Pixar Sculpting Masterclass.
Smiley as at 21st May 2010.
I attended the 3-hour masterclass organized by the Singapore Science Centre in the morning of Wednesday 19th May 2010. It was conducted by Pixar sculptor Jerome Ranft as part of the on-going Pixar exhbition. I had a great time listening to him talk about how he started out, his past experiences working on projects such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and on characters like Sully in Monsters Inc. He also showed us some stuff he did on Toy Story 3 as well as a sneak peek at his present project at Pixar. These nuggets of information were littered sporadically as he explained his typical workflow for creating sculptures.
The class then moved on to having the participants to build sculpts of our own with the tools provided. We first had to come up with a character design before the lesson (the guide was a 6-9″ piece of art extending from the head down to waist at most). I thought it’d be cool to briefly describe the stages I went from the start all the way to the final result above.
Step 1:
I had to drill a hole (not all the way through though) into the piece of wood that would be the base of my sculpture (I call him Smiley). Then I fixed up a thick piece of wire that would form Smiley’s armature into the base. A 2-part epoxy glue was used to secure the wire in the hole. Since Smiley was just a head-to-shoulder bust, I only needed that 1 main standing wire as support. Then I had to wrap a coil of thinner wire around the support (this is so that the Super Sculpey would stay fixed on the support and wouldn’t move around as I work on it). After which I started solidifying the thicker parts of the bust with aluminium foil (this results in less Sculpey needing to be used and keeping the bust lighter).
Wood base, armature, aluminium foil and reference drawing.
Step 2:
Using Super Sculpey I began padding the soft clay onto the foil and along the armature to build up the most basic shapes. The idea is to work on the big generic forms first before going into the details.
Roundish basic-shaped Smiley (front view).
Roundish basic-shaped Smiley (side view) and a bag of Sculpey block.
Step 3:
After building up the shape and holding up the reference behind the form to check that it’s sufficiently bulked up, I start layering on the Sculpey that would form his hair fringe, his nose and cheeks. Basically taking chunks off the main clay block and flattening/pinching them into the intended shapes (exactly like how I used to play with plasticine when I was a kid) before fixing them onto the base. I use the tools given to blend the edges.
Smiley starts smiling. Beside him are the tools used to shape and blend.
Smiley's got to look right from all angles.
Throughout the hands-on session Jerome was walking around giving tips and showing us how to improve our work-in-progress. After about 2+ hours of layering, massaging and tweaking our time was up and we had to pack up (very reluctantly) and leave.
This is how Smiley looked right after I brought him back to the office.
Not too bad for a 3-hour session right?
Of course after I brought him back to the office, I couldn’t resist touching up Smiley whenever time permits. You can see the slight improvements I did post-masterclass in the first picture of the post. I haven’t baked him (the final step) yet as I still think he needs some more work before he’s ready for the oven. I’ve also decided that I will not be painting him after baking as I really like the “clay sculpture” look. So in the meanwhile, he’s sitting in the ‘IN’ tray at my desk ready to welcome any visitors with a nice big smile! 
thx for ur sharing. is it easy to use the super sculpey?
You’re welcome! Glad to hear someone read the article
The Super Sculpey is really easy to use. Just break off chunks of it from the block and layer them on. Very similar in feel to plasticine and its easy to blend segments together which is how I built up the more detailed parts of Smiley.
Hi -
A really quick and retarded question for you:
When you bake the sculpture, I assume you somehow remove it from the wood base? Or…does the wood base not catch on fire once in the oven?
It had to be asked! Great work though.
Hi Liz! I don’t think it’s retarded at all!
As far as I know, you’re not supposed to remove the sculpture from the base. The armature is nailed/screwed/glued on pretty tight and shouldn’t wobble around at all. I believe the baking process wouldn’t get hot enough for the wood to catch fire. A recommendation is 275 deg Farenheit (130 deg Celsius) for 15-20 minutes per quarter inch of thickness. You can use a lower temperature (200-225 deg F) and bake it for a longer period (20-30 min) if you want to be extra careful. Just don’t try to bake it in a microwave though. Not sure what that effect will do to the Sculpey but the aluminium foil will likely cause serious damage!
Hope that helps!
Haha, thank you! I was involved in somewhat of an argument with some family members over whether or not it would be wise to bake a piece of wood (they seemed to think the entire house would burn down). Good to have a definitive answer from someone with experience.