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[Toby Mendez]

This is a project that I am currently working on of a Native American Chief. The final work is seven foot tall and will be ready for unveiling in August. Similar to the Don Shula project I created a scale model maquette at two foot tall and had it scanned.

Two foot maquette.


The maquette was cast into hydrocal and then sent off to the Digital Atelier and scanned by laser and milled into foam. I thought I would share with you some detail images of before and afters.



The first detail shows the foam head (on the left) as it came from milling. The detail is soft, it is limited by the radius of the head of a drill bit that cannot cut a 90 degree angle. On the right you can see that I cut the detail back into the foam using an exacto knife and riffler files. When I cut in the details, I intentionally cut sharp angles, which are severe and angular. I do this intentionally knowing I will soften the edges when I add the clay. So that it looks like the original modeling that you see in the maquette.
I also go back to the drapery and add the gestural texture that was in the maquette.
Clay application to the head.
The features are still a little severe, once I skim the complete figure I will go back and add more clay to flesh out the features in the portrait.




Before and after photos of the full figure. You can see that all of the original textural details were added. The texture in the clothing and the flesh like texture in the skin are something that the milling process cannot capture. This is the poetry and the artistry that you as a sculptor have to bring back to the work.


On the left the original two foot maquette and on the right the full scale seven foot figure. The feathers were made directly into wax and will be cast directly into bronze.

[Phil Minchinton]

Hi Toby, I like the dignity of the subject in your original, that comes through strongly and is also reflected after the enlargement process. Thanks for sharing the stages in detail again, it's really interesting and useful to see what can be achieved using modern techniques and technology. A question I'd like to ask if I may, is that when enlarging a smaller original, have you ever had an occasion when you have significantly re-worked the carved foam before applying clay due to the change of viewpoint and scale?

Best regards

Phil

[Toby Mendez]

This is my third project that was done by scanning and milling. The first project had four figures, the second was the previous posting of the three person figural group and then this. In all of the projects the maquettes were really precise. In the first project I had to shave back the clay closer to the foam on one of the figures nose, I also had to rework the smile in that figure (what worked in the maquette didn't work in the large scale). On the Don Shula project, I realized that Shula's waist or pelvic area was not wide enough and required about two inches more of clay and the same thing for one of the football players I had to widen the hips. On this project I ended up widening the shoulders, just a bit. These revisions were all accomplished fairly quickly in about 3 or 4 hours. I should also state something that is important. I have now done about 16 figures that are 7 feet or larger and about 20 life size figures in bronze for a total of 36 figures life-size or over. For all of these figures I worked with live models, taking photographs and over 100 measurements from the live model. I used the measurements to proportionally reduce the figures and for the enlargement. I created maquettes for the majority of these figures and for those over 7 feet I usually did a half scale as well. Of those figures 29 were enlarged in a traditional approach and sculpted in water clay by myself in my studio. After having that experience as a foundation, I have approached these figures trying to take everything into consideration. With the expectation that I may have to redo something. Knock on wood, so far so good.

[Phil Minchinton]

Many thanks for your candid reply Toby, it gives a good insight into the challenges you've overcome when going through this process, especially knowing you have used the traditional enlargement approach as well. I agree there's nothing like working from real models but it's also encouraging to hear of the adjustments you have made subsequent to careful measuring. On that note and from somewhere in the distant past, I believed that traditionally public statuary on a pedestal would be adjusted in proportions to account for foreshortening from the normal viewpoint e.g. from the ground looking upwards - could I ask if you've ever had to account for this or do you not find it a problem?

Best regards

Phil

PS - This is't 20 Questions - just interested to hear from someone who's been there!

[Toby Mendez]

Phil, I suppose the best example of cheating some proportions to account for perspective would be the Michelangelo David, with the head slightly larger to account for the foreshortening or the ground perspective. We live in an age of photography and our tendency is to work to make the sculpture look like the live model but also to be correct when we photograph the work from an angle that most people don't see the work and that is from a straight on view. It is a challenge or a hurdle that is tricky because the client has an expectation that we meet the photograph standard rather than real visual perception. When I work on my maquettes I tend to elevate the work so that my view is from below. I think that I have always naturally done this. My small work when photographed often looks larger than what it actually is and I think it is because I see and view my work as if you looked up at it. Sometimes you have to make a leg larger so that it visually looks like it can carry the load and I have had to do this on past works. This is why I tended to make a half scale on past projects, so that I would have the opportunity to make adjustments as I go up. Every project is a learning process and I am pretty careful or have been careful to make sure I am not missing something. So as I am creating the maquettes for this process, I am spending much more time on the maquette to make sure it holds up. I mentioned to my assistant last week that I was glad that I had to do all of the other work in the traditional process before being able to use the digital enlargement. It made me a better sculptor. It also gave me the ground work to be more critical of what I am doing now.

[Phil Minchinton]

Toby - thank you.

A lot to think about but it's also great to be able to have these glimpses into your journey and approach. I look forward to seeing more of this project and your continuing success.

