Large Scale Central

Hobo Joe

Modeling Figures
#1

I met this gentleman in Utah around 1973 when I was hitch hiking back from South Dakota. He called himself Hobo Joe, and claimed to be the last of the hard core rail ridders (or something to that effect). He was trying his hand at hitch hiking because (he said) the rails were “becoming unreliable”. We hitched rides together for 3 days and parted ways in Eurika. He said he had “business” up in Oregon. The first morning we met he offered me some doughnuts. After biting in to one of the cake doughnuts and discovering that it was staled I asked. “How long you had these doughnuts in your suitecase?” “Well, no, ya see, these donuts is fresh, I just got em out the dumpster this morning.” Not wishing to appear ungrateful or upity, I finished the doughnut, but declined another, as well as a sip from a bottle he pulled from his coat pocket and claimed with a wink; “My medicine”. The image above is the sculpty and resin prototype. It is preped and ready for throwing a mold. I thought since some people expressed a little curiousity about my figure making process I would use Joe as an example of not only how I get detail, but how I prep the figure for the mold. You will notice that in addition to the Sculpty theres a lot of paint on him. I noticed something about paint that is left standing around too long. Sediments start to form at the bottom of the jar, and this sediments are great for adding finer details.

Here you see the fin I add to the back of the figure to help with parting. This is to assure that the parting line will follow what appears to be a seam in the garment. You can also see the red clay I use at the bottom of the cardstock cylinder I make for the mold enclosure. It is fixed to some 1/8" styrene scrap.

#2

Richard you are truly an artist. Fantastic figure, thanks for sharing the “how it’s made” details.

One of the things I find so interesting about your figures is that every one is a sculpture of a real person, complete with a background story. A lot of figure makers have a short story for a character, but they are obviously fiction. Yours on the other hand are personal and credible as facts.

I like your cousin too.

I wish you continued success in the figure making business.

Jon

#3

Very nice. I really need to revisit my own work. Are the darker areas added on later? I think I need to bake my stuff more often.

#4

Bruce, Here is a color coded guide.

(http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/rkapuaala/Figures/colorcodedjoe.jpg)

The red areas are paint The blue areas are pre-casted resin The rest is sculpty except that piece on the toe which is an area I missed when I was color coding the image.

#5

Fantastic! He looks so real, and I too love the fact that they are based on real people with real stories.

Regarding the “pre-cast resin” areas… did you model and cast those pieces separately, and add them to the sculpture? Or are they parts borrowed from one of your earlier figures?

#6

Ray,
Yes, I sculpt the individual nude and without hair, then I make a mold and cast him. Then I take the castings and use sculpty and paint or what ever to add clothing, hair and other details. The bottle in his pocket is made of styrene.

#7

Query…to set the Sculpy do you bake it? How does the resin bits of figure hold up to that?

#8

Bart,
That is correct, I bake the sculpty onto the resin. The resin is rated at 275 F. I bake it outside in my shop so as not to breathe the fumes. I bake it many times, as I build up layers of detail. I make sure I am done baking before I do the fine stuff with paint.