Claudio Setti Art

Dragon Warrior Full figure

2011-12-22T17:31:00.001-08:00

Merged my male base figure with the dragon warrior head. Not sure I did it right but I think it worked!! Still a WIP...

Dragon Warrior Sketch

2011-12-21T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here is another concept derived from my "grumpy demon" from the previous post. I feel this character is more of a warrior class... maybe of a dragon race of some kind. In any case mostly playing around trying to get the hang of zbrush!

Happy Holidays!! :)

"Grumpy Demon" sketch

2011-12-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Had some fun with this sketch the other night... had no real idea in mind just kind of "went with it". started from a polysphere in dynamesh mode. Not sure what to do with him but I'm thinking i may use this piece to learn some techniques I quite haven't grasped yet before trying them on my full figure I've been working on...

there are ares i like and some that can definitely be tweaked. not really liking the horns the way they are at the moment... I think Ram horns may be better suited?

3D metal printing

2011-11-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

Zbrush 4R2 Male figure update

2011-11-20T15:14:00.001-08:00

Not a big update unfortunately. Haven't touched this guy in a bit. Mostly worked on his quads and the connection to the pelvic area...

Clay sketching

2011-11-15T04:43:00.001-08:00

I sometimes like to do a small 8" clay sketch of a concept before doing the full size version. This allows me to visualize the piece in the round and see an issue I may have down the line. This was a sketch for a female marine of some kind in the future. I may re-tackle this concept in digital form since I liked where it was going for the most part...

2011-11-12T06:44:00.001-08:00

Did some more work on this guy tweaking here and there. Focusing on the legs more now i can see there are quite a few problem areas. the feet are barely roughed in right now too. Did a bit more work on his face. This figure is still at the dynamesh stage so it will become a base model for other male figures once I get it down pat...Zbrush 4R2 is really a fantastic program!!

Sculpting Comic Book and Game Characters: Casting Toy Wax

2011-11-10T07:14:00.000-08:00

Casting wax

Use a ladle to pour the mixture into your mold, again, pour the mixture down the side to help avoid air from being trapped. As your mold fills gently start to tilt it upright in a gradual fashion following the rising of the material.

Safety Tip: It is a very good idea to wear a face shield, apron and heat resistant work gloves when pouring wax as it will burn you quite severely if it comes in contact with your sin. Take proper precautions when pouring molten wax and make sure you area is free of obstructions!

Once poured it is a good idea to wait at least an hour before de-molding as the centre of the casting remains hot for quite some time! If all goes well you have a fairly accurate casting of your piece. Once completely cool simply undo your mold (be careful: wax is fragile so be gentle!) you should have a casting that resembles your clay!

Your castings will probably present some flaws when casting in alginate so you should expect them. Weld lines, caused by the rapid cooling of the wax upon contact with the alginate, are very common so don’t reject a casting if they show up because it is easily fixed later. The main concern is to have a good solid basic shape to work with.

If you get a casting that isn’t quite up to par then, if you didn’t tear it, simply put your mold back together and pour another wax. Usually you can get two or three castings out of an alginate mold if you are careful.

Working with wax

Wax is a carving medium that has the benefit of allowing you to add material onto itself where needed. It is very different from clay in this respect because it is rather hard (similar to a soap stone) and therefore cannot be pushed or pulled. The benefits of such a hard material is that you can replicate a range of surfaces rather easily from soft skin to hard metal objects since wax can be sanded and polished to a bright fine sheen!

Of course, as with anything, there is a slight learning curve with the material but once you understand how to work with wax your creativity holds no bounds!

One major benefit of wax is that you can hold parts of your sculpture in your hands while you work without having to worry about wrecking or distorting the piece. Also not having an armature means more freedom when cutting your sculpture.

I actually use very few tools when I work in wax. This is my own personal preference of course but I will refer to them when explaining my approach and technique. You will eventually find your own way of working and use tools suited to your taste.

After having cast my wax parts and de-molded them the first thing I usually do is to test fit them together and just see if there was any distortion during casting. As mentioned there will be a slight shrinkage (roughly 3% - 5% and mostly from the sides, thinning the work), which is to be expected, but what I’m looking at now is if anything is bent out of shape as it cooled. If so I simply run some warm/hot water into a suitably sized container and fully submerged the part letting it sit for a few minutes or until it becomes pliable. This type of wax is perfectly safe to immerse in water, as it has no ill affect to the wax itself.

Immersing a wax part in water allows the piece to warm up in a safe and uniform manner enabling me to manipulate the piece and make any slight adjustments according to my requirements. If you were to use another more direct heat source, such as a heat gun or butane torch, this could cause the wax to melt in an uncontrolled fashion instead of softening the work. Once satisfied with my adjustments I then quickly run cold water over the part to “set it” and prevent further bending.

