey primer. 
Looks pretty good for my first Super Sculpey experience!





3 comments:

  1. Wow, that was interesting. I'm excited for the story. Your sculptor looks awesome.

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  2. When do we get to see the painted version?

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    Replies
    1. No painted version. Its just supposed to be form descriptive. To be technical it actually is painted....matte grey :)

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