What will Smaug look like

This pics a little clearer... My fanart. Love you WETA! Your secrecy is making me keep myself entertained with this fanart. LOL.

My fanart :D

So I did some "scalework". Is that even a word? Well it makes sense to me... He's looking more polished. I still have a lot of surface finishing though. I'm starting to get over the, "I hate you! Why don't you look like I want you to!?" phase, and moving to the accomplished phase. :D

Today man, today!

Those sour dough nibblers are dangerous. No really. I just bit down on one and ended up stabbing the inside of my cheek. I don't -think- I'll need a stitch or two just, oww.

Yesterday after a long shift, I was happy to be leaving. As I rounded the building and spot my car, I noticed the flat tire. Wonderful. I didn't, have AAA, so I gauged my chances of making it to the nearest gas station without ruining my rims and decided to go for it. Hazards on and some illegal turns later I'm there, and anxiously fill the air. Of course it has to start hissing back out as soon as I'm done. So I go to the Sears, which is close by.

The guy tells me, "Yeah we'll look at it, but we leave in a half hour." I leave the car with them for a few minutes. When I come back they tell me they couldn't find the leak. I knew it was BS, but what was I going to do? I drove home, but couldn't tell if the ride had deflated it any.

Walking out this morning, I was greeted by another flat tire. SO I had to buy a AAA membership, have them come to my house and fill my tire. Then drive to Sullivan's ( I recommend them. I bought the tires there and if anything goes wrong with the tires that they can fix, they'll do it for free. Or if you have to get a new tire they'll discount the "remaining worth" of the old tires.)

I hope my car will stay in good condition for a while longer. Saving some money would be nice. I guess I'm just irritated that I wasted most of the day on this, on my day off. Also having to make myself get some sculpting done. Which is a hard thing to do when I'm not in the mood. But I won't let myself fall into that trap anymore. So my,(I think) 2 lurkers, I'll post when I've got more progress.

My thoughts on using pictures for portraits

I don't like doing portraits from pictures. Not that they offer any technical difficulty. Also, not to mention the various copyright issues most of my peers don't seem to think about... It just feels too much like an unrequited trust exercise. The artist has to "get to know" the subject. Usually with an assortment of pictures in different angles. Then the artist puts a lot of their energy into their piece. With every stroke the artist feels a ghost of what it -might- be like to know the person. The end result is a bitter sweet experience.

I understand that for an oil painting time and schedule are a major issue. Having a picture helps the commisioner out a lot. I would say the artist should use the picture up until the later parts of the painting and then have a sitting. But that's me. I'm done rambling for now.

I'm so changeable! LOL. It's true though.

Nobody cares....

I'm too lazy to post the new pic right now. I will later. Tired right now.

Breathing is good for you.

You know what I just realized? Sometimes I don't breathe when I'm really in the zone, sculpting. You want to know how I realized? I started seeing stars. How messed up is that? LOL.

Amputation Time!

The front foreleg of Smaug has been a pain in the ass for me since the beginning, so I gave up and amputated it. It's already replaced with a new one and it looks so much better. I redid his chest musculature to more closely resemble my Temeraire sculpt. I'm starting to think this one would be worthy to enter into the Spectrum publication. When I finally finish it that is.... The deadline for spectrum 19 is coming up next week I think. I might have to wait a year.

Deviation

So I uploaded the pics onto my deviant art account and the new one (not the updated one) has been awash with views. The only other time I've ever gotten over 4,000 in a day, was because I got a daily deviation. It must be Benedict Cumberbatch. He's bringing all sorts of fandom together. LOL.

I googled "what will Smaug look like" and my sculpt is right next to John Howe's in the second row! He's one of my favorite artists! I'm going to have to up my game it seems. I am having a hard time not losing my composure and SQUEEEING!

this is more of a front view.

So here's my work, so far.

Well, in an effort to keep this blog more current. I'm posting, this. Which is nothing. I didn't get to Smaug today and I'm quite grumpy about it. I had a long tedious day at work and I'm going to hit the sack, I think.

Going to work in a few hours. I guess the fun had to end sometime. I will work on the sculpt a little before I face the masses again. Will post a pic soon. I ended up taking off the large horns and giving him smaller ones with spikes. Doing a Benedict Cumberbatch inspired dragon is challenging but fun. Now I'm not saying it looks like him. What human do you know, looks like a giant bat/crocodile? (I know you just went there.) lol. Just certain attributes are emphasized.
God, like I said yesterday. This is slow going right now. I hope I finish this soon. I'm getting the itch to do something else, with a plethora of ideas in my head.

Smaug

Worked on Smaug again today. Only accomplished a little though. This part of a sculpt is always the most frustrating because it feels like I'll never get done. On the bright side, I feel like I'm getting better at sculpting and I'm noticing more of the mistakes before I'm done, every new round. If that makes sense?