I have recently begun to learn to sculpt digitally. Though I find it useful to sculpt in clay to develop my figures in the round, I am pursuing digital sculpture as well in order to have greater freedom to play with the arrangement of figures in space. This is inspired by such things as the sculptures of Bernini (see the next blog entry for some drawings of his "Apollo and Daphne", a magical spiralling orchestration of human figures, fabric, tree branches and the earth base) and my time studying with Nicola Verlato in Los Angeles, whose use of both physical and digital modeling techniques inform his wild symphonies of form.
So here are my first efforts with Sculptris (a free program made by the makers of ZBrush). The figures are based on reference from www.posespace.com, which provides artists with pictures of poses at 15 degree intervals all the way around.
Starting from a sphere, the forms of the head are gradually pulled and pushed out.Details can be added to the general forms
Again, starting with a sphere, I developed a symmetrical torso, posed it and added arms and legs, continuously rotating the piece to try to mentally integrate the forms from the flat screen as you would when working from life.a different view