Here are some photos of two maquettes I made specifically as photo references for another comic book I’m developing called OXYGEN WARS based on one of my screenplays.
The head maquette is made of two sculpting clays, Sculpey and Alves Modeling Clay. The reason for the two is that I wanted to have a hard “skull” structure that could be wired and posable. For instance, the jaw can be opened and shut as needed to make different expressions. The Sculpey, while it can be vulcanized in an oven, can also be left pliable and that is intended for skin and musculature. That allows me to open the mouth and make the character look as it he’s yelling or screaming, or any other expression I might need for the comic book frames.
This is a frame showing how the smaller, full-body maquette was used as the source for Photoshop manipulated images for the comic book pages.
These were test maquettes and my plan is to mold the head maquette more carefully, literally using a plaster mold made from a plasticine skull I’ll sculpt and then more carefully finish it so that the head has more of a recognizable character look.
What’s great about the Alves Modeling Clay is that it is a self-hardening mixture and it ends up very hard, hard enough to use power tools on it without cracking it. So, it is perfectly suited for more mechanical designs.
