Hey Mule is up for grabs again!

The handsome Hey Mule resin that some of you may have seen on my website is up for sale again! You can contact his current owner through her MH$P ad:

http://modelhorsesalespages.com/sales/view_details.asp?id=763576

The new medallion version 1 is finished!

The new medallion is finished! I've decided to name him Fiore. (I think the sound of it fits him as long as you don't look up the Italian translation, which really does not fit a big, bad stallion at all, but nevermind that.)

I'm taking pre-orders on version one (no tack) starting right now. The tacked up version should be close behind. Anyone who purchases version one will get a few days advance opportunity to get version two with the tradtional repujada tack before I release it to the rest of the world as well as a discount on the price of #2.

More pictures, pricing, and purchasing information can be found on Fiore's web page:

http://eponastudio.com/Fiore.html

Two medallions it is.

Every single person who has replied to me about the tack or no tack question has wanted to see the big guy offered both ways, so that's how I'll do it. The only down side I see to this is that I won't be able to finish our little follow-along here on the blog until after the first version is cast. Oh well, I guess that will just have to be something to look forward to for later.

I'll start pre-sales on version number one sometime this week. I just want to add a little bit more detail before I call him done. I'll be casting this first version in-house. Further information will be posted here soon.

Thanks for all the great input!

Ready for tack

I've now reworked some problem areas on the new medallion and added in some detail. Of course, he also has his mane now. That took several tries as I was getting carried away at the beginning and he had hair all over the place. Dramatic, but also a little silly. With some advice from another artist friend, I managed to get the 'do under control. I'll be adding some veining still, but he's pretty much ready to start tacking up. I'm toying with the idea of casting him without tack first and offering two different versions, one with repujada tack and one with none. Any opinions on that idea?

Inching forward

Yesterday was a little busy, so I apologize for not posting any progress. Today may prove to be much the same. The medallion now has a stone textured background which doesn't quite contain the entire horse. The fact that his forelegs come out of the frame adds a sense of motion and drama. I'm planning to accentuate that further by taking his mane out the other side. In fact, the mane should be our next step. Look for that to appear later tonight or in the morning.

First baking

There is now some decent facial detail in place. In fact I've completely altered the plane of his face. I'm fairly happy with his lower legs and hooves (maybe just a wee bit more smoothing out is needed), and the muscling is about where I want it. He even has an actual ear instead of just a triangle of clay. It's time to bake the clay for the first time to harden it. This will allow me to start adding some detail without interfering with earlier work.

New Year's resolution? Build more muscle.

The changes at this stage might not look dramatic, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of fussing and fiddling to get the musculature right. In this picture, the horse's body is about a half to a quarter of the way there with many things still needing to be fixed and no real detail in place just yet.

Ups and downs

Now we get to the high point... and the low point. I'm adding clay to the raised areas and carving it away where I want it to be recessed. Every time I do so the new addition (or subtraction) needs to be blended into the whole. This is probably the most difficult part of working on a bas-relief since this is where the foreshortening really comes in. A bas-relief is a strange thing, not entirely one dimensional like a drawing but not quite a three dimensional sculpture either.

Start as you mean to go on

Happy New Year everyone!

I've recently become enamored of the saying "Start as you mean to go on". It seems particularly appropriate on New Year's Day of course. So in the hopes that this will be an especially creative and productive year, I'm starting 2010 with a new bas-relief sculpture. I love sharing the process when I make art, so I'm going to take my loyal blog readers along for this ride. I'll be posting my progress here every few hours for any of you who'd like to follow the birth of this piece. When all the shouting is done, this will be a very large (almost a foot high!) medallion of a rearing Andalusian stallion in Repujada tack. Here is where we start: a flat slab of clay with a rough sketch cut into it: