MEASURE- AND FIND THE CENTER

In addition to measuring, we gotta’ find the center of things!
The head and face are a good place to find center with this sculpt.
Eye position, the nose, and the way his hairline comes to a peak.
Not only are these good landmarks to keep all of the features in proportion, but also if these things are off center, the asymmetry will be glaring!

Sometimes in the excitement of sculpting a character, the alignments can get out of whack. Getting to focused in one area and not seeing the big picture.


Adding lines can show how off a sketch can be. But also help to figure out how to re-align and straighten things out.



Using a tool just to get a centerline view for lining up the ear positions. The head was further along in this picture. But imagine you still have that rough form with the horizontal & vertical centerlines.





Now after all this talk of keeping things sooooo symmetrical, I believe that features not being always exactly perfect are what give a sculpture character. That is what separates the human sculptors from robots. There are many great sculpts created in the digital medium. And In the vinyl toy world some designs lend themselves to 3D Modeling, much more then others. Perfectly smooth, round, geometric shapes work well. When it comes to complex character, with attitude and feeling, you need the human touch. People who sculpt well with their hands can translate it well to a computer program. In the future we will put on our creativity helmets that are directly wired into the rapid prototyping machine, and just think of the figure as it rises up out of the liquid resin!