A Completion Of A Bronze
After about three metal checks the sculpture finally meets my approval for patination. It is once again sand blasted and the patination is applied. To get the color or patina the foundry man heats up the bronze with a torch and applies different chemicals. Often at this point I cannot tell what the sculpture will look like complete with the wax covering. So the foundry man wets the sculpture down with a hose. This gives the same appearance of the waxing process. The final process is a coat of hot wax.
chemicals are applied to
produce the appropriate
color of a traditional patina
Now on to figuring out installation. According to the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center they are having an event called the maccabie conference. It begins august 5th and goes to the 10th. I’m not sure why we can’t install it now, as the sculpture will be there for the up and coming conferences, but they have asked us to wait. So, I expect installation at the end of August. More on the installation and unveiling of Evelyn.
You can follow along with this entire process of creating a life size bronze for the ERJCC on the Evelyn Rubenstein project blog located at http://erjcc.blogspot.com/
Only The Artist Gets To Draw On A Bronze!
I was thrilled to be called into the foundry today to see the progress of Evelyn. She is well on her way to being complete for the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center. Unfortunately they are having a major event at the ERJCC so we will not be able to install her until the middle/end of August.
These are the things I look for when I go to the foundry for a metal check
- Does each piece look the way I sculpted it?
- Are there any metal burrs that need to be removed?
- Does the texture match my texture where it has been welded?
- Do her hands look natural in their placement on her body.
- How do all appendages look?
- Are there any holes or things that need to be fixed?
I walk around the sculpture and mark it with a marker. The foundry man will come back in and fix the things I request. She is so close. Next post will be about the patination or the final color of Evelyn.
An Art Show Featuring 3D And Technology
I received this press release from the media at 3DCAMP Houston 2012. As vice chair, I’m pretty absorbed in the planning of 3DCAMP and am excited to have the opportunity to see some really incredible work. I’m posting this here so that I can encourage others to show what great things they are doing. Please feel free to pass on this post and press release. This art exhibit is open to anyone and is a national call. It is not just what one would refer to as 3D art, but 3D printed art as well, and I hope some people send things like 3D art that has to do with our theme of STEAM—Science, Technology Engineering, Art and Math. How about some 3D printed buildings? Can’t wait to see what others do. Hey, if you own a rapid prototyping company please pass this on to those who are using your equipment, they should be sure to mention your equipment in the definition of the art. Remember this is not just 3Dprinted work,it is anything 3D – well you know 3D technology stuff- we traditional artists have been calling work 3D long before technology called it 3D. More information can be found on the 3DCAMP 2012 website. Oh and it is not limited to physical objects, there is an area for film and can’t wait to see what images some people are creating with 3D software.
If you live near Texas and want to attend 3DCAMP Houston registration will be opening up soon.The date of the art show is 28th of September. It will be open to the public and then open for 3DCamp Houston symposium the following day Saturday September 29th, 2012. It is hosted by the University of Houston Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in conjunction with the Department of Arts. We also have room for more sponsors if you know of anyone who is interested.
3DCAMP and Houston Art and Culture announce a national call to artists
“The Third Dimension” is in conjunction with 3DCAMP Houston’s symposium, an all-day conference featuring presentations and live demos from expert speakers. The symposium is scheduled for the following day, Saturday, September 29. The exhibition will remain open to the public during the symposium.
3DCMAP Houston is a participant-driven gathering of 3D professionals and students from a wide range of disciplines including fine art, education, science, engineering, medical, computing and many more. 3DCAMP’s commitment to educate the public about the latest 3D technologies will include presentations showcasing technology that can aid artists in the creative process to achieve new and exciting results in their work.
Houston Art and Culture, a nonprofit organization with the mission to enrich the local art community through mentoring and scholarships, recently partnered with 3DCAMP Houston in order to expand both organizations’ initiative for educational outreach. President and founder of Houston Art and Culture and 3DCMAP co-chair Lori Betz will be a juror.
“This exhibit will feature artwork that uses some of the techniques and technologies that the speakers will be talking about, and the art work is amazing. It’s like nothing you have ever seen before,” Betz said.
Deadline for submission is scheduled for September 3.
For full details on the exhibit and the prospectus for submissions, visit the 3DCAMP 2012 website.
If you need more infomration about this press release or the art show feel free to contact Houston Arts and Culture.
