Daughter of Doris

During my free time at Illuxcon, inspired by an amazing joint sculpture demo by Jordu Schell and Tom Kuebler, I decided to update my reference for Doris. This maquette is made from Sculpey and is 8 inches high.

This will form the basis of a new painting of Doris, one I concepted at James Gurney's Creature Design Workshop but never finished to my satisfaction. Jim's class continues to bear fruit. And needless to say, Illuxcon is awesome.

James Gurney's Creature Class

I've been having a marvelous time at James Gurney's "Creating Realistic Fantasy" workshop at the Woodstock School of Art (WSA -- details are on his blog).  The author of the Dinotopia series of books, I've been an admirer of James since seeing his work on display at the Smithsonian years ago. He is a humble man of great and broad talent and accomplishment, awesomely supported by his wife Jeanette.

Our focus has been on creating a realistic version of the mythological creature Pan. We've sketched a lot,  art directed a live model, and spent time drawing from a live goat. Excellent references. Today we made maquettes, or small models of our critiqued sketches, which we will light and use as reference for our final work. I will paint mine in oils; others are doing sculptures.

Kudos to James, his wife, and the team at WSA. Two more days to go!