I have freelanced bas relief sculpting models for many years to various Mints around the country. Within that time the process of creating sculpted models has remained pretty much the same. You use clay, you make plaster casts, you detail the casts, you pull a positive and send it off to an engraver who reduces the model onto the face of a die. Since going digital with my illustration efforts I have wondered how long it would take for the 3D realm to catch up.

Of course, there is a very vibrant and rich set of 3D tools out there. Maya, Blender, Zbrush, But most of these tools are made for animators and movie-type character production. The tools in general are hard to use and with minor exceptions they are not very intuitive for your average clay-guy to grasp.

I found a new tool yesterday called Mudbox made by Autodesk, that really made me sit up and take notice. I have used Sketchbook Pro (from Autodesk) for years. It also has a very intuitive interface that leans on a graphic tablet for what it does best. Mudbox also works with a graphic tablet and a mouse, and I found it very close to my actual analog working method — with an undo key. This little nose sample took me 30 minutes. It’s not ground breaking, but the proof is not in this end product, the proof is in the tool set that got me to this end product. It was very intuitive for me. I think with an investment of some time I could really break through into some digital bas relief sculpting. The real problem of course is what do you do with it then? Can you export it out to a die engraver? What is the interface for that?

So many questions. But for the first time I can actually see it happening in the near future.

As I have said, its been a busy month. I got approval for this finished medallion sculpt yesterday. The scrap for this sculpt was awful, hard to tell what was what in the art. But I pushed through and nailed it anyway. I only have about 25 hours in this one, a large portion of that carving letter forms. I am still not exactly thrilled with the glasses, but the deadline was met and the client was happy and two out of three isn’t bad.

I know it seems like I have dropped of the end of the earth, but the reality is I am completely overwhelmed with  work. It is times like these that make me want to hire more people, but I know that in two months things will be back to normal. So I plow ahead. My to-do list is 28 entries long and extends into September.

I have a sculpt due tomorrow morning, and a web redesign, and of course School starts Monday! I have a logo project that is waiting in the wings, they are getting impatient and two illustration projects that will not die.

My webcomic “Artiste Gullible” is sorely neglected and I feel bad about that worst of all.

ARGH!!!!!! I can do this , I can do this, I can do this …

Getting back to work now.

This past week has been a constant stream of work. The work itself has been varied. I have been working on a logo for a new client, A cover illustration for a romance novel, A coin sculpt for a fireman who died in the line of duty, a price list for a catalog and some small vector web illustrations. Switching from one project to another is not always seamless. I will be working on the sculpt, when the client will call with a price list change. I jump to the price list to make the change and send back a pdf; when another client will call with a change in the web graphics. I make that change and get back to playing in clay when I reach a point where I need to cast a mold, so I throw plaster on it, and while it is curing I pull out my tablet and continue to work on the romance book cover. Whew!

I normally do a bit of bouncing … but this is pressing it a bit. In three weeks classes begin for the 2008 fall semester at NIC. I Sometimes feel like I need some sort of clutch to ease between graphic gears

I’ve included a picture of the sculpt for the fireman. It is sometimes hard to do these type of sculpts. Memorial images often reflect stoic figures. This design was very different in that the picture is a reflection of a happy and smiling man who obviously enjoyed his time here. The laugh lines around his eyes I think were the best memorial to leave behind. It is an affirmation of life. I really enjoyed doing it

I have successfully upgraded to WordPress 2.5. This may seem like a small maneuver, but I hate database linked, theme protected, overwriting-file, type upgrades. So much can go wrong as I straddle the divide between intellectual trust in the code and half blind faith in the voodoo magic that twinkles in the gaps between 0’s and 1’s. Of course I have learned a lot about playing within the box that WP provides for customizing themes. In some of my earlier attempts, I dove into outside areas and pages and tweaked little pieces of code to make it do something that was in reality far simpler to accomplish within the theme. The result at upgrade time was a vast line by line comparison to make sure all my tweaks survived the transition; a cumbersome event that guaranteed that I only upgraded when absolutely necessary.

This time however, my tweaking was kept to a minimum, my customizations where limited to the theme code and I was able to upgrade without worry and with (very little) no trepidation.

I love it when a plan comes together!

BTW, I added some new medallion sculpts I have been working on under the sculpting tab.