Friday, March 21, 2008

Down from the High Lonesome (p7) Muscle

Today I gather the reference materials. Muscle drawings from an art book have been scanned into my computer. The reason I do this is so that I don't have to fumble around with tons of reference books. I can just fumble around with tons of flat sheets instead.


My Tools. Tools range from Calipers, various wire tools, metal wax working tools, and a hobby knife.


And I start adding the muscles onto the skeletal structure of the horse. First His abdomen. You have to start somewhere so I start with abdomen to set the main bodies profile. I use the wire tool to shape the clay. It's serrated. This helps my eye to see the form I'm shaping.


Then I start sketching in the muscle groups. The rear of the horse is very complicated in it's structure. So I start there. I save the head till almost the last. It sticks out, and therefore more apt to be hit as I turn the piece to work on it.


One side of the horse, after a days work. It takes time to figure out what the muscles are doing, in the position and movement I've put horse into. The composit photo below shows two different angles. In the angle on the right you can see I've added the outline of the neck, and throat of the horse.


That's it for today.