"The most difficult thing to sculpt?" Topic

This will of course be subjective with every sculptor having a personal nemesis by way of that "damned thing" they just can't sculpt at all well, so I wondered if there are any areas of common agreement.

Myself I tend to be dismissive of "chaos fantasy" subjects as there seem to be no rules to tell you if you have got the sculpt right or wrong. For me good looking yet realistic young women tend to be a big challenge in terms of keeping the delicacy and subtlety of form. You see far too many that are either just rugged blokes in drag or comic caricatures with massively exaggerated curves.

The biggest extreme of this and a subject I've tried to sculpt numerous times without any great success is portrait work of Diana Rigg as the character Emma Peel from the 60's show the Avengers. Constantly voted as one of the sexists women/characters of all time, yet if you study her face (and to some extent her figure) closely many of the standard "tricks" for making a sculpt look pretty or sexy don't seem to work as she isn't "classically beautiful" and I just end up with a generic good looking women in a cat suit you can't tell is supposed to be Emma Peel. Equally I've never seen any good sculpt of her available elsewhere either in small war gaming sizes or as larger collectibles.

Just wondered what subject matter other sculptors out there regard as their own personal nemesis?

I am not a sculptor, so this is just the opinion of someone who buys figures, but I reckon that many Wargames sculptors have great difficulty sculpting realistically scaled horses in realistic poses. Many commercial figures seem to be too small, too short in the leg, have heads that are out of proportion, bodies which are too narrow when viewed head on etc. It can be done, there are many pottery sculptures of horses that reflect the nature of the beast perfectly, whether it's a thoroughbred racehorse, a Shetland pony or a magnificent Clydesdale.

Seems like the most difficult thing is what ever I'm working on at the moment – especially if I'm behind schedule (which lately seems like always). But,

Horses (or any herd animal), especially the rear legs. Most of the problem comes from not getting the armature right.

Regular geometrically shaped objects. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to sculpt a box.

Yes, sculpting the horses are the thing I fear.

I wonder if it is the case that horses actually have a more complex anatomy or if it's just a case we are all more familiar with the shape of human beings so need to do less research to sculpt them?

I don't consider myself good at sculpting horses as I haven't needed to sculpt many. I just accept they are a subject I need to spend more time on getting right as I don't have an instinctive understanding of what shape they need to be, such that if I put in the work and keep checking my reference images I eventually get there.

Sculpting is very analogous to drawing, most people will be able to have a go at drawing a human to a decent standard, especially if given a few simple proportion rules to follow. Anyone who's had a go at drawing a horse will understand its quite a bit more difficult, but there are rules of proportion for horses too.
I agree on the box; regular objects are more difficult to sculpt than organic objects (drawing isn't a useful comparison here as there's rulers, compasses etc. to help with drawing). I decided that rather than learn the new sculpting techniques it would be more sensible to learn some basic 3D computer design, and now I'd be inclined to have such objects printed.

fingernails on 15mm figs

I think you mean "sexiest," since The Avengers was very slightly less sexist than its contemporaries.

I think you mean "sexiest," since The Avengers was very slightly less sexist than its contemporaries.

Yep I'd spotted that typo too late too change.

From what I have seen, many sculptors have a real hard time getting US and German Helmets correct.

Diana Rigg as the character Emma Peel…

All I can say is "gosh".

And "keep trying!"

John T

keep trying

I will… there's not many years go by when I don't have another attempt to capture a decent likeness, yet the more I try the more convinced I become that she's no conventional beauty.

features such as a "big" chin, a broad jaw and low(ish) set cheek bones are all features that you'd usually ascribe to a masculine skull so you're only ever talking the most meagre fractions between looking beautiful but not like Diana Rigg and looking butch and not at all like Diana Rigg.

I think Tom Meier makes the point that male and female faces differ little in reality (people tend to sculpt archetypes to represent gender), and that the differences are made by secondary sexual characteristics and well, make up and such. These subtleties, while apparent in reality are very difficult to represent in the 3 or 4 mm of a 28mm sculpt.

One thing that seems tough for sculptors is the "hold" on a light machine gun. It's a real anatomical case study of contravening forces, since the idea is to pull the shoulder stock as hard as possible into the shoulder. Often you see left arms sort of trailing or apparently delicately adjusting the stock. Really it's a sort of mini wrestling match against the recoil of the gun.

The stock weld for any weapon can be tough if your using any kind of dolly or matrix. The problem is the way the shoulder ball and socket rolls. You pretty much have to cut off the matrix from neck to bottom front of the pectoral and resculpt. Does sound like much, but if you have do that a lot , there's not much point in using a matrix.

For me, faces are the hardest to do. Doesn't help that my eyesight isn't like it used to be, and even magnification sometimes doesn't help (hey, I have to blame it on something. ;-)

Zephyr1 – A few years ago I was having a really hard time seeing what I was doing. I ended up having cataract surgery and it fixed the problem. Each eye was done separately so I had a chance to compare what was happening. Sight through the unfixed eye was looking through a glass of muddy water. I could barely distinguish black lettering on OD. So the problem was sharpness it was distinguishing relief on colors of similar values. You may have the same problem – not being able to see the relief on the putty.

Getting the correct order and shapes of lacing and plates on samurai must be difficult, it's almost never done correctly.

Giant chaos squid monsters.

I started the damn things years ago and never seem to get the inspiration to finish the project.

David F Brown

I am not a great sculptor at all but I have done some reworking and minor sculpting so for me its face and hands for hat I think other real sculptors have trouble ith are kids and teens ( and sorry my UU is not orking)