How I Sculpt a Tail - Hairing the Tail

So here is the continuation of my previous post on how to sculpt a tail, which covered the basics of creating a tail bone. This post will cover how to create the hair texture.

What You will Need:

• Apoxie
• Sculpting tools (you can use anything from a toothpick to actual tools you buy at art supplies stores for sculpting)
• Water or Rubbing Alcohol
• A soft paint brush
• Your reference photos

First you will need to mix the apoxie evenly. The easiest way to do this is to create two even balls and the kneed together.

Once your apoxie is mixed you want to make a base for the the tail. You need to check out your ref picture to see how thick or thin the tail is. That dictates how thick you can make your base. Some people use painter's tape hardened with super glue and baking soda, but I find that it is to flimsy for my taste.

I usually create the base of the tail front to back
I feel that it gives it a more 3D look

The next thing you want to do is choose your sculpting tools - since the horse I'm using is around the size of a large stablemate, I'm using two toothpicks. Choose your tools according to the scale of your model.

The next thing you want to do is roll your apoxie into thin snakes. Press these snakes onto the base you built in the earlier steps. Vary the length of the snakes in order to create visual interest.

Once you have your snakes secured to your base, start making grooves in the apoxie. Start with deeper grooves, spacing them out randomly. Next start making shallow grooves, always starting from the top of the tail. Vary the lengths to create visual interest.

You may notice that there are little balls of apoxie building up. To get rid of them, and to smooth down the starkness of the hairing detail, by dipping a soft cheap paint brush into rubbing alcohol or water and brushing it up and down the length of the tail. Next brush it side to side to soften the grooves.

Let cure for 24 hours and repeat on the other side of the tail.

The finished product

Congratulations! You just finished making a tail!

Yay! 2000!

I've just reached my first milestone when it comes to my blog - 2000 page views! Thank you everyone who reads this blog!!

How I Sculpt a Tail Part One - Creating the Tail Bone

So, I thought I'd show you how I sculpt a tail. This is the technique that has worked out for me multiple times.

Supplies:

• A body model
• Dremel (or a saw and an electric drill)
• Apoxie (I use Magic Sculpt but I've also used Ave's Apoxie Sculpt with success. If you are just starting out, you can use jewelry apoxie that is available at Michaels)
• Armature wire
• Tin Foil
• Heat Gun/ Hair Dryer
• Baking Soda
• Super Glue
• References! References! References!

So I'm starting out with a horse that's missing a tail. I originally bought it with the tail at a show, but as we were traveling back home, it had an unfortunate mishap where the tail broke off and disappeared...Anyways, if you are starting out with a horse that actually has a tail start off by removing it via Dremel or saw (I recommend having someone in the room near you, especially when using a saw). If your tail is  being especially stubborn use a heat gun or hair dryer to heat the plastic. This just makes it easier to maneuver and eventually removed it from the body.

After smoothing down the inevitable rough plastic caused by the tail removal surgery with sand paper, there may be a large hole left by the tail, due to the model be hollow cast. This would be the case for most Breyer horses. The only size, that isn't like this is the Stablemates.

To fill this hole, squirt some hot glue in and stuff aluminum foil in the hole. When it is just about filled, use your apoxie to finish filling it. Let cure (usually 24 hours, but read your specific product's directions). When it is cured, drill a hole where the tailbone would be.

The next thing you want to determine is tail set. This is where your references come in. Since I'm doing an Akhal-Teke, I want it to be very low. How ever if I wanted to do an Arabian I would make the tail set much higher, especially because it is a very recognizable characteristic of the breed. 

A high set tail vs a low set tail
See the difference?

So once you've determined the set of your tail, insert some of the armature wire into the hole you've created in the last step. Bend it until you have matched the set of your reference's tail. Through out the process of sculpting the hair, this wire will act as your "tail bone."

Now is also the time to add the base of movement. Is the tail blowing gently in the wind? Is it flicking irritably at flies? Is it still? I can not stress how important references are especially if there is movement in the tail.   

Notice how I have excess wire still? I save cutting off the excess until the wire is firmly glue in the hole, just in case I change my mind about the length of the tail.

In order to secure the tail drip super glue into the hole and sprinkle a bit of baking soda on it. This immediately dries the glue and creates a strong bond (this does create a bit of heat due to it being a chemical reaction, so be careful!)

the super glue is soaking up the baking soda

 The next step is to trim the length of withe to your preference. Again - references! References! References! My ref horse does not have a very long tail, so I'm going to cut the wire right below the hock.

Congratulations! You've just created a tail bone. This post was originally going to be one whole post all about sculpting a tail, but I'm going to need to split it up in to two different posts. The next installment will be about adding the hair texture.

'Tis the Season

So with only ten more days until Christmas, I decided to take a sanity break from studying for midterms and decorate my studio! And of course it's a horse themed tree!

 

On the left is my prepping/sculpting table
 and on the right is my painting/detailing table

 

 

The tree is decorated with horse themed ribbon, various horse ornaments, and Breyerfest magnets that I have collected on my trips there. 



Prepping Day (or rather Prepping Night)

 

Hallo lovelies! Sorry I haven't posted in a while! School is always crazy the first two quarters. So now that I have a brief break due to midterms (blech) I'm having a prepping night at my sculpting class! Woo!

The (willing) victims

The first up is an old Secretariat classic resculpted to a Chincoteague pony who had an unfortunate run in with a bad can of primer.

The next is the new Black Beauty classic model, who has just been sitting around in my body box.

And finally is the little foalie that had primer issues earlier.

 

So in the end I was able to sand off most of the bad primer for the resculpt

The classic got resculpted feet and was sanded a bit

 

 

And I sanded off the spiderwebed primer off of the foalie

 

Keep an eye out on my blog an my Etsy page for an upcoming sales piece!