life-sized horse mask, cake, puss n' boots, giraffe. EXTREMELY image heavy!

[_trains__derail]

i haven't posted in ages & thought this might be fun  

so, some background: i just finished my first year of college. i'm a fine arts major & i have absolutely no idea what i want to do. i'm working on my foundations courses & this past semester i needed to take 3D design, which i'd never done before & figured i hate. but, as it turns out, it was my favorite class so far. luckily my professor required us to document each step in every project (we were required to send him a book at the end of the semester with all the photos & plans).

i'm putting the projects up in the order that i did them for the class, which means they will not be in the order they're listed in as the subject. sorry!  

first, we needed to take an object we have & combine it with another thing. i decided to use this little wooden giraffe thing that holds my eyeglasses. looks like this (excuse my face lulzzz). i decided to combine it with a double helix, to signify that the reason for the giraffe's neck being so long. yanno, natural selection. whatev.


anyway, i made the basic frame out of cardboard, covered it with foil & papier mache, added clay details, & painted it.







i just used some kind of generic modeling clay for the features.











 
our next assignment was to make a cake. it coulda been any kind of cake you wanted, so i decided on some kind of strawberry..thing. same basic construction as the giraffe.





same clay as used on giraffe.


i decided to use plain old wall spackle for the icing. it worked well enough, i think. i used a sponge on the wet spackle to make the texture for the inside of the cake.




i wish i had a better picture of the slice.. but you get the idea.






this next project miiiight be my favorite. we were required to make a boot. just a plain old boot. however, my professor called me aside & told me that wasn't difficult enough for me (although, believe me, i thought it was plenty tough enough -_-) so he challenged me to make an octopus in or on the boot. he chose an octopus because i was doodling one on my notebook one day & we'd gotten into a conversation about how i love anything with tentacles. on the day we had to bring our finished stuff in, my professor asked what i'd decided to name it & i hadn't really thought about it, but a friend chimed in & said "puss n' boots!" so it stuck.

again, same basic construction.

my boot in its baby stage along with the real boot i used as a model (my grandfather's old boot)












now.. the octopus was tricky. i ended up filling a small plastic bag with newspaper & using that as the bubble-like body. the tentacles were the hardest part. i tried different kinds of wire, but either they weren't flexible enough or they were too heavy. i ended up using tin foil, rolled & shaped into tentacles.




added eyes with the modeling clay






















our next project was to make something we could wear on our heads. it couldn't just be, like.. a hat, or something. it had to be something big, & part of the requirement was that we could walk around campus wearing it (...yeah. GREAT experience. not.). i decided to do a horse head.









clay deets.


i used real horse hair (i have horses) & one of my mom's old bridals.






& one for the lulz--me & my horse, spud.


so that's all folks! for the record, these weren't the only projects. i also made a life-sized lion out of newspaper. i don't know what happened to those pictures, though, & as you can imagine, he's too big to keep at my house, so we brought him up to our vacation house & he lives in our boat house now. haha.

thanks for looking!

[embercostumer]

Wow! These are amazing!

My father-in-law is a sculptor professionally, and these are definitely on par with some stuff he's sold to restaurants as decorations. (In fact, it was wierd going into restaurants when I first started dating my now-husband and he'd look at the wall, point to something ridiculous like a Fish on a Plate and say "Huh, my dad made that!")

Good luck on your degree, this definitely rocks!

[_trains__derail]

Wow! These are amazing!

My father-in-law is a sculptor professionally, and these are definitely on par with some stuff he's sold to restaurants as decorations. (In fact, it was wierd going into restaurants when I first started dating my now-husband and he'd look at the wall, point to something ridiculous like a Fish on a Plate and say "Huh, my dad made that!")

Good luck on your degree, this definitely rocks!

wow, thank you! haha that's awesome, though. maybe i should look into doing something like that. eventually, i guess. lol.

[ninjanator]

holy crud these are amazing! The boot looks very real and the concept with the giraffe is awesome but the horse's head definitely takes the cake! I love that last photo

[_trains__derail]

holy crud these are amazing! The boot looks very real and the concept with the giraffe is awesome but the horse's head definitely takes the cake! I love that last photo

thanks so much :] haha yeah my horse was freaking out after we took that picture. he was acting like i was another horse.. it was pretty neat.

[pandaz]

wow!! great job!! I'm a Graphic Design major and we have to take two materials courses that you get to pick, and you just got me REALLY excited for my sculpture class I'm taking come September! I was pretty nervous about it, but man oh man, I hope I make at least ONE thing thats HAlF as cool as the things you made!!!

[_trains__derail]

wow!! great job!! I'm a Graphic Design major and we have to take two materials courses that you get to pick, and you just got me REALLY excited for my sculpture class I'm taking come September! I was pretty nervous about it, but man oh man, I hope I make at least ONE thing thats HAlF as cool as the things you made!!!

aww thank you so much, haha :] i actually have another sculpture class coming up next semester & i'm excited for it. nervous, too, but more excited. but don't worry about it! you'll have a lot of fun with it!

[Smuckers9]

Wow! I loved reading this and I loved all the projects in this post! Especially the giraffe...i have a soft spot for giraffes 
Amazing work! I hope you will be able to update with the pictures of the lion sculpture.

[_trains__derail]

Wow! I loved reading this and I loved all the projects in this post! Especially the giraffe...i have a soft spot for giraffes 
Amazing work! I hope you will be able to update with the pictures of the lion sculpture.

thank you! haha yeah, i love giraffes, too. i just kinda grabbed the giraffe glasses holder thing to work with because we needed to bring something in to work from & i was running late & had no idea what i wanted to do, but i'm glad i picked it. also, if i find the pictures/can get to it to take pictures, i will update with the lion :]

[beccas_song]

Wow! Awesome! I would love to take a class like this! I love that your prof thought you needed a more challenging project! That says alot about how much talent you have. Looking forward to seeing what you do in the future, whatever that may be! You have lots of time to decide. Enjoy exploring your options- I think you're off to a great start.