Sculpture Critique?

[Anonymous No.3272999]

I only ever see 2d art here, but sculpture counts as artwork right? It's hard finding people who will actually critique my work since they all just seem impressed I managed to stick one piece of metal to another piece of metal as if it's somehow better than 2d art by default.

I need negative feedback if I'm going to improve and if anyone can rip me a new one it's /ic/. Any and all critique or comment is welcome as is hopefully other sculptors looking for a place to post their shit.

[Anonymous No.3273003]

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[Anonymous No.3273006]

[Anonymous No.3273007]

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[Anonymous No.3273017]

[Anonymous No.3273019]

[Anonymous No.3273020]

[Anonymous No.3273021]

[Anonymous No.3273023]

[Anonymous No.3273024]

[Anonymous No.3273025]

[Anonymous No.3273033]

This one was just for goofs.

[Anonymous No.3273035]

And that's most of it really. Please judge me harshly.

Or at least give me ideas for what to do next. I'm paralyzed by choice and the inability to think of any one single idea that would be worth investing the relatively large amount of time and effort of a sculpture into.

[Anonymous No.3273098]

I think the base skeleton on many of them is the coolest part, and the wrapped wiring is actually detracting. For the next one, you should try wrapping the thin wiring in a more organized, considered way so that it looks more artful.

The sheet metal dragon has some potential, even though it looks a little clunky compared to the wire sculptures, because it looks like a more original approach and more difficult to do. I've seen wireframe sculptures a million times.

I'm most impressed by the sword, desu.

[Anonymous No.3273119]

>>3272999
Sure. Yeah, lemme make some coffee and think about it for a bit.

[Anonymous No.3273140]

>>3273098
That's a good point. I don't think I'll stop the wire wrapping as I think it's a good counterpoint to the bars, sort of a bone vs flesh dynamic. And I don't mean to hide behind an excuse but it really does look a lot different in person, since 2d images of wires makes them look super weird. it looks a little better in a video and best in person, so the wires don't flatten out and look wrong. Sound warning, shops are loud sorry.
https://youtu.be/FFkQm5BZoAI
But your point about wrapping them in a different way is really good. What I'm going for is a sort of organic chaos that conjures the idea of flesh and tendon in terms of kinetic weight, sort of how the skeleton frame isn't actually anything like a real skeleton but I'm trying to mimic the "feel" of weight and body with it. But obviously that isn't coming across properly and I couldn't see it because I was the one wrapping it.

Next one I think I'll try it without the wire and just work on using the rebar alone to conjure the right feeling.

And noooo that sword was just me getting the hang of a new stick welder and goofing off. stupid thing weighs like 8 pounds and is impossible to swing without ripping yourself to pieces on the crossguard though that doesn't stop me from swinging it around like I'm an anime. plus I didn't have anything to clean it up more than just basic grinding so it's super grody looking if you zoom in at all.

>>3273119
Thanks so much. I'm excited to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous No.3273144]

>>3273006
>>3273020

I think these are legitimately cool.

I would get away from the sculptures made of junk though, the reclaimed thing is really played out, it's in the same tier as campy chainsaw sculptures of eagles and shit. It can still have an industrial unpolished look without being made of actual bolts and rebar.

I love the movement you're able to capture in a lot of your pieces. I'm not sure if you're familiar with gesture drawing, but the basic idea is that you try to capture the essence of a form, while being as concise and thoughtful of your lines as possible.

It's something I think you can benefit from, I can see what you're going for in a lot of your pieces, but they very much feeled weighed down and overthought, too much wire, too many joints. Try to do more pieces sorta like >>3273025, try to capture the form without getting too distracted with the details

[Anonymous No.3273194]

>>3273119
Okay. Looks like a couple other people are thinking along the same lines as I am, OP. You're trying to flesh out a gestural frame with a wire-wrap skin that detracts from the gestures. You're kind of stuck between deciding if you want to work off an anatomical skeletal base or an economical gesture.

When you start building up more volume in the frames like >>3273003 >>3272999 you're more successful at conveying the mass and movements. Honestly, I think that's the direction you want to go in here, as well as laying down the skin with more thoughtful patterns that match the flow of the pieces. The chaos thing only works when it is controlled, as in you set a parameter within a clearly defined set of rules. It makes something define itself. There should be no arbitrary chaos outside of the maquettes. I can go through every piece if you're still listening.

[Anonymous No.3273345]

>>3272999
I sometimes do sculpture. I work with plaster mostly. I make big blocks, then carve them down into little heads.

[Anonymous No.3273347]

[Anonymous No.3273349]

This is one of the smallest I've made. That's a Bic lighter it's in front of.

