"Sweetoof" by Zombienose
I made this piece a couple of years ago for Chet Zar's annual Conjoined 3D show at the Copro Gallery. I was really happy with the final result but a bit disappointed when nobody felt the same way - she didn't sell. I actually considered this one of my cooler pieces, but oh well. It's still available if you're interested. And here's how I made it.
I began with casting the head from a sculpture I did and added some epoxy to the nose, hence the gray color in in the photo below. I used some plastic orange hair and a doll costume for the outfit. I had planned this piece for quite some time and the outfit made it easy to envision the final piece during its progress.
To get a more of an idea of what I was going for, I painted a base skin tone all over the figure and added some epoxy hair ponytail forms to attach the orange hair to once the painting was complete. The chest had to be built up in order to fill out the dress.
So then I moved onto the prop I came up with for this piece. Originally, I was going to place a cigarette in her hand, but then a better idea manifested - a candy box. I used a box of Junior Mints and simply cut out a couple of heart shapes, then glued a border around one of them to create the box. I also added some very thin gold thread around the contoured edges to give it a classier feel, then painted it gold. The chocolate pieces were made from colored Sculpey and I used actually Reese's peanut butter cup wrappers for them. The last thing I did was add my heart-skull design onto the lid, which was cut from metal tape and stuck on the painted red lid.
Looking at my progress, I was not liking the metal skull sticker I added to the lid and in the end, I did not use the lid for the final piece.
As she approached completion, I dressed her up and put her in her frame for a quick reference. I added Magic Sculpt epoxy to make her neck and shoulders once the arms were in position. Her hands were sculpted with Sculpey and baked separately. (Note: you can see the Reese's peanut butter cup wrapper in there)
A side view. From this angle, you can see the position I sculpted her hand to hold a cigarette before I decided to make the box of candy.
I then glued some hair on to keep myself on track and placed her hands in position (not yet attached).
At this point it was time for Sweetoof's make over. The scar on her left cheek was an added bonus that I enhanced with paint.
I still like her long hair angled back and sticking out. It really emphasized the shape of her nose and head. But, I designed her to have really long ponytails that stick out from the sides of her head so she can fit her in her frame comfortably.
With the paint job complete I mounted the figure into her frame but still needed to add some more hair and work out how it was going to be within the confines of the frame. I also added her necklace at this point and secured her sleeves.
Ok, I mounted Sweetoof into her frame and attached the Pippi Longstocking-type hair to the sides of it, added black ribbons in a tidy goth girl style. One small and subtle thing I did was dry brush the mesh parts of her dress so they would stand out against the black backdrop of the frame.
Sorry for the blown out photo, but here's what she looked like from this side.
... and the other side. Look at them chompers! I painted her teeth and rotten yellow color for full effect. Kiss me, you fool!
Before she was shipped out I took this picture as a last farewell in case it sold. And so ends our story of the making of Sweetoof.
For a more clear sense of 3 dimension I took this video before she was packed up. I didn't have a very nice camera with me when I shot this video, so I apologize for the quality. At least it gives you some idea of the figure's entirety.
Thanks for reading!
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