About 8 years ago I decided that I wanted to try sculpting the characters from the Country Bear Jamboree. How hard could that be? Mind you I had no real sculpting experience, just a class or two in high school, and when I say class, I mean there was an hour where they let me play with some clay and simple tools- instruction was really not part of the process. Anyway, I had always loved seeing pictures of small maquettes and the beautifully sculpted larger than life characters in this Disneyland attraction seemed like the perfect subject to try my hand at.
The first one I decided to tackle was Big Al. For reference I used the above piece of Marc Davis art and lots of photos of the final Audio-Animatronics figure. All I used was some simple white clay that I bought at a craft store, toothpicks to sculpt some of the smaller details and acrylic craft paint.
I was so happy with this sculpture- like all art, it's just so satisfying to take something that's just an idea in your head and see it through, in this case to a fully dimensional object. In retrospect, it's far from perfect. I sculpted the way I painted back then- I was more about the overall impression than the fine details, so things are lumpy and rough and not as refined as they could be. But the overall sculpture had the pose and personality that I liked- and keep in mind he's just under 3 inches tall. What's even better is that as I did each subsequent bear they got bigger and bigger, so Big Al ironically ended up being the smallest. Stay tuned and I'll post the 3 other Country Bears that I sculpted. See you real soon!
The first one I decided to tackle was Big Al. For reference I used the above piece of Marc Davis art and lots of photos of the final Audio-Animatronics figure. All I used was some simple white clay that I bought at a craft store, toothpicks to sculpt some of the smaller details and acrylic craft paint.
I was so happy with this sculpture- like all art, it's just so satisfying to take something that's just an idea in your head and see it through, in this case to a fully dimensional object. In retrospect, it's far from perfect. I sculpted the way I painted back then- I was more about the overall impression than the fine details, so things are lumpy and rough and not as refined as they could be. But the overall sculpture had the pose and personality that I liked- and keep in mind he's just under 3 inches tall. What's even better is that as I did each subsequent bear they got bigger and bigger, so Big Al ironically ended up being the smallest. Stay tuned and I'll post the 3 other Country Bears that I sculpted. See you real soon!
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