[Anonymous No.3273380]

I know this is more subjective as I can't really critique the technical side of things (the anon above perfectly explained that maybe building volume in frames could be a better idea).
These are the only a few pieces from this bunch that I think are creative or convey something more than just a fantastical creature or a form.
>>3273006 has some kind of flow to it with the clearly defined metal plates
>>3273020 feels very organic, and has some kind of scrappy feel with the front paw and welding marks. Working with "framed" volumes really sounds like a good idea.
>>3273021 is somewhat strange, I can (!) interpret it as a moving, winged beast flying backward, but at the same time it's like a form nested in a siege, or even a vehicle on display.
What are you trying to convey through your art anon? How can you do it in the most efficient way? I think you should ask yourself this as you create these sculptures.

[Anonymous No.3273992]

>>3273380
>>3273194
>>3273144
Thanks. This is all stuff i need to hear. The wire wrapping is definitely a crutch that adds a bit of appeal but overall it really detracts from the quality.

Im definitely still going to stick with the scrap style, especially rebar mainly since it's dirt cheap and has a sort of personality that i really like working with, but that doesn't mean i can't strive for More refinement rather than relying on some sort of "it's my style" junk look.

I basically use whatever "feels" right, since my visual imagination is non-existent, instead I think in terms of touch. This will sound super fucking stupid but when i imagine a sculpture i dont see it in my mind, i actually feel it as if i AM that thing and then bend the metal until it matches the feeling of wings on my back or antlers weighing on my neck.

And wish me luck guys, the opening is tonight.

[Anonymous No.3274033]

>>3273992
Good luck with your show tonight! I hope you make a couple sales. I kinda feel like going through each piece with you even more now. Let me know if you feel like it after the high. I don't think the tactile thing is weird at all. We're tactile people. I prefer to talk less and gesticulate more.

[Anonymous No.3274531]

>>3272999
You're at your best when you use more than just wire.

One thing I noticed is that all your material feels "hard". Now I understand you use junk and metal and wire are easy to find, but there is also junk fabric or junk paper or plastic, or a ton of other materials you can also get the sort of muscle / tendon feel and even venture into fat and fur as you explore other materials.

[Anonymous No.3274536]

ali?

[Anonymous No.3274572]

>>3273347
Is there a reason you only do noses? I don't dislike it just curious

[Anonymous No.3274601]

[Anonymous No.3275394]

>>3274572
I'm sort of obsessed with formlessness. I look at sculptors like Giacometti, sculpture from the Romanesque school, paleolithic Venus figures, and the heads of the Cycladic islands.

[Anonymous No.3275396]

>>3274572
Oh, and it doesn't show that well, but I also do the brow ridge in a some of them.

[Anonymous No.3275460]

>>3272999
have a look at Beth Cavener Stichter's works, i think you can learn a lot from how she tackles animals as a subject.

[Anonymous No.3275461]

>>3275460

[Anonymous No.3275464]

>>3275461

[Anonymous No.3275465]

>>3274531
I specifically like hard materials though. I like the process of sculpting, it's physical and strenuous and the sculpture at the end is more of a by-product of my contest of wills with the metal than the goal.

I like materials that have their own strong personality and qualities that will shine through in the final product no matter what, as opposed to having some picture of what I want and trying to create it out of whatever I want. With rebar or metal plates I can feel the sculpture first and channel that feeling into it, the end result is more of a "so that's what it looks like" than a "this is what I pictured making".

Rebar is great because it's cheap, but I'm not enamoured with the "junk art" style itself, and in fact I fucking hate most junkart because it looks like an idiot glued a bunch of random bullshit together and is counting on the ugly chaotic mess to be unique or appealing. What I try to do is make the best dragon I can out of rebar, even though rebar might not be the best thing to make it out of.

Basically there are two extremes I have no interest in. One is using the perfect material/tools to get exactly the result you want, like using clay and paint and stuff that has no backbone of it's own. The other extreme is that modern art bullshit of just trying to use materials that aren't normal, and relying on it being "unique" for appeal.

I have a hundreds of pounds of scrap metal from all sorts of shit, as well as lots of rebar. But I never use a piece of scrap that doesn't fit just to try and get some sort of junk found art style. With the gryphon sculpture I used all found material. The head is a shaped splitting maul, the feathers are vbar I got from a road sign, the wing and back legs were But I didn't use any of them because I think using junk is cool, I used each piece because it just FIT.

>>3275461
>>3275460
I fucking love her work and it's a huge inspiration. She does perfectly what I strive for.

