The newsboy will ship in the morning!

Today was the day that we put color on the life-size newsboy sculpture that is headed to Kennewick ,Washington. As I mentioned craters and freighters, the shipping company is picking it up in the morning.

The color on a bronze is referred to as the Patina. This sculpture has a traditional patina.





The client asked to see all of the papers that we created representing the Tri City Herald. There are some under the newsboys arm, one in his right hand and a stack at his feet. All have the headline and masthead of the client's newspaper.

Upon arriving the sculpture has been sand blasted. It looks less shiny than it did when we were here just last week. The sculpture, once sand blasted is ready to receive the patina.





















To create the patina the foundry man first heats up the sculpture and then sprays and brushed on different chemicals. He will rub back areas that are supposed to be lighter. I like to alternate color, shoes dark, socks light, pants dark, shirt light etc. Though once placed outdoors the traditional patina will continue to darken. The foundry puts a protective coat of lacquer on the sculpture one the entire patina is complete.





I'm including some close ups of the detail in the shoe. Yes, it is a sculpted shoe. And my signature and copyright on the piece is in the inside of the newspaper that the young man is holding under his arm. Of course there are other things in the newspapers that carry a story, but that is for another post.

Tomorrow the sculpture is crated and shipped. I can't wait to see the newsboy placed.

What is a metal check?

In the very last stage of the foundry process the foundry will call me in for a metal check. I go over the sculpture looking for any imperfections in the metal and marking them with a marker. Of course the Fine Arts Foundry of Texas does a wonderful job. Miguel is a great worker and I trust him with my work implicitly. But I still give a once over. The next step is to patina or color the metal. That is scheduled for Tuesday and then the sculpture is off to Kennewick Washington through my shipping company Craters and Freighters. In 6-8 working days it will be there. Here are some photographs from today's visit. One of the best workers in the foundry industry Miguel and his boss and owner of Fine Arts Foundry of Texas, Scott Yoast.

Newsboy commemorates journalism...again!

Another life-size newsboy bronze has been sold! You may remember it started with "Dusty" in Austin, Texas, and Then "Billy" in Tabor City, North Carolina.Now another young boy will be hawking papers in the North West. The third in the edition of 10 has been sold to the historical town of Kennewick, Washington Delivery of this third newsboy is expected in August. We have been working on him diligently and thought I would show the progress.









The Foundry is working diligently to get this young man together for shipping to Washington. Legs have been chased and put together, as well as upper torso. A few more pieces to weld together then it is off to Patina. Looks like we are inline with our delivery date. So exciting. I can't wait to see him installed.

mud.. what????

What is mudbox? It is a digital sculpting tool. Just in case you have not deducted that from my previous posts. Yes it is like sculpting in real physical form, but... it is in my computer.

here is a photograph of what the program looks like. You can see the sculpting tools on the bottom and you can work in layers as well. There are also textures that can be used. I wish I could write more, but for now I hope this suffices. I'm on a deadline for writing this Mudbox book and need to get back to my chapters.

Check out the gallery on the Mudbox forum to see some spectacular work created in Mudbox.

A few questions answered

Someone who was reading my posts and may be interested in Mudbox had a few questions. I thought I should probably answer them publicly. If he had a question than others may as well. The questions are as follows.

"You mentioned having problems with Mudbox and your Mac. You added RAM, changed the graphic board, and then said something about the problem was the OS version 10.5.7. Were all these necessary to have the program run correctly or was it just the OS? If so, were you able to go back to 10.5.6?"

I suppose I should mention some of the history of Mudbox. We should go back to late 2007 when Autodesk, one of the leaders in 2D and 3D design and engineering software purchased Mudbox from the New Zealand company Skymatter.

The biggest competition for Mudbox is Pixologic's Zbrush.Z brush Demo came out in December 2002. It is a good program but in my opinion, not as intuitive or easy to learn as Mudbox. Even so, once I have tackled this book project I do intend to devour Z Brush as well.

Autodesk is a big company and having Autodesk behind a program is a huge thing. Both my co-author and myself feel that Mudbox is something to watch. I'm thrilled to be in on the ground floor with our book. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques For Artists Publisher Focal Press.