The process is as follows:

Fill a suitably sized container (one that allows your wax piece to be fully immersed in water) with hot tap water (don’t use boiling water from a stove top or similar because it will be to hot for our purposes and could cause severe burns to you skin!). The water should be warm enough to heat the wax but not hot enough that it is uncomfortable on your skin.
Immerse wax piece(s) you intend to adjust in the water for a minute or two or until it feels rubbery and pliable. NOTE: thicker pieces will require more time to warm up.
Carefully retrieve the piece you intend to adjust while keeping the other parts immersed until needed (parts left sitting out will cool off rather quickly).
Bend piece to make desired adjustment.
Run under cool water for a few seconds or until wax is cool enough that it feels hard not rubbery.
Repeat process until you achieve desired changes.

This technique can be used for larger full body pose adjustments if you are patient and careful enough. For example if you want to bend an arm at the elbow without affecting the rest of the arm you can open the hot water tap very slightly so that only a fine stream of water will come out (only enough water to go over the section you want to soften) and place the area you want to affect underneath the stream for several minutes. The stream of water is rather thin so it can take several minutes before it warms up enough to bend.

To know if the piece is soft enough to bend simply apply gentle pressure with your finger on one end of the piece to see if it “gives” (do this while still keeping the part under the running water. If the part feels stiff then continue with the water but if it feels rubbery then you should be able to bend it. Be slow and gentle or it could break! Once bent to satisfaction run cold water of the whole piece to set it. This process can be repeated until necessary and can take several attempts before you achieve the desired affect.

Assembling the wax parts

Having test fit the parts I then proceed to weld them together using my wax pen set on a fairly high setting: hot enough that the wax melts into a liquid state but not so hot as to make it smoke on contact. I place the pieces in the desired position and using clay or “Sticky Tac” I keep the piece in position so that they won’t move. I then use a spatula tip on the pen and melt the area that touches both parts. I let cool it for a minute or two and then proceed to fill in any gaps that I may have missed in the first attempt. I then proceed to the other pieces repeating the process until my figure is whole again.

I like to join all my parts together and work the figure as one piece at first to make sure that I’m working on the sculpture as a whole and not taking one piece farther then the next which can cause disproportions. Once I’m at a point where I’m just doing fine detail work I can always cut it apart again with a small hack saw to work on the parts as individual pieces.

Preparing the Surface for detailing

You will notice that your cast surface has many imperfections and perhaps even lots of weld lines (especially if you used alginate to cast your parts): this is normal! The easiest solution I found to remove surface imperfections and smooth out rough areas quickly is to use a medium-fine sanding pad found at your local hardware store lightly heated over a flame (like a candle).

I found that using a rougher; medium to coarse, sanding pad first gets rid of major surface problems. Then I will repeat the process using finer sanding pads, while using less heat, to achieve a finer the surface. You will want to cut the sanding pad into smaller more manageable parts that can get into the hard to reach areas of your sculpture. I tend to cut my piece into smaller rectangles and triangles to give me some different shapes to work with according to what needs to be smoothed on the work. I gently sway the piece over the flame (never touching the flame!) so that it heats evenly without burning the actual pad or you fingers.

For quick smoothing of a very bumpy area I will heat the pad for several seconds until it is quite hot so that when I place it on my wax piece it will liquefy the surface a bit. By then applying light pressure with my fingers I then proceed to run the pad over the area I want to smooth in a swift motion following the curves of my sculpture. This is a real “coarse” smoothing technique; the process is then repeated over any problem areas until you have an even surface to create your detail work.

Detailing: Using the wax pen and carving tools

After having smoothed the surface of your pieces you will now want to add and carve wax into more refined forms and details.

You can manipulate wax in two basic ways:

Building-up (adding) Wax by dipping a wax pen into a wax “puck” and applying molten wax onto the desired area until proper build-up is achieved. Then, once cooled, tooling and carving the wax to refine the shapes and detail.
Carving (removing) shapes and/or scribing lines or details into the wax: this is especially useful for skin textures or similar fine details such as costume seams, stitching, fingernails, armour filigree, etc. anything that has a “drawing” aspect to it can be achieved in this manner as well as contouring of basic shapes.

The procedure for building up wax to carve down and refine can be broken down in this manner:

Dip wax pen into wax “puck” picking up a bit of wax.
Draw your detail in a rough and loose fashion much like you would with an old fashion ink “dip pen”.
Let wax cool on surface for a second or two (you will see it goes from shiny to matt as it cools).
Carve cooled wax into desired detail.
Repeat until you are satisfied with the result.