[Anonymous No.3275468]

>>3275464
It might seem counter intuitive since I just talked about not liking clay, but her work is a perfect example of what I strive towards. One of the biggest appeals of her pieces is how much her process shows in the final product. The best part of her swirling fur patterns isn't just that they look good, but they look good because you can *feel* the way she put them in. Her process of sculpting and shaping carries through and shows in the final product, working with the clay's natural personality. rather than being perfectly cut out into an exact replica or picture you can tell that each swirl of fur is created by her and the clay together. Her technique shapes the clay but part of it is letting the clay respond to the technique.

God I love her work.

[Anonymous No.3275487]

Compared to >>3275460, >>3275461, and >>3275464, some of your wire works look flat and stiff - I think it's the relatively straight spines. I don't see the illusion of weight on them and if you could somehow show it, it would make your stuff come alive.

[Anonymous No.3275504]

>>3275487
this

[Anonymous No.3275592]

>>3272999
im going to try out sculpture next semester since ive been enjoying ceramics. i havent studied much when it comes to 2d art. whats your drawing/painting experience? and do you think its necessary to have background in 2d to work with 3d?

[Anonymous No.3275734]

>>3273006
Welding marks on the back face/head area here are a bit to distracting, takes away from the shape you're trying to convey on the front part of the head, which seems a bit blank compared to the detail on the rest of the figure.

Looks coherent enough until you reach the feet. Copper looks way out of place here and the wrapped wire connecting the threaded leg to the body doesn't look resolved. The arm reaching out isn't copper either, doesn't feel like it belongs. Back leg looks the most resolved. The wire-wrapped tail looks a bit weird too.

>>3273023
Stance is great, balance looks good here. The webm gives me a better feel for the work. Tail looks like it flairs out a bit much in the middle section when look at how it starts at the body and ends at the tip. Head and neck here look a bit 'empty' compared to the rest of the figure. Front legs feel like they're missing girth.

>>3273019
I like the hand/claw. Positioning is spot on, copper here feels like it adds to the piece rather than stick out like a distraction. Not a fan of the chicken wire here, just cause it doesn't read well to me in the forearm.
Love the spoon though, everything from the little dimples on the layered copper to the little end piece on the handle feels well thought out

[Anonymous No.3276070]

>>3275592
I spent like 10 years trying and failing to git gud at 2d art, sculpture came totally naturally to me. It's because I can't see things in my head so I was essentially trying to "sculpt" into the paper and it never came out right, but as soon as I started working in 3d everything made sense. I don't think 2d is necessary to do sculpture but all forms of art tend to synergize in terms of knowledge if not skill. Even though I never got good at drawing, learning about things like form and weight still helped.
>>3273004
These were my first two real sculptures.

>>3273006
Yeah the gryphon is pretty explicitly unfinished, I just didn't have time to finish her before having to turn her in for critique, so I had to bullshit the rest of her body with junk around my home shop and no welding. I've since removed the body and focused on it just being a bust>>3273007
still not finished, as it needs a lot of cleaning and polishing.

yeah with wire and even the rebar they just look totally flat in pictures because the wires read as lines rather than actual 3d objects. But yeah the horse was sort of a "oh shit it's christmas" gift for a new family friend that I just had to bang out in a day. The person I gave it to ended up being a crazy bitch like 3 months later so I'll never see that thing again.

It's def a hand, and it reads a little better in person but yeah I basically just had to put something there after finishing the fingers, The resulting look wasn't great but I was out of time. Also it's the same wire I use for everything else, not actually chicken wire. And that is definitely a sword not a spoon but I won't complain about a compliment.

[Anonymous No.3276257]

>>3276070
was meant in part to be a response to>>3275734
but I forgot to quote

[Anonymous No.3276267]

>>3273006
>>3273020
>>3273023
>>3273024
>>3273025
Pretty good, but listen to the anons above.
Another thing is how you present them. Thing about combining materials, creating backgrounds etc. Maybe try to give it a bit more of an organic feeling for the contrast with the wire/sheets of metal?

[Anonymous No.3276615]

>>3276257
I’d love to see any sort of drawing/planning you had for these. Do you ever make maquettes of these before goin at the real deal?

[Anonymous No.3276627]

>>3276615
Actually originally the smaller wire only sculptures WERE my sketches. I'm very bad at drawing, I just can't "see" what I want to make I can only feel it and feel doesn't translate to 2d, I end up trying to draw "into" the paper which doesn't work, so I would use the wire to make sort of a rough draft sketch of the final piece, to figure out proportions and pose and stuff like that. so the only "sketch" I have of>>3272999 is actually just >>3273024

[Anonymous No.3276643]

>>3272999
>>3273003

Armatures look a little too heavy. In order to offer better critique I will need to wait to see what it looks like once you start adding the clay.

[Anonymous No.3276676]

>>3276643
Not sure if you're joking but if you're not, they're metal sculptures not armatures for clay.