Sculpture, Part 1- The Armature

Today’s tutorial is going to be on the beginnings of my latest in-progress sculpture of an American Saddlebred in the parked-out position transitioning into the walk.

The first step in any of my sculptures is having the inspiration to make something. You can’t force a sculpture! If anyone forced a sculpture,  it would not look, well, correct! You can see the labor that someone puts into any sculpture, you can see the inspiration for the idea, the artistic view they put into that sculpt. It’s amazing!
     For me, this sculpt was inspired by my experience in showing saddlebreds, and the power of the saddlebred. I wanted to make it look like it was about to drive off of its haunches, into a powerful trot.

Next, I sketched out the horse that I want to sculpt. I figure out the main position that I want it to be in, then I‘ll look up images that have a similar body position.

You can see the notes that I have to revise when I go to make my armature.

My third step after this is making a rough armature. I used a GG Valentine to compare my armature to. I recommend not using a super thin wire if making a traditional scale horse! I use three wires of about the same length, and making them all a bit (not too much, though!) longer then you think they need to be. I make them all about an inch and a half longer than I have measured. I then wrap them all together in the middle to make a spine. After I figure out the length of the spine, I re-bend all of the proportions to how they seem fit compared to my model.

(I didn’t take a pic of this step)

I then add on the bulk of the mass on the neck and barrel with aluminum foil and tape.

I’ll leave it off here! Stay tuned for part two.