Tools for working wax

The Wax Pen

Foredom Wax Carver

The main tool that is required in order to use toy wax is the wax pen. Unfortunately it will be your most expensive investment but one that if properly taken care of will last you a very long time! There are several wax pens on the market (look in a dental supply catalogue) with different features and going anywhere from $200 - $500 and up. The pen you choose will ultimately be your choice according to you needs and budget. If you can’t currently afford a wax pen you can makeshift one by attaching a wood-burning tool (available at most craft stores: get the one with interchangeable tips for fine wood-burning) to a plug-in dimmer switch found a most hardware stores. Of course this makeshift wax pen will never be as precise as a professional pen but at least you can get to try the techniques while you wait to purchase one.

I use a very (relatively) inexpensive wax pen made by FOREDOM (http://www.foredom.com/), which they call a “Wax Carver” (The K.WC-1 Wax Carver) includes the hand piece, control box, and 3 brass tips, and usually retails just under $200 US. It has several interchangeable tips, which are also quite cheap to replace, and several come with the actual pen. Additional tips can be purchased as well such as a large “spoon” (A-WT-7 Wax Carver Tip), which I recommend for faster build up. I also like using “A-WT-5 Wax Carver Tip” which is curved and offers a fine point that is great for detail work. There is also a 230-volt European CE rated model available (K.WC-2 Wax Carver Kit with 3 Tips, 230V).

Metal Carving and Loop Tools

With your wax pen you will also want to invest in some metal wax tools. These can be found at most jewellery and sculpture supply stores and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. I personally tend to use a wax “knife” tool for my carving and scribing work and will show techniques mostly based on this one tools.

If you have trouble finding metal tools where you are located Games Workshop (the table top war games company: http://www.games-workshop.com/) makes an excellent carver they call a “sculpting tool” which is very close, if not identical, to the tool I use and retails for roughly $7.00.

Small loop tools are great for softening hard edges or even for some surface smoothing. Essentially they are a loop made from spring steel wire set into a handle of some sort (usually thin aluminium). I tend to purchase mine but you can make your own custom loop tools using piano wire (get a thinner gauge for smaller work) and setting it into a piece of brass tube using two-part epoxy glue.

Sculpting Comic Book and Game Characters: Using Toy Wax

2011-11-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

Using wax

Finished resin casting

The hard carving or “Toy Wax”, as most professionals call it, is a wonderful and almost essential material to have in your artistic arsenal. This is even truer with today’s collectables having an extreme amount of detail and intricacy. Toy Wax is a fantastic and versatile material that has a bit of a learning curve but well worth the effort if you want to achieve the results featured in this article.

Finished detailed wax

Of course many professionals are able to create the same level of detail in clay but there are already many books on the subject. The intention of this series of articles is to show you another approach to sculpture and one that has been used extensively and sometimes requested by companies for their own tooling processes.

Hasbro/Kenner and Mattel were the pioneers in using Toy Wax (or Hasbro and Mattel wax) and still use it today for their figures!

The first thing you need to understand about Toy wax (I will refer to it simply as WAX from here on) is that it is primarily a carving medium as opposed to a more malleable material such as clay or softer waxes. For example WAX cannot be pushed or moved around and has to carved away much like you would with soapstone or similar carving material.

The fantastic part is that you can add wax onto itself creating a permanent bond so you can also build up areas where needed. Wax feels very similar to a plastic substance when you first use it. The hard carving properties and the ability to add more wax allows a great level of detail that enables the user to hold the piece in their hand while working with no worries about distorting the sculpture or squishing details. In terms of finishing you can even sand and polish the surface getting a very clean finish.

Wax head almost complete

Because WAX cannot be manipulated like clay it is necessary to cast it into a mold that has the basic shape and gesture of the sculpture you want to end up with. This is to give us a base for which to go in and detail. Casting wax into a mold also saves time because if you were to try and build up the figure from scratch it would take you a very long time and is rather impractical.

For small parts this is possible (like a small portrait or a hand etc) but when you are dealing with a bust or a full figure it is always best to have the basic sculpture in clay to then mold and cast the wax to have a good base to start from. Using a clay to rough in the basic sculpture enables you to capture gesture in a way that would be very difficulty or almost impossible to do with a stiff material such as wax.

Clay Rough

In previous articles we looked at how to create an armature and basic figure in clay that would serve as the ideal rough sculpture to mold for subsequent casting in wax.

As you can see in this photo the sculpture is roughed in to a point where all the basic shapes and forms are present. If you were to squint your eyes it would almost look finished.

