Making a Figurine: The Creative Process

Making...err...miniature things...has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. I used to play for countless hours with a HUGE box of Lego Blocks (that I have now passed on to our Daughter), creating endless things from them; populating the world of my imagination one small creation at a time. As the years passed, I began to enjoy painting miniatures, particularly war gaming miniatures. I got quite good at it, and was noticed by others eventually (I got invited to participate in local conventions, showcasing my artwork). It was fun, but I felt limited by the miniatures others had created. So I began creating my own pieces. It wasn't until many years later that I began making figurines.

I'd like to tell others the processes I use to create the tiny things I do, in an effort to hopefully draw out the gifts in them, and inspire them to create their own works of art. So, lets get to it.

I'll say now that the basis of my artwork is realism. The realistic portrayal of a much larger world, and all the tiny, realistic details I can possibly imagine are what eventually breathes 'life' into my artwork. Creating fantastic pieces are absolutely possible, using any and all of the construction methods I'll outline. And sometimes I really enjoy physically making something that resides mostly in my imagination alone. But what I really enjoy is creating a tiny, very realistic, world that seems as though the viewer could step through the magnifying glass, straight into that tiny non-reality...and believably be a part of it. If it seems like a scene that you could plausibly find yourself in, its probably fair game for my primary style of artwork.

Once I have a starting idea for a new figurine, I'll start imagining how I want to present it, even as I start twisting a tiny wire frame together. As I'm bending and twisting the armature, I start giving it the basic stance I eventually want it to have. I think about arm and leg positioning. How the head will be turned or tilted. How will I want to attach the hands...what they will be doing, holding. The arch of the back, and the way the shoulders will be positioned. What about the feet? Will the figurine be barefoot, or in sandals...or have shoes or boots on. All of these are being considered, even as I cut the short piece of wire which I will start forming into the figurine’s armature. Because the method I use requires soldering the hands, and perhaps the feet, to the wire frame, I need to make these determinations now, before I begin fleshing the figurine out.

Creating a realistic figurine requires a working knowledge of anatomy, and anatomically correct poses. Humans have some basic structure, mostly all very similar to one another. This both limits and dictates many of the ways the final figurine should look, if posed in a realistic manner.

Now, there are some practical limits as to how you can pose a figurine and still make it look believable. Some people can twist and move into some amazingly unbelievable positions, but most people are limited in the way their bodies can move, having been limited from years of misuse, abuse, hard work, basic body structure, etc. Things like gravity and physics also play a large role here, dictating how a person must distribute their weight in order to move they way they do, and maintain their balance. Is your imagined figurine very muscular? Usually muscular people are not as able to move as freely as those with less muscle mass. The muscles simply get in the way of a more full range of movement. Some people stretch enough for this not to be that case, forming longer, more lean muscle groups. But if your figurine is on the bulky muscle side of things, range of movement is likely to be limited. The opposite is also true. Is your imagined figurine an athletic individual, with long muscles used to moving and bending? Range of motion will likely be greater than someone who has lots of muscle mass. Most people fall somewhere in between these examples. Often body fat can play a role in movement as well, but not always. I've seen some rather husky individuals who could dance graceful, flowing circles around the much slimmer people surrounding them. All this is basically just examples to get you thinking about how your figurine might be formed inside, so that it will help you to more fully consider how it should be formed outside, and the posture and positions it might be likely to achieve if it were a real individual.

I've studied how people and animals move most of my life...mostly because it fascinated me. I encourage you to watch the way the world works around you as well. If you know that the piece you are working on is supposed to move in a certain way, but don't really know what that's actually supposed to look like, I encourage you to find pictures and videos of people doing the things you want to make a figurine to resemble doing. How does a person hold their legs and back when they sit cross-legged? Is muscle or clothing fabric going to limit how this looks? If a dancer takes a next step while dancing, how do you imagine they would be maintaining their balance? Are they using their arms, legs, or posture to help? If a person is sitting in a chair, are they sitting upright, or are their shoulders slumped in poor posture for some reason? Look at the way normal people act and react as they are living out their normal, everyday lives. This can tell you a great deal of how you can shape a figurine to make it look realistic.

Ok, so...the purpose of all of this consideration is that I am beginning to formulate a scene for the figurine to be a part of. Said a slightly different way, aside of figuring out what you want to render the figurine doing, you also should consider the environment the figurine will be placed in. Once I know, in my mind's eye, what the environment looks like, I'll have a better idea of what the figurine will be shaped like, as I figure out how it would be interacting with that environment. Is a dancer in a wide open, unrestrained space, unhindered by obstacles of any kind? Or are there cramped circumstances that help to dictate movement or basic body position. Is that backpack you imagine the figurine to be carrying going to hinder how they will stand and move? Will the physical structure, or simply the weight, of the backpack going to affect either of these considerations?

Also, I try to think of each figurine is as if it were a character in a film I am watching, as opposed to just a picture I'm looking at. If I think of each figurine as a living, breathing thing, moving around and interacting with its environment, I'll have a much better idea of how it will be shaped. Think of it as if you were taking a single image frame from a longer series of frames in a film. This leads me to consider what the figurine would have been doing just before the moment I want to depict, and what it will be doing in the moments directly after this moment as well. This helps determine how it will be formed, based on imagined actions before, during, and after the moment I want to create.

Once you have a good idea of what it is you want to create, you can begin to actually create it…