When I have a terrible need of--shall I say the word--religion, then I go out and paint the stars.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

The changes may not be all that apparent in this photo, but this is 6 more hours of work from yesterday's photo. I spent most of the day on the jaw, around the nose and at the zygomatic arch. The instructional DVD (which I've completely abandoned now) had the viewer take measurements of their own skull at different key points. I had wondered how accurate those would be given the thickness of skin and muscle, but trusted the guy on the video. But today as I worked from the models it became apparent that my sculpture was larger than life-size. Not by much (maybe 1/2", give or take), but enough to cause some difficulty when working from the life-sized models. So I did a lot of scraping down to get it a little more in sync. It's still larger than the models, but not by much. I also raised the ear hole about half an inch and took off about an inch from below the occipital bone, behind the mastoid process (which you can't see in this photo), which may mean I have to rework the cervical vertebrae. We'll see.

Today I chucked the instructional DVD I've been working with and instead just referred to the skull models I have. The DVD has it's merits (led by a guy who does a lot of CGI) in that it was good for the first part of the sculpt, figuring out the general planes and proportions. But now that I'm getting down to the nitty gritty it's much better to be working with an actual model. I mostly reworked and refined the cranium today refining the generalized CGI-like planes for a more precise realism. I also retooled all of the facial features. It's a bit of a challenge as I have two skull models that are quite different (one male, one female, and I think some ethnic differences as well), plus I'm working off of my own skull's dimensions. So this is more "best guess" than an exact replica of either of the models I have.

A side view -- wish I'd taken some profile pics with the previous incarnations. Haven't touched the cervical vertebrae in a few days, so it's still in "blocked in" phase here:

‎"Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain."

-Carl Jung

Getting into the smaller details now. Spent most of the day refining planes, both large and small. Some adjusting of the eye and nose holes. Lots of work around the mouth and jaw, and also starting to delineate the cervical vertebrae. Next session I'll focus on the teeth, which I anticipate will be highly tedious. But it must be done, and I want to do it. It's just going to involve lots of tiny work, with my tiniest tools. And I think I'm still off with much of the jaw and teeth-planes, so I'm sure there will be more adjusting of the form.

Lovely Seattle morning (if, like me, you love this kind of weather). Gray and a bit blustery. All day I could hear the clanging of cables against the sailboat masts as the wind had it's way with them. The afternoon cleared to some sun and a beautiful fall day.

The subtler tweaking phase begins as I start to delineate the smaller planes and features. But I'm really enjoying this whole project. A lot.

Further along although still dealing with primitive planes of the head. I think the ghost of my half-size skeleton is haunting me on this one (hint: I've named him Massive Jaw Jim). That big jaw will be much-reduced in the coming week. I'm also struggling mightily with the eye sockets, but this is good for me. It's exactly what I need to be learning -- the underlying structure of the eyes. A lot of tweaking and reworking in the immediate future on this one --