Two steps Back...

Sometimes we have to go backwards in order to move forwards. I was so stuck with how Jazira was looking. There were little things that were bothering me keeping me from moving forward with her. After hashing some ideas around with another artist I have taken out my dremel tool and basically removed most of her hindquarters, and parts of her two hind legs. I also moved her hind right leg, so it is more correctly placed under her for support. Lastly, I've shaved her back down a bit so I can resculpt it with a little more shape. (Sadly, her ears broke during the last move from San Francisco to Houston)

She looks pretty bare bones again, but the plan is to correct those flaws and annoyances. Hopefully this will all make for a better sculpture. This is typical of my sculpting process. If possible, I'd love to be working in a plastilina (or non-hardening clay) so I could just scrape away what I don't like. However, since we are traveling I have to use a medium that hardens and sets up so I can wrap up the sculpture each week and travel to our next destination.

So far I've been using Super Sculpey as my medium of choice. Personally, I love it because it doesn't set up until you bake it in the oven. So you do have hours, days, or weeks to work on the piece. However, I'm finding not all of our hotels have ovens. We have kitchenettes in many of them, but they usually have stove tops/ranges, but no oven. Therefore, I have some Apoxie sculpt on order to continue my work on Jazira. Apoxie is wonderful, and I used it almost entirely to finish my Let's Roll and Raja Sculptures. However, it sets up in an hour or two so you have to work quickly. More often than not I end up doing a lot of dremeling because I like to step back after working on a sculpture and take a day or so to look at it before committing to what I've sculpted and firing/baking that section. With Apoxie you have to commit to it right away, so if I change my mind, I then have to dremel the offending piece. I love the dremel, but it's just not great for Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (which I suffer from) so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Thus the reason I've avoided it so far on this piece.

The goal with all these changes is that it will keep me moving forward with this piece from this point on. Wish me luck!