Media Contact:
_______________________________________________
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer, illustrator and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is the vice chair of the planning committee for 3DCAMP Houston 2012 http://www.3dcamphouston.com
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series http://www.godsword.net
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter and twitter.com/creategodsword
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast
Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
A New Resource For 3D Models And Tutorials!
My frequent readers of my website/blog know that I am both a traditional and a digital artist. I use digital process as part of my traditional sculpture and in presentations such as the tiger, or my pitch for a new park piece titled “Move one place on.” I work in Mudbox and as my previous post states, have written a book about Mudbox. I also work in ZBrush well. I’m a proponent for 3D and using it as a tool and am the vice chair at 3DCAMP HOUSTON 2012. I’m also working on another book about artists who are using 3D—their resources, process and products that are created in physical form.
When working on my projects I’m always searching for 3d models. You see how much I talk about Daz3d on this blog as well as Poser. Here, once again is the video I created stating some of my process. Anyway, I wanted to share with my readers a new resource 3DExport apparently has both models, but more exciting for me, is their tutorials. I LOVE TUTORIALS! If I could do nothing but create tutorials I would be a happy camper. I’m kind of obsessed with passing on information. So, be sure to check out 3DExport
Bridgette Mongeon
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer, illustrator and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is the vice Chair of the planning committee for 3DCAMP Houston 2012 http://www.3dcamphouston.com
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast
Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
More Photographs Of Interaction With Richard Hathaway
BEWARE-Our Book Was Stolen By This Website
Last week I was collecting information for an up and coming lecture that I am going to do at 3DCAMP Houston 2012. While searching for one of the artists that I used in the book I decided to Google his name to see if any more images have come up. My thought, I would contact him to see if he is doing anything new that I might be able to add to my lecture on fine artists who are using 3D. How surprised I was to see the images that my coauthor Mike de la Flor and I used in the book Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques for Artists were being displayed on another site. I was even more surprised to see that our entire book had been copied-word for word on this site.
I immediately reported it to our publisher Focal Press. My coauthor was also livid. Each of the chapters were displayed as individual tutorial on this website. They had no reference to the book or where they got it. There was no credit to the authors, and no links—nothing. Well, of course it would not have any of this- they stole it.
If anyone was going to “give” this stuff away we would. According to our contract, instead of supplying the CD with the book we had to create a way for the files to be downloaded. So, Mike and I created http://www.digitalsculpting.net If anyone was going to give something away we would and we would have done it there.
I hesitate in putting the name of the website because individuals may be tempted to go to their site and drive traffic to them. But I must put the information here so that other will beware. The name of site is what-when-how.com There is actually copyright information on the bottom of their page.
Copyright Information
The-Crankshaft Publishing’s what-when-how.com claims copyrights to documents only created by The-Crankshaft Publishing and it’s staff. Any information used from The-Crankshaft Publishing’s web site must have a link to the URL from which it came from.
Excuse me… you did not create this. And if others use what you stole from me they have to link back to you? Also it is not it’s it is its.
The-Crankshaft Publishing is not responsible for the content of someone else’s work or the source of the information. We claim no rights to documents created by any other organization or individual.
Content on our website falls in two categories::
1. Articles which are written by technical writers ,part of crankshaft’s staff.
2. Articles which are in contract with several publishing houses,on revenue share basis.
Our entire book, which took months of our lives to create was not permitted to be used on this site. There was a great deal of advertisement on this site. I have no idea how long the book was there or how much money this website has made by using our book on their site. My coauthor sent an e mail to them right away and said they must take it down. They sent us a form to fill out? What the heck.
I wish the lawyers at Focal Press would have done it. I think we are entitled to something. It has been taken down, but I think people need to be made aware of the underhanded practices of such a site. You can tell it was there, all you have to do is search Mudbox under their search engine and every one of our chapters comes up. I don’t really want you to do that, so I’m posting a screen shot on this blog taken at 1:00 on Thursday July 5, 2012. The links are broken, but it comes up. To see our chapters on their website, click on the photograph.
So, I’m writing and wondering if anyone else has had trouble with Crankshaft Publishing or what-when-how.com. What was your experience? I’m also wondering who else we can report them to.
Oh yes, and it pays to google your content.
Please feel free to pass this information on.
