A short tutorial to show my process of making the professor. I shared an image of this character before. I made the professor as part of illustrating the Hans Christian Andersen tale – The flea and the professor. I really like the tale and thought it would make a good subject for an illustration project.
So first you can take a look at the original sketch and the end result. You’ll be the judge on how well I managed to take the 2D to the 3D. I improvise a lot, so there are major modifications I did along the way and I’m quite happy with the result.
First step, making the head in Polymer clay. I started by doing the face. I used Super Sculpey and in this sculpture I also decided to use natural material colors and not to paint the figurine.
More detailed work on the face. I added fimo materials with colors to do the eyes with all details. I used a metal wire to do the mustache. Added some earrings – also metal parts.
This is to show my drawer and to take out any concept you might have of me being organized and planned. This is my surprise drawer full of good stuff. I was looking at this point to build some sort of stand to shape the head on top. I needed something steady, heavy that would allow me to work on all facets. I also needed it to be made of metal or something that would withstand the heat of the oven (I burn the clay while on the stand). Luckily the stand turned out ok and it’s still useful for all the heads I made since.
Here I complete the head by adding the material for the back of the head. Eventually also shaping the hair from black fimo material.
To make the hat, I needed to construct a base steady material. I used a thick metal foil, not sure about materials here. You can cut it with scissors and bend to shape. Here I’m making the shape of the hat. Eventually I’ll add cloth and sew around it the outer layer of the hat.
Next comes the body of the figurine. I made an armature from metal wires with some parts like tubes and nuts and bolts to strengthen it and to create joints. Not the best armature in the world. Many many mistakes, but I’m improving and I’ll share better armatures here in the future.
Around the armature I’m adding foam which I cut to sculpt the right figure.
Completed the foam build. Front view
And back view
Putting it all together. before sewing the cloths on.
This is it for now. If you want to see the final result please use the link – The flea and the professor
