Sculptors of Melonland (hobbyists and pros!)

[totel]

hey everyone! i've been getting into sculpting lately and wanted to see if there are any others here making sculptures as well! 

unfortunately i don't have any pics atm of my stuff (i tossed most of my experiments for now since theyre, well, learning experiments and dont need them taking up space!) but if you make any kind of irl sculpting craft, feel free to show it off here! polymer clay, air dry clay, clay, pottery, ocs, whatever... it'd be really cool to exchange tips and inspiration in this thread!

some questions to start off:

1. what material do you use?
2. what inspires you?
3. how did you get into sculpture?
4. do you have any cool sculpt artists you'd like to share with us? :]

[cyberdreamz]

Yessss I love sculpting!!! It unfortunately takes a lot of time and energy from me so I don't really do it that often - last one I did was in may, it's a little figurine of Rover (the microsoft bob/windows xp doggy)!
I use sculptural plasticine just because there's a big block of it that's been lying in my drawer for a really long time and I'd like to put it to use. I wanna try polymer clay afterwards :]
Sculpting is really enjoyable for me because it gives my hands something to fidget with I think... I got restless hands I need to do something with them Constantly. I don't remember what got me into it, honestly. I think it's just something I always wanted to try but never got around to untill I got really bored one day in 2022.
Coloring is my least favorite part of the process though... Lots of tiny details and spaces where I just cannot fit the brush into neatly. My posture suffers as well... But it's always really cool to have a little 3-dimentional guy to hold in my hands afterwards ^__^

Here are some sculptors I follow on tumblr:
strangereigns makes OOAK dolls
idlelizard makes ceramic creatures
There's also this really cool Siffrin sculpture I think about sometimes. He can take his hat off! And cloak! And he has little pocket items!!! Man I wanna be able to make stuff like this too someday. But that means I gotta sculpt more than like, one or two times a year =w=''

[knifex]

I love sculpting! I like making tiny little things. I dont do it very often, because I shrimply have so many projects going on.

My favorite materials are clay- lately, I've been using a mystery grey clay my friend has in an ice cream tub which she brings over on craft days- it goes in the oven, and I like to paint it afterwards. It doesn't smell great, but it's relatively similar to polymer clay in consistency.
Here's some stuff I made with it!

Another clay I LOVE is Salt Dough. It's really easy and cheap to make at home:
2 parts flour, 1 part salt, and one part lukewarm water.
While it can take a while to dry, and depending on the kind of flour, might rise if you try to accelerate the drying time by putting it in the oven, it is surprisingly durable once fully hardened (I chipped my wooden bookshelf with a mushroom i made!). Of course, it's water soluble, so non washable or for outdoor use, but that means it takes up watercolor really well. Oh, you should also keep in mind that pets and young children might want to lick it.
It can be a bit grainy, which isn't ideal for smaller sculpts, but passing your salt through the blender or pestle and mortar will make your final result much smoother! You can also smooth the surface with additional water.
heres some stuff!

I also looove sculpting in snow, tough its not as easy or permanent


I like to sculpt little trinkets and fun shapes- inspiration comes from all over.

I got into sculpting thanks to my school having ceramics classes, which I attended as often as I could. My favorite project I ever did was a deer skull I had worked on for two months- unfortunately, it blew up in the kiln :(


MY favorite sculptor is Lucas Neves or Earthen-were which I've been following for over TEN years! I have (somewhere) an otter necklace from him, and my dream is to one day own this piece which made me fall in love with his work

[bartender]

I sculpt in wet clay. I work really very slowly though.


I'd be more productive if I brought the work home and then just fired at the studio, but I like being forced to be amongst others. My current project is a model of an asian squat toilet that's to function as an ashtray.

I really like Ditmar Urbach ceramics, and also the Wally birds. My work is a bit restricted to the 'figurative' side so far though, as I initially took the hobby up to find my creativity. I hope I can find how to express whatever 'figural' ideas I have lurking in my brain.




I started ceramics mostly in pottery. But it's a bit hard on my wrists, and it takes more consistency in terms of time in the studio to work on things at the proper moisture levels. Otherwise things dry up at stages where you want them leather hard. So I switched to sculpting things in as masses first, and wrapping them with wet newspaper and plastic with little air exposure, and the hollowing them out at the last step before the bisque fire. This way I can work on things as slow as I want.