Starchild Skull

- Starchild Skull -

I've just wrapped up the silicone cast for the Betty bust sculpt, and already it's time to put the Monster Clay back to work. The next job is an order from a couple who want a truly unique Christmas gift for their brother/brother-in-law. The brother is into mysterious artifacts, cryptozoological creatures, collectible figures and all that. So we started discussing options.

Maybe a skull, we decided. Something some demonic sort of figure could have left behind. I did some quick sketches with Sculptris...

But none of them looked like something to get truly excited about. There are a million demon skulls floating around the internet.


What about some kind of REAL mystery to draw from?

I did bunches of research on legendary creatures and unidentified remains from around the world, that have been attributed to everything
from Nessie to the Montauk Monster. But in the end, the obvious choice was my dear friend, the Starchild skull.

This fellow is around 900 years old, was found in the 1930s, and currently has a whole slew of professional researchers looking into his identity over at the Starchild project.

Besides the obvious strange shape of the skull. Starchild is reported to have a brain cavity 30% bigger than the average adult, bone that is stronger than a human's (while being only 1/3 as thick),  and extra large inner-ear cavities that may have enabled him to hear ultra high sounds.

Others have attempted to recreate the full skull, of course, but I'm trying to come at it a different way - creating a back story that will inform the way I approach the sculpt.Imagine that the Starchild was not human at all (as some suggest), but rather one of two expelled individuals from an undiscovered race. A roving tribe of humans came across the strange creatures, and revered them as a messengers from the gods. After the creatures' death, their bones were turned into ritualistic items, believed to have magical properties. But when a new leader rose in the tribe, he had all major identifying features smashed from the bones, so that others would never know of the "small people" who possessed more power than he. The lost pieces of one skull were saved, however, and have now come to light, to reveal the full story of the Starchildren's identity.

Something like this...

This is going to be fun.

Betty Bust

- Bust for Pre-Med Institute - 

My project for the last few days has been a small bust of Betty McDonald, namesake of the Betty McDonald Pre-Med Institute at Southern Utah University. The Institute needed to add a bit of flair to the decor of their front room, and also plans on presenting copies of the bust as congratulation gifts to students graduating the program. A nice gesture, I think.

I've got some refining to do still, but I think it's coming along nicely. I've stayed in close contact with the Institute director, to make sure the bust is shaping up the way they pictured it.

Since the institute will need many copies of the bust, and doesn't want to break the bank, we're going to go with cold cast bronze (a resin-based casting) on this one. That way, the finished product will look like real bronze statues - because they'll have real bronze in them - without ever having to send them off to a foundry.