Best regards

Phil

[Lori]

Fascinating - I really enjoyed seeing the progression.
_________________
Cheers!

Lori Kiplinger Pandy
www.kiplingerpandy.com
www.silverliningsculpture.com
http://lorikiplingerpandy.blogspot.com/

[Jeanette Lewis]

Hi Toby,
he has wonderful presence, I like it a lot!
In awe of your being able to scale up your work as you do - (Before the miling machine becomes part of the process.) evidence of much skill and dedication I think.
Jeanette

[Toby Mendez]

Jeanette, thank you, I think that this figure is one of my better efforts. I'm really happy with the balance that he has. I'm having another figure milled and it should be ready by the end of the month. I will post that work as well.
Toby

[Vivien Tarkirk-Smith]

First - congratulations on a fabulous work. MayI ask: you say "scanned by laser and milled into foam" I have no idea what this means. Could you elaborate?[/img]

[Thaine Sprenger]

enjoyed the photo's and conversation... thanks

[Toby Mendez]

Regarding scanned with a laser and milled in foam. Take a look at my posting of digital scan of multiple figures. When they scan a model with a laser, what is done is either a hand held laser (similar to the barcode scanners used at a grocery store check out, these are lasers that they are using) or an automated scanner, sends a pulse of light out that measures a depth or protrusion of the model. A measurement is taken at different increments that is set by the person who is scanning the model. A typical scan of a model may take a measurement every 4 tenths of a millimeter, sometimes taking 40,000 measurements for a model. The scan is a topographical map of the sculpture model. This reading then is interpreted by a program that drives a milling machine. The milling machine is a drill that is driven by the computer and cuts the topography of your model into a high density carving foam. The drill traces back and forth rendering an exact copy of your model into this foam at what ever scale you wish your final sculpture to be. The main thing to remember is that it is only copying the model that you created. If you created a bad sculpture in a small scale, it will copy this flawed model to whatever scale you desire. Garbage in garbage out. It doesn't improve your work, it only makes it easier to enlarge or reduce your design. If that doesn't confuse you, then I have not properly done my job.

[Stuart]

Toby and I have discussed this technique and he knows where I stand on it, and so there will be no fencing around the subject.
I would like to add a couple of words to his re: "The main thing to remember is that it is only copying the model"
Toby is a very experienced sculptor and he is able to make his small model or maquette, consider the differing scales, and work accordingly and very successfully.
I've been presented with a milled head on a couple of occassions in the past and asked to develop it to a lively lifelike finish. It is exactly the opposite of how I normally work and fiddling away at the surface to create plausible depth and form was one of the worst and most frustrating experiences of my sculptural life.
For very large statues, one and a half life-size and so on, this technology can be very useful to build a quick very loose general shape in hard foam , on top of which to work. However, usually this means working with oil based clays and this is much slower in my experience. I would like to know if it really saves time? I'll bet I could get there quicker with someone to help me build an armature and a couple of tons of water based clay. Please don't take that as a challenge Toby!
The worst element of the new technology, in my experience, is that it encourages commitees more and more to demand ever more detailed maquettes. often the members of these groups have little knowledge of art and instead of looking at an artist's portfolio and saying , he or she is the person for us, they prefer to wait for a little model of what they think they are seeking.
Toby understands all of this and makes it work very well for him and this is no criticism of his very fine work. This is just my personal take on the subject, and as I don't feel like adapting to the machine, I guess this old ludite is about ready for the scrap heap!
Stuart

[Toby Mendez]

Stuart has made excellent points. There is no argument. I go through great pains when I make a maquette, I have always done so. I mathematically reduce the measurements from a life model using a method that goes back to the beginning of geometry. So I start out with proportions that are very specific. I also use different cannons of measurement and use the foundation of study that I have been taught by other sculptors and through study in art school. If you look at my portfolio on line and look at the Oyster Tonger, the Thurgood Marshall plus the dozens of other life-size to heroic scaled works. Up until a year ago, all of them were done with water based clay. There is no question that water clay is faster and I can make an eight foot figure within a months time. I am not saying that this new method of enlarging is better and I take no offense from Stuart. It is just another way of doing things. Within this last calendar year I have produced nine seven foot figures, using the new method. It has allowed me the opportunity to create more work in less time, without the physical stress. The project for the Miami Dolphins (three figures over life size) all went through my studio in two months and were completed in a total of 4 months. That project using my old methods would have taken me a year to do. One final note and I think this will better support Stuart's comments. My assistant, a sculptor of great means but who is younger than I, was asked about the process of scanning and enlarging and would he use it? His comment was that he didn't feel that he had enough hands on experience to be able to predict how a figure sculpted at 2 feet would work at 7 or 8 feet and that he needed to create more life-size figures to get real world experience. He also mentioned I came to use the process at a time in my career, where I have done more than two dozen figures life-size or over and that I was better prepared to do so. I will eventually post an enlargement that I did using water clay, done about 16 years ago.