How far you decide to take your rough is really up to you. Keep in mind that wax has a tendency to shrink about 3- 5% and mostly horizontally (pulling inward from the sides) so it can make shapes become thinner while not affecting the height as much visually distorting the work.

Wax rough 1st stage

Wax rough in progress

More detailed wax progress

This is why you should not bring your clay to a complete finished state but keep it rough to allow you to make adjustments later during the wax stage. This is especially true when sculpting a likeness of a person as it would distort during the wax casting process and not allow much room for adjustment. In fact most of the time you can leave a portrait almost featureless and do the work in wax as long as the basic head shape is present.

Of course on a smaller scale portrait such as 1/8th or 1/6th scale the shrinkage will be more apparent then on a larger scale portrait such as 1/4th or 1/3rd.

Next: Preparing to mold the figure....

Male figure update

2011-11-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

Did more work on this male figure. You may have noticed I added a male "unit". I was having a lot of trouble seeing the forms in his lower hip area and figured it was because his male pieces weren't in place. I find it helps sell the piece....hahaha!!

Sorry I'm not trying to be crass or anything... the nude male figure can look a little comical in some aspects. I find that having developed his genitalia to some degree looks better than a flat area where you know his "stuff" should be :D

More zbrush progress... male figure

2011-11-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

Got some more work done on this guy. Mostly to his facial features. About 30min worth of work before starting my day. Tried a different material shader as well.

Claudio Setti - Sculpting Female

2011-10-31T08:36:00.000-07:00

2011-10-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

Did some more work on this male "soldier" character. Still quite a way to go but overall I'm pleased with how he's turning out. Getting used to the brushes and how they react. I find I'm starting to get the hang of it... still a bit slow... but hey!

I think he's looking a bit too bodybuilder like so I'm going to have to tone him down a bit. probably the shoulder/ peck area... we'll see...

I may end up making a digital version of my "Kaden" character since I was never really please with the final result. It would be cool to revisit him in digital format... try designing him better.

Happy Halloween!!! :)

Sculpting Comic Book and Game Characters: PREPARATION

2011-10-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

GATHERING REFERENCE MATERIAL

The very first thing you will need before you can begin any sculpture is a clear idea of what you would like to sculpt. Without a clear idea of what you would like to end up with it won’t be clear to you where to begin. A good idea is to gather information, pictures, videos, drawing etc. that has to do with the subject matter you are interested in creating.

"Cable" reference art

As an example let’s assume you would like to create a figure of a comic book character:

What does he/she look like?
What kind of weapons does he/she use?
From what country are they?
Etc….

"Cable" Marvel Character interpretation

In this case doing a bit of research and gathering as much information as possible will really add credibility and insight into how you want your figure to look and act (in the case of a fixed pose statue). If you just try to make it up in your head then more often then not it will lead to unsatisfactory results and frustration.

Of course if you are making a figure of something you invent that doesn’t exist that is fine also but it is a good idea to still do research that can relate to your subject as it will cement your concepts according to real world experiences and realities allowing your audience to relate to them better making it more believable.

Other resources that can be very helpful are anatomy books or fitness magazines that have pictures showing how the muscles flex and move. You can also find really good anatomical models out on the market that show you how the muscles are laid out and intertwined in a three dimensional fashion as opposed to looking at 2D pictures that tend to flatten out the forms.

Sculpting Comic Book and Game Characters: Materials

2011-10-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

MATERIALS

In order to begin any sculpting endeavor the first thing you will need is space of your own and one that is preferably away from the distractions of everyday life such as the TV or your family. Ideally it is a place where you can just relax and let you be immersed in the work and not be disturbed by outside distractions.

You will need a fairly large surface with an adequate amount of working space, like a table or desk, with enough room to allow you to place your sculpture, a small turntable, tools, clay and reference materials without being too crammed. A nice comfortable chair would be ideal also since you would be sitting for hours at a time. Alternatively, if you prefer standing, there are a number of commercially available sculpting stands out on the market that are great for working standing up and can be adjusted to different heights according to your needs. They can vary in price greatly according to the make and model so a little shopping around may be necessary. Usually when working with sculptures intended to be made into collectables or toys they are fairly small in scale so a desk is quite sufficient.

Inevitably your surface could get damaged while working so it is a good idea not to work on your good dining room table. If that is your only choice then it would be a good idea to protect it in some fashion. A piece of Masonite large enough to cover you working area is ideal as this will prevent and dings dents or scrapes to occur. Make sure it covers the area where you are working. Even small sculpting tools will make little dents in fine furniture when dropped. One other thing to keep in mind is that bits and pieces of clay and wax can get stuck and ruin a carpet so ideally it is best to work on a floor that can be easily cleaned! If you must work on a carpet then take additional care by covering it up with an old area rug or a synthetic plastic sheet.