_______________________________________________
Bridgette Mongeon
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer, illustrator and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is the vice Chair of the planning committee for 3DCAMP Houston 2012 http://www.3dcamphouston.com
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast
Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.
Poor Evelyn
I sure hate to see Evelyn this way. Not only is she in pieces, but she has welds all over her. I trust in Miguel at Betz Art Foundry. His work is impeccable. She will soon see Evelyn back together. I hate posting the picture with her with the strap around her neck, but we don’t want her to fall over and she is not welded to her base yet. I want to be sure she is going to stand properly so we tack on the arms and check her attitude! She does stand with an attitude and I want to be sure it is there.
You can follow along with this entire process of creating a life size bronze for the ERJCC on the Evelyn Rubenstein project blog located at http://erjcc.blogspot.com/
her base.
The Pouring Of Bronze For The Evelyn Sculpture
This entire process is pretty cool, but watching bronze being poured into the shells, well that is something. Photographs don’t really do this part justice, so I have uploaded a video of that part of the process.
You can follow along with this entire process of creating a life size bronze for the ERJCC on the Evelyn Rubenstein project blog located at http://erjcc.blogspot.com/
Working On A Final Presentation For Grambling
Some thoughts from the sculptor Bridgette Mongeon –
I have been working for two weeks on a final presentation for Grambling State University of the larger than life size tiger bronze sculpture. This is just a digital presentation and modifications of the design will be made as I proceed to creating it in bronze.
Making this presentation has been very interesting, and as often is the case, I am still learning. I’ll add some links at the bottom of the post concerning the learning process. In the meantime, here are some final views of the presentation. There will be sculpted ledges on the rock formation so that people can sit.
ART STUDENTS
You will see by the following posts that often I have to take learning into my own hands. I recently sat in on online webinar titled Advanced Creature Anatomy with Paleontologist and visual Affects VFX consultant Scott Harman. During his presentation he said,
“It is also important to struggle against the medium.”
“…this includes being constrained by what you already know.” Scott Harman
I really like the thought, because that is what an artist does all of the time. In the case of the presentation for Grambling I was pushing past what most would normally use the 3DSoftware for. I was trying to incorporate it into my own workflow. When I do this I often will post everywhere trying to find the answers. I was so thrilled when a fellow artist in Canada created a video showing the process of doing exactly what I wanted to do. I was pushing past my limits and the limits of the material. This section may not make any sense to the average person who is reading this blog, but it may to artists who come to visit, so I will give you the links.
You see, even though I had the video that someone provided for me and is shown in the below posts, I had to walk through the learning process. I took the video from Kevin Salki and then documented on my personal blog my process of working through his instructions.
I hope it means something to someone out there.
Teaching myself and learning from others Part 1
Teaching myself and learning from others Part 2
Teaching myself and learning from others Part 3
Teaching myself and learning from others Part 4
Teaching Myself And Learning From Others Part 4 of 4
This will be a monumental sculpture.
Onward- Not long ago, Kevin Salki performed a great act of chivalry by coming to my aid and helping me with a work flow that I had to figure out.
To recap, I’m a traditional sculptor who uses digital technology to create presentations. The technology assists me in my traditional work, as I use it to have my monumental designs milled out. If you are interested to read more about that it is talked about in these two project blogs- Evelyn Rubenstein, and Prairie View Panther blog . I have been a traditional sculptor for 30 years.
My difficulty that I posed on a facebook forum was, how do I create a bronze material in ZBrush that I can light, and how would I create tiger stripes in a presentation?
This is part 4 of this documentation
Part 1 talks about how I needed a new bronze material instead of a metcap- we are working in ZBrush
Part 2 talks about how I got that material using Kevin’s video ( at the bottom of this post)
Part 3 talks about painting strips on my tiger using a darker version of that material – This is for a presentation for a client
Part 4, this page talks about putting it into my presentation.
Kevin walks me through the entire process above, and then goes a step further into making the sculpture into a presentation.
Kevin states, “this is going to be basic.” Good, I need basic.
