Follow along as I sculpt a horse

[BlackCurtains]

Hello

I have two major art projects I plan to start this year, the other one is making a 1:12 scale partial dollhouse from scratch. If people are interested I can start a thread for that as well

Anyway, on to the horse. He's going to be a Friesian stallion. His size will be roughly 12x9 inches, which is the same size as Traditional Breyers. So if you have any of those at home you'll know how big he'll be.

I've been sculpting all my life and have done lots of animals but never a horse (that I remember) and never anything realistic at this scale. I'll be using Super Sculpey for most of it but might use Cosclay on the ears and legs. I've only worked with it a tiny bit and I hate the texture, so we'll see. He will also be painted a rich shiny black and have mohair mane, tail and feathers. I might also try to make the eyes out of resin. I'm not sure, I'm very new to resin.

I have saved dozens of pictures for refs and have the amazing book Animal Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger.

The first thing that needs to be done is the armature. I'm using 9 and 14 gauge aluminum wire and aluminum foil for bulk. I need to figure out how big to make the armature because I need to leave room for the clay if I want to stay around the size I want. I make miniatures, but usually those don't require armature, so I've never had to do this before. I am bad at math and judging size and unfortunately do not have any Breyers that aren't packed away to use as a guide. I'll have to rough sketch a 12x9 horse shape and use that.

This is probably going to be a long project. I'll still be making other things, custom ponies, pony charms and the dollhouse and whatever else. I tend to jump around

I urge you to look up Friesians if you don't know what they look like. They do have colors other than black, but the black is the original and it makes them look so awesome.

Oh, pose. I am going to do a semi-trotting pose. I have refs of it. Friesians have a very elegant gait.

Okay! Here's the first official pic!

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[BubbleTea]

AHHH this is going to be amazing!!!

[BlackCurtains]

Already plans have changed 12x9 is too big and I can't print at that size. I scanned the skeleton horse from my book and printed it. The new size is 9x8.5. Still big, but not as big as a Traditional.

ETA:

The armature is done!

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[Ponybookworm]

Smart basing the armature on the skeleton shape xxx

[BlackCurtains]

I put down some of the deep muscle shapes. The head is too wide, high... whatever. And I'm having issues with the hindquarters. I need to set it aside and stare at for a bit.

[Griffin]

Neat project! I've always wanted to try a realistic horse sculpture but probably never will get round to it

The armature looks good!

[brightberry]

That's a really nice start! Interested in seeing how it goes.

[BlackCurtains]

I'm blocking in muscles but I'm going to run out of clay. I did bulk up with foil first. I should have used my scrap clay to do the first layers but I didn't think of it at the time.

I think the neck might be too short?

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