IKEA Work Light $9.99

Lighting is also extremely important but luckily doesn’t have to be too fancy. Many sculptors use a simple desk lamp with an adjustable arm. These are quite common and can be found at your local furniture store. Some artists like to use two lamps on either side of the working surface to better show the sculpted volumes while not leaving any harsh shadows that can obstruct details.

The two light set-up allows for a more even distribution similar to natural light. Of course natural light is the best as long as it isn’t direct sunlight but more often then not you will want to have a set of lamps that you can adjust to suit your work.

Aliens idea... sort of!

2011-10-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

So I started fooling around with an alien concept by creating a rough sketch with no basis what-so-ever. I decided to compare him with my in progress human to see what's going down...

I think its pretty lame and lackluster so I think I need to spend some time finding some inspiration. This alien was going to be one of many concept sketches to figure out the look of this fake game.

Back to the drawing board!!

2011-10-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

Did some more work on this guy... I think there is improvement but still a long way to go. Most of my time spent figuring out what tools is best suited for each purpose... I sometimes feel like I'm taking one step forward then three backwards...lol!

Its a learning process... haha!

I decided to create a fake game concept to have a basis for creating a bunch of assets as a means to learn how to use create digital characters and assets in a gaming pipeline etc. This is a rough concept I had:

Game concept:

In the near future humans have gained the ability to access alien technology and travel the galaxy.

Earth resources have been greatly depleted due to over-population. Humans have had to find other habitable planets to populate through terra-forming and colonialism.

A military force is present on each colony to serve as a security force against any possible indigenous or alien threats.

User plays a member of the Colonial Marine force defending the Firebase.

Game play: "Horde" survival/defence style game play with 3rd person perspective. User controls the main character.

I know its derivative but it will help me have a focus to create a unified porfolio... I think!?

Fooling around with Dynamesh

2011-10-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I've been able to touch zbrush. ZR42 is really amazing and I find it more intuitive then before. I was particularly interested in the new dynamesh feature. here is an inprogress shot of a figure I'm creating while learning to work with the dynamesh function. The cool thing is the body was pulled from my initial head sculpt! What's even better is that dynamesh smoothed out all the stretched polygons I had around the nose and ears of the portrait.

I think I'm finally starting to get a feel for my workflow...

More portrait progress

2011-09-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

So I made more progress on this guy in my journey to learn the program. Funny enough he's looking similar to commander Sheppard... lol. Definitely unintentional!! Especially considering how amateurish my portrait looks right now.... I got some weird artifacts near the upper lips I think due to polygon stretching. I think ideally I would Re-topo this head?

I dunno...lol

I tried the poly painting as well, again still learning, as you can tell I'm sure! I know the eyes are really off but overall its not super horrifying for my first piece... well I'd like to think so- LOL! I really need a lot of practice... like everyday!

It will be cool to look back on this piece in 6 months to see how far I get... all in all I'm going to try to tweak it and see if I can make it better with fresh eyes...Ciao!

Zbrush4 Portrait in progress....

2011-09-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here is another sketch I'm working on to learn Zbrush. I'm looking forward to ZB4R2 which I will be upgrading to shortly. very cool new features!

In any case this is supposedly a portrait of me or at least what will most likely become a cooler version - haha! I'm using myself just because it easier for reference purposes and I think it would be cool to make a game character version of myself... maybe as a Sci-fi mercenary or something?

The first image is a sketch taken fairly far... I'm not quite there with the ears though mostly because I'm being lazy.... in the second image below I started to play around with texture etc... i attempted a very short military hair style much like commander Shepard from Mass Effect (I'm a huge fan!). its the look I'm going for in any case! Not sure if its the best approach but I think it looks decent. Not sure how to go about the eyebrows honestly...

Zbrush sketch

2011-09-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Just started learning Zbrush 4... or I should say finally getting the hang of the tools. Like any new medium it takes time to figure out a process that works for you. zbrush is such a versatile program that it allows you to approach things in various ways.

This skull sketch is the first time i managed to to something close to what I had in my head or could do in clay. i still need WAY more practice but i thought I'd share this first image as I am proud that I made this far!

Some of the work other artists are doing with this program just blows my mind!!

Back in the game...

2011-09-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of tutorials for making figures i created a couple of years ago on instructables:

Creating a figure armature
Creating a game character from Wax

Enjoy! :)