The Woman of Wires.
This Project was one of my personal favorites, not because it was easier than the first one, but nothing makes me happier than having the ability to work with my own design. When my Professor asked for a humanoid figure, I was happy to finally be in my artistic element. Although I do not have a lot of experience with physical sculpting, this was a thrill to experience.
EMPATHY
When approached with the problem of the wire project, I was presented with, "Create an in depth character with a full backstory, and a plethora of interesting and unique attributes, and make a wire sculpture out of them that is stable enough to stand or sit in an upright and stable position. and not break under pressure.
It was an interesting assignment, and I was willing to take it on. I enjoy character creation and have a vast experience with writing.
DEFINE
The Design itself was supposed to be able to stand on it's own, and I understood that it would be a challenge to do my original design, which was a girl standing in a fighting pose. So after a long time prototyping, I decided to go with a sitting pose. Which would make staying upright a bit easier.
This is Elaine Bass, the girl I designed as a subject for my sculpture. I did not want a basic human sculpture, and wanted to extend my creativity a bit. So I decided to add "Spikes of Ice" on her back.
Anyways, she is not a very positive character, which helped in solving the standing problem, because being an isolated experiment in a lab, I would assume she would be sitting in a sulking position most of the time.
Another aspect is that she is a monster-like character, so I went with a more mermaid-like pose, as a nod to the cryptic style. This pose allows me to create a more stable formation of the legs, while being able to have both arms serving as a support. In the end, it worked out quite well.
IDEATE
Creation of the character was not my biggest problem, the problem I want to be able to solve was stability. I have experienced many failures in the past, but with this one being relevant to my passion, I was not going to miss this opportunity.
The main thing was to avoid standing, and I was sure that it would not be hard to get by.
I follow many different artists on Twitter, and one of my favorites is Ayya Saparniyazova. She was responsible for this glorious piece. Called "Ice Spikes." This piece was my biggest inspiration for my own drawing as well as my sculpture.
I love this piece because, although morbid, it is still a beautiful image in itself. I find images like this fascinating, ones that create a fine line between the beautiful and the disturbing. The pose represents pain as well, and most of those poses are very low and stable, it's a simulated sense of security that we create for ourselves when pain hits us, and that is another factor of why my sculpture became the way it is.
Dr. Round asked us to create a story for our character, and I devised a story for Elaine, simply as a girl with an Abnormal array of Icicles sticking out of her back. It was interesting to explore her interests and life though. What I noticed about this type of checklist is that it gave Elaine a purpose, and it did not leave her as an image without a background. It was interesting, and actually helped a lot with development.
PROTOTYPE
Elaine started off as a single wire, which was hard as heck to move... But after an hour of staining, she came together quite nicely. At this point, I felt helpless. I simply could not see my creation forming from this mass of metal. It was a challenge to create her legs as well, since they were so close together, I had actually considered making a single leg.
However, over time, I began to realize that I was overthinking this. It would come together beautifully in the end.
Over the course of Elaine's formation, I focused on a few details that I really love. The chin, and the legs. Giving her head a chin made her look more down, due to the fact that the person looking at her saw where she was looking. The spikes on her back were made with small, easy to bend wire as well, which was good! Because the bent nature and the rounded edges added to the roughness and non-perfect nature of the ice.
In the End, all went well, and Dr. Round said that she enjoyed the legs the most, which was good because they were the biggest challenge. The cross wrapping on the chest created a good shoulder density, and I managed to get the feminine form in quite nicely. Also, thankfully the spikes went well too. My previous idea was literally getting dense and jagged pieces of thick wire, and putting them in the chest.
Overall, I enjoyed the project, simply because It showed me that I can actually work with other mediums other than pencil and paper, and that makes me a little more confident in my artistic abilities.