He says he loads in a few HDR maps. (What are these?) According to Wiki
High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or HDR) is a set of methods used in imaging and photography, to allow a greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging methods or photographic methods. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to represent more accurately the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight, and is often captured by way of a plurality of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter
Kevin states that Sibl has some pretty good HDR maps. Well, I had to see for myself, this is all about education. The website is intriguing and I could easily float off onto another track, but I’m on a deadline and doing these blog posts is distraction enough FOCUS! Kevin also mentioned a plug in at Sibl but. I’ll have to ask him about what he meant.
In my project I won’t use an HDR, but I do want to see how it works so I uploaded Topanga_Forest_B. I suppose my question is this- Kevin states that the HDR that he is loading will give him a background and source for lighting information for his scene? Hmmm, does that mean that ZBrush takes information from the photograph? Lets check this out. I download topanga forest and have a bunch of things in the file. Kevin clicks around on a few files in the video and I can’t really see, so I’m guessing. I pick forest 3 pk hdr. Nothing happens even after adjusting the gamma, as he states. Still nothing. I change what file I choose, and try again-still nothing. I’ll check with Kevin and clarify this direction.
(I don’t necessarily need to do my background this way, but I’m dedicated to getting through his video and understanding the process, and finding the best way to work this, but because my deadline is pressing down on me, I’ll have to experiment later. )
FYI I Looked around for other free hdr maps her is what I found.
http://freepanorama.blogspot.com/
http://www.unparent.com/photos_probes.html
PROBLEM
Next day after rendering I don’t like how the stripes look. I tried a variety of ways to create them. In the traditional sculpture, I do believe I will put texture over the entire sculpture or perhaps sculpt deeper fur texture where the stripes are. That way the traditional patination can settle into the crevises. (See the previous post for more information on this.)
In the end, I ended up adjusting the color and the Materials Blend Radius in the Render pallet, until I get the look that I need.
PRESENTATION
I would have loved to put my sculpted tiger into the scene of the school, however, I did not have a high resolution image of the school.
This tiger is massive and therefore, I did feel it was necessary to show a relationship to a real person. I move to Poser grabbing a Daz Michael and a Daz Vickie model. Clothing is essential, and I have often said that this part reminds me strangely of playing paper dolls when I was a little girl. I loved paper dolls. Unfortunately, those making daz models and their clothes are often men. This simply means that these men see no need to have real casual clothes for the poor Daz Vickie model. Poor Vickie, she must walk around all confined and pushed up. I’m sure she is sitting in the computer saying, “Hey guys, get real, how about a comfortable sun dress?” So I purchased the most casual clothes
I could find from Daz, and gave Daz Vickie a makeover. After clothing Michael and Vickie, I export them as obj’s and then add them to the scene. I do wish that that this process was easier. As an obj Vicki and Michael are just the color of the material and not life-like. I wish I could import them into my scene totally clothes and with facial texture, hair etc. This would save me a ton of time. I feel I probably will have to learn another 3D program that will allow me to import Vickie and Michael, completely clothed and textured, as well as the complete rendered ZBrush tiger. I’m open for suggestions to additional software to add to my repertoire, though I’m not terribly excited about having to learn a new software. My husband has been telling me the same thing.
Meanwhile, I take the Daz Michael and Daz Vickie from Poser and use lightbox textures, polypaint and Spotlight to help me show some type of reality or at least so that it does not look like the bronze.
I have not used Fibermesh much in zbrush, but I do like it and am thankful for the grass in this scene.
I am sorely lacking in skills on both lighting and rendering and wish I could hire someone to really walk my little brain through this process. Any takers? we can do joint tutorials on my process.
Photoshop is my final stop for this presentation. I like that I can manipulate the color balance as well as the brightness.
So hear are the final versions of the Tiger. A very long but fulfilling learning process. Now, let me get my hands in the traditional clay.
I will be documenting this entire project on a blog, but can’t put it up quite yet. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when that goes up.
Bridgette Mongeon-Sculptor, Writer and Speaker
Bridgette Mongeon is a sculptor, writer, illustrator and educator as well as a public speaker.
Her blog can be found at https://creativesculpture.com.
She is deeply engrossed in the planning committee for 3DCAMP Houston 2012 http://www.3dcamphouston.com
She is also the owner and creator of the God’s Word Collectible Sculpture series
Follow the artists on twitter twitter.com/Sculptorwriter twitter.com/creategodsword
Listen to The Creative Christian Podcast or the Inspiration/Generation Podcast
Click on Podcast Host Bios for a list of all podcasts.