Here’s some photos of the little figure I finished this morning. He’s a bit of a cross between da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and Angel of the North.
It’s really tricky to get a figure in clay to stand so I built this in stages starting with the feet and building up from there. I made the legs hollow and built up each leg at the same stage so that you are building symmetrically.
Using a crank gritty clay helps as it holds the form more easily for building with. You can use air dry clay or a softer more plastic clay and have props like draped fabric as part of your sculpture or slip and stick the feet to a clay plinth.
If you wanted to have a go at modelling the figure you can always make a wire skeleton first and then cover it in whatever clay you have lying around if it’s not going to be fired. If you haven’t got any clay you can use plasticine or even wrap with newspaper and masking tape. These can be fun then to animate!
