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Maquettes for Reference

Today I offer up a peak into a bit of my process for creating the cover image of Llewellyn’s 2015 Astrological Calendar. I created maquettes for several of the animals on the cover.

sculpey maquettes by christine mitzuk
Sculpey over aluminum foil and wire for the antlers. All atop my makeshift mountain. The goal here being to see how the same light source falls on the forms and to get a little more information about perspective. Plus it gave me an idea of how the head and horn shadows would fall on the bodies. I dismantled everything when I finished the project. The white to the right is a piece of foam core to bounce light back into the shadows so they weren’t too dark and revealed a bit more form.

Why Make Maquettes?

I didn’t want to fly by the seat of my pants for creating the animals. They all needed to be hit by the same light source so I sculpted little animals and set them up on my makeshift mountain. Then I took some photos and incorporated the information (lighting, form, perspective) into my drawing. Doing this made life so much easier, and it was fun working 3D for a bit.

Materials Used

  • A bit of aluminum foil for the core
  • Some wire for the antler and horn to shape the foil and/or Sculpey around
  • Super Sculpey

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