I have to give Mudbox commendations for quickly making a Mac version. It took Z brush a long time to come out with a Mac version. It was released in June of this year. Mudbox mac verions came out in May.

Needless to say there will probably be some bugs in a new version, but really there has been very little. My biggest difficulty was a graphics card. There seemed to be little suggestions offered on the Mudbox site concerning a desktop computer running mudbox. But finally, I changed my card and feel confident.

Unfortantely the biggest problem with my card seemed to have nothing to do with Mudbox. But may instead be something with the operating system, as another person reported that the same thing happens with him using different software. The problem when using another program, say photoshop or and clicking on that with my mouse, and then going back to Mudbox and turning my model which is a option>left mouse key, the model would flip upside down and my other program would hide. It was infuriating at first and when I got my new graphics card and it sill happened I was so mad. But the work around is simple. I just need to remember to tap on the Cintq tablet anywhere before pressing down the option key and turning my image. Once I do that, No problem!

Much has transpired in the last few months concerning this project and working in Mudbox. We have a deadline with the publisher and no software. That was frustrating. How do you write a book without software for the Mac? For a while I was able to run Mudbox on the PC side of a Mac using bootcamp, but it was a little frustrating for me. Different keys etc. So, yes Mudbox is running fine on my Mac with 10.5.7

When mudbox for the Mac began to ship in May, I was elated. I'm not sure how many Mac users there are but there are definitely some at Autodesk as I have been speaking to them.

RAM
I didn't really need the extra ram that I bought to use Mudbox. The specs say that Mudbox can run on 1 gig but 2 is recommended. It is very important for both my co author and I to be able to write a book with instructions on a program that any one can use. Sure everyone would like to ramp up their computers and push the program to the limits. But we are keeping the average user in mind. Not the studio designer.
My basic reason for getting more ram is that I am also doing audio and video, and really wanted to begin to do video tutorials using such programs as Mudbox or zbrush. with that... well I needed a little more.

Graphics card
Here is a stickler and there does seem to be more cards for PC's than Mac's. But this new card was not terribly expensive, and I am glad I got it.

I do hope that has answered some of the questions. Be watching for what happens with Mudbox. Thanks for the questions, and keep them coming.

For those interested my present configurations are.

Mac Pro Mac OS X 10.5.7
2 x3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
12 GB 667 MH DDR2 FB-DIMM
Was using ATI Radeon X1900 XT- it was buggy
NOW WITH NEW CARD ATI radeon 4870

Dual displays
20 " display
20" Cintiq tablet

A sneak peak to what is in our new book!

Most of you know that I am writing a book with Miguel de la Flor called Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques For Artists.

We hope to make it a bit different than most digital sculpting books. I am so tired of seeing monsters and aliens in all of theses books and as one person recently wrote to me and said, "I am very excited to hear about your book and I definitely fills a gap. Most of the digital books I have found are for gamers creating characters." That is so great to hear. I am thrilled about bridging this gap between digital and traditional and the new technology that is coming out is incredible.

So I thought I would share with you a little sneak peek of what is in the book. This is Amy. In the book I will be sculpting her both traditionally and digitally and giving the instructions on how to do this. Though she is not quite complete here she is.

Oh yes, and with this process you will be able to take any loved one and do the same thing. this is after all- portrait sculpting digitally!

Watch out digital gamers- the traditional sculptors have arrived!

It is my personal quest to bridge the gap between digital and traditional sculpting. Technology is changing and new tools are available! Remember how photography used to be done? OK it is still done with film, but we all see the advantages to going digital. So it is with sculpting. That is why I am so excited about the book that we are writing. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques For Artists. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques For Artists. We hope it is not just another digital book showing a software, but that it is an art book as well. That people will buy it not just because of Mudbox, but because they want to have the resources that are in the book to learn from and refer back to no matter what program they are working in.

It is grueling work, and the publisher is breathing down our necks to get more in quicker, but there have been so many setbacks, as you may know by my previous posts. For example Mudbox was not available for the Mac until just a few months ago, and for me that was a huge setback. Then my graphics card did not work with Mudbox once I got it.

I can't wait until it is complete but for now— back to writing.