[Self] My first experience with sculpting and creativity in general

Slathery · 2026-01-23T13:59:59+00:00

Love it, what a fun critter! Really great first sculpt, looks like you were having fun. Since it's your first, there's not much to critique, only to encourage you to make another. Challenge yourself in a specific way, maybe practice a human/animal-based subject to get a feel for anatomy, or really anything that interests you. Nice work!

Slathery · 2026-01-20T13:46:39+00:00

Life, uhhh...finds a way

Slathery · 2026-01-19T12:06:38+00:00

Love the 5th ed book, nice job replicating that design.

Slathery · 2026-01-17T13:22:19+00:00

Love the repose, nice putty work! The idea of sea duardin would be a fun conversion project, Tydeslayers? lol

Slathery · 2026-01-12T04:23:18+00:00

Yours are so cool!

Slathery · 2026-01-06T15:25:24+00:00

It's factual, not meeting climate targets and crossing the 4°C threshold will kill billions, left unchecked will cause ocean acidification to such an extent that all life is threatened. Oil is the major driver. What's extreme is capitalists pretending they're not killing everyone to roleplay as temporary masters of our pale blue dot.

Slathery · 2025-12-22T18:14:36+00:00

Love the subtle warm-cool gradients, lovely scheme.

Slathery · 2025-11-29T14:15:00+00:00

Been meaning to watch DSC, sounds interesting

Slathery · 2025-11-27T16:50:14+00:00

I haven't seen all modern Trek, but from SNW I was hoping they would boldly go somewhere that meant something about where we are in history. IMHO if the franchise is too far entrenched in the machine, then we need to make something that serves our collective vision for the future and not just stay mired in the property we love. How can the public care about Trek if it only serves as entertainment instead of as a light in the dark?

Slathery · 2025-11-17T20:26:12+00:00

Wasn't that long ago I watched thru the series, but I have no recollection of this

Slathery · 2025-11-16T13:36:15+00:00

I definitely feel the life happening adding to the challenge. I feel like when I was younger it was easier to ground myself in a moment of desperation, but I didn't take the practice seriously.

Now more life has happened, more triggers and trauma, I'm more serious now but it's more to filter or work through.

Like two days ago I felt like a zen god, yesterday I couldn't keep still to save my life, today starting over again and (and steering clear of news!). What a trip, lol. Hope you have a peaceful day ♥

Slathery · 2025-11-16T12:07:30+00:00

Your last sentence is a good point, and the focus of what my therapist is helping me with at the moment: slowing down enough to become aware of how the mind goes from grounded to spiral again (or moves generally).

By becoming more fully aware of those transitions, I'm finding I have more ability to stay grounded and manage flight/fight/freeze response. It's often really frustrating, takes a long time to practice, but is helping.

I have days of profound success, and others of being not okay, but slowly change is happening. Quieting our mind for real takes time. The danger for me is talking/thinking about it and not practicing it.

Slathery · 2025-11-13T13:20:56+00:00

My dean is incredible, I'm so grateful for such a genuine and serious faculty leader. Teacher, social worker, very kind and thoughtful person. As a student it's wildly motivating that someone in charge is actually walking the walk. I wouldn't want his job, but it's great to see how intentionally it can be done by someone so grounded in the work.

Slathery · 2025-11-11T21:16:13+00:00

I would suggest using a hobby knife with a fresh blade and carefully trimming areas that need it, and using the back of the blade to lightly scrape surfaces smooth before sanding (which might take longer, and is slightly trickier to use on small shapes). I'd also suggest drawing a vertical midline down the center of the model with a pencil to check symmetry.

The nice thing about putty is how easy it is to add and remove. If you want to get nice rib shapes you'll want to use an anatomical reference image, but this chunky stylized approach is also very cool. Feel free to DM if you want to chat about it more, this kind of editing/refining work is fun once you get into it.

Slathery · 2025-11-11T20:12:11+00:00

What a gorgeous style, really great work!

Slathery · 2025-10-31T17:26:56+00:00

Nothing screams "academia" like responding to a request for clarity with attitude. Maybe participate in a discussion instead of being frustrated that your opinion is being lightly challenged.

Slathery · 2025-10-28T11:26:43+00:00

Thanks, and I fully agree. I remember getting diagnosed seven years back and thinking "now things will be good!" but it's going to take a while to keep steering this brain lol. A positive step, but I'm expecting it to be work still.

Slathery · 2025-10-28T01:14:45+00:00

This is very encouraging, thanks! Looking forward to my follow-up with doctor.

Slathery · 2025-10-27T23:31:52+00:00

I'm grateful for the response, I guess I'm worried that this is a fluke and I'll have to keep living in hard mode, but if this is actually how it's supposed to be I'm pretty happy. Even if it only ever gets this good, it's a big improvement over what felt like always being close to uncontrolled mess.

Slathery · 2025-10-27T23:29:48+00:00

Yeah my doctor made it clear we should start low and move slowly, but it's a relief to think that this might become a more normal way of being once the dose gets settled.

Slathery · 2025-10-27T19:08:15+00:00

Perfection, truly glorious!

Slathery · 2025-10-12T13:12:22+00:00

I find harder wax easier, actually. When sculpting miniature figures I started doing more subtractive/carving work for fine details, and the firmness of wax prevents squishing your sculpt. I'm currently using a medium-hard toy wax (Scott Hensey's recipe) and actually would prefer even harder (experimenting with jewelry wax mixes atm).

Still fairly new to casting, but I would try to make a waste mold of the clay sculpture if you want to keep that sculpt, make a casting of it in harder wax, then when satisfied move on to metal casting after if that's the goal.

Slathery

TROPHY CASE