A Little bodywork

I thought I would take a closer look at the steps I follow to make a full body sculpt. After completing the armature, I condition a batch of clay and pack it onto the armature so it is over-sized. I have found that ProSculpt clay works best for me if I add too much clay at the start then cut away the excess.

 The back. You may want to run the clay onto the arms and legs so you can sculpt the torso without having to add or reduce clay to your finished work at the shoulder and hip joints.

 Side

 Use a tool to run a series of markers on the surfaces of the torso. This include the spine, hips, ribcage, and larger muscle masses.

 The same is done to the front.

 And the side.

 A sharp knife is used to cut the planes of the torso.

 The large planes are then knocked down a little at a time.

 A smaller flat edged tool is used to begin smoothing the shapes of the muscles.

 The finished rough-in is done and is ready for the final shape and smoothing.

 This piece will have more defined muscle so before the final smoothing I mark the muscle groups by adding slight depressions with a sculpting tool.

 The final smoothing is done on the right side of the figure. You can see the muscles showing slightly in the surface of the smoothed surface.

 The front is smoothed down.

 Back.

 Side.

 The arms and legs are sculpted in the same way. Final details are added including surface texture, creases, and skin tension.

 The two figures are almost ready. Now is the time to make final adjustments to the pose.

Thanks for taking a look.
Have a great day!
Mark