Sculpting Max's Dog!

On to sculpting the dog. 

You may have noticed Max has his shoes back on, this is because I was working on the dog sculpt and feet simultaneously.

To know the size of the dog in comparison to Max I printed off a few different sizes of the dog and compared them to Max. 

I went for the 2nd one on the list as I wanted to keep the dog quite small compared to Max.

I then started making a basic armature for the dog.

For the core of the body I used balsa wood and sanded it to shape.

Wire was then pushed in and then glued in to the balsa core. 

The dog does not need to move therefore this armature works perfectly.

PTFE tape was then wrapped around the wire. This was to enable the plasticine to grip on to the legs 

Before applying the plasticine I punched holes in to the balsa with a dart tip. This was to give the plasticine little pockets to grip on to to ensure the plasticine was securely on to the armature.

The reason why I'm using Plasticine is that I wont be animating or handling the dog much therefore there was no need to cast the dog. I decided to use plasticine as well as it's easy to sculpt with and also theres no need to paint the dog afterwards as I can use coloured plasticine. 

Talc was added and mixed in to the plasticine to give it a firmer texture and to take the tackiness away from the plasticine  

I then started adding plasticine to the armature. The wired legs were then cut to length and if you can see the white part on the leg closest to camera is milliput. I added milliput to the leg to look like the bone, I chose milliput rather than white plasticine because if any brown plasticine  got on to the 'bone' I could clean it off easier.

To smooth out the plasticine I used cling film and my finger. Once relatively smooth I then used a baby wipe and lighter fluid to smooth it out more.

To secure the dog to the set I cut a rectangle of plasticine out of the dogs back and in that epoxied a steel plate of the same size. This would allow me to secure the dog with magnets to the set. 

Different colour plasticine was used to add spots to the dog, and miliput eyes where then added to the face. Milliput was used for eyes as I needed these solid and not to change shape.