Calvin & hobbes figurines in progress

[swords]

I love Calvin and Hobbes and it's time I have some figures of them! I started with roughing Calvin's head tonight in pigmented clay (I'll do Hobbes' head and maybe start the bodies Tuesday):

I also am a big fan of Roy Kopp. The animator who made Eek! the Cat and the Terrible Thunder Lizards but his funniest work was Mad Jack the Pirate. I couldn't stand it any longer and so I've started on Mad Jack with his sneer and his doe eyed giant rat pal and first mate Snuk.

And here's a photo to show the scale:

I hope you like them so far!

 

[lavenderdawn]

That is just awesome work! Isn't it more difficult to make them so small?

 

[jhaluska]

Its a nice start, but calvin looks more like jay leno. Fix the chin! The eyes need to be a little thinner.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can accurately show Calvin in 3d space.

 

[swords]

Thanks! Ha ha! Yup when I went back to look at the post this morning (after the eyes were rested) I saw the chin and eyes myself- oops! Ah well, polymer prototyping clay is eternally fixable til you bake it so I'll do so. And yes, the size is difficult to work in! The big Ork head I was doing was lifesize and the Nepenthes inermis model kit was life size and didn't hut the eyes at all to do but generally Toys are sculpted in final size or sometimes double the final size depending upon where they have the toys produced so I need to get some practice in these smaller scales.

The only "unrealistic" or untransferable portion of Calvin in the comic is his hair. It's always a side view no matter where he's looking so that makes 3d a pain. The few fan art figures I've seen of him always have his hair spiked out like a punk rocker and that looks funny for all of them. Except for the Spaceman Spiff figures - which was drawn more edgy and dark. As a concession I sort of gave him the Jimmy Neutron hair but I tried to give it a messier look. Updates soon...

 

[Spectabilis73]

There a reason he has cuts on his forehead?

 

[swords]

Heh, Calvin attacked by Jack the ripper!

That's actually just an effect of using pigmented clay. I tried doing calvin's head in beige, yellow and black clay so some pigments I wasn't even using in this sculpt popped up from outta nowhere. You can see the original placement of the eyes, etc. I'm gonna go back to single color clay. I thought pigmented clays would be fun but it's turing out to be an irritant due to the continual blending and smuding and softening you need to do for cartoony style carachters. And Jack looks a bit edgy to me too now - too many details, he's not that shapely. Even toons are hard! And they look like they should be simple!