Sculpting a Bust: Freh'd - The Happy Goblin

Sculpting Tutorial

Sculpting a Bust: Freh'd - The Happy Goblin

by Daniele "Found" Trovato

Hello sculptors!
This is Daniele and today I'll show my process to sculpt a little Goblin Bust.

Here you go:

Freh'd, the Happy Goblin.  

 First of all, I fixed a solid wire in a wooden base, and I placed another metal wire thinner than the first one, this to create a firm base on which I'll  put the clay.

Make sure that the first layer of clay adheres well to the armature
The best way to to this is putting tiny pieces one-by-one

To sculpt a head, whatever it is, you have to always starts from simple  sphere.
In this case I didn't have the need to make an "anatomically correct" face.

He is a Goblin, so remember three words:  exaggeration, improvisation, fantasy.
That's why I sculpt fantasy stuff: I like to use my own fantasy :-) "Normal face" are also good, but can be also booooring!!

 After created the first shape of the head i baked the clay. I did this because it is more easier to sculpt whan you have something "solid" under your hands. 

 After,  I baked it I finished the skull structure using some drills and my little Dremel.



 This base "hard" structure is fundamental.

Especially for this character, because the mouth is wide open, and its really difficult to sculpt inside it without have a solid base. This is why i baked it previously.

My advice in sculpting process is : GO ROUGH! The more time you spend in sketching, the best result you'll get at the end.

Sculpting is a time consuming process, you need time in order to obtain best result.

 Sculpting is Time-consuming process (more than other kind of arts)

Often i use clay shaper to smooth little details. You can buy them in a cheap way on china store or similar, but I suggest you to buy professional tool (especially the rounded one).

 The tip of clay shaper is so delicate so if you spend money to get a good tool, you'll reserve your time after.

I put first masses to create the bandana, and create first base for the ears.

I can't sculpt directly on the ears because they hasn't an armature inside, so i need to baked them and then working on later.

To create drapery I suggest you to find some references useful for this.



To create drapery you need experience, patience and attemps. There's no magic trick to do this.

I created some skin texture on the back of the head,

then i smooth with some turpentine and a good brush.

To complete the bandana, I need to create the Flying part. To do this i pick up a little piece of clay.

Then I put it between two pieces of paper baking.

This happen when you use too many baby powder.

You have to the find amount:

 too many -> the clay will attach to paper.

 too much -> it creates some unwanted texture on clay.

Rolling time  :-)

I detached it with a little spatula

I bought it in my city Brico Store. It's so useful in modeling, and the blade is replaceable.

Often i use this tool made by me to create some clay sausages: It's a round piece of plexyglass with a little  hook created in Milliput.

 I Always recommend to use it over a piece of simple paper.

Clay never sticks on paper.

Then i put on the bandana and modelled

To create hands, i baked to pieces of square clay  and put some wire to create the fingers armature.

The fever doesn't stop me :-) :-)

Here you can see my basic armature for hands (He has 4 fingers ,yes :-) )

Bake the head and polish the inside part with dremel

Put first masses on the hands. I suggest you to use some reference to do this.

To create veins put a little sausages on surface, them smooth them with some turpentine.

the hands, almost complete

The final result:

You can see there's a lot of asymmetry: I wanted this because it put a little personality to the character.

Thanks for following me

I hope you like it


Keep Sculpting  
Daniele :-)

You can find other goblin pictures here

Link and resources:

-Massive Voodoo other Sculpting tutorial and SBS
-Great video tutorial by Cyril Roquelaine

-Daniele Found Miniatures
-Dani's Facebook Page

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