Take a look at computer modeled 3D women in film and games. Most 3D female figures have the shape of Laura Croft from Tomb Raider. Hips and breasts are beautiful but where are the real women?

As a painter turned digital artist I wanted to incorporate 3D figures into my paintings and animations. My painterly textures did not work work well with Barbie shaped models available for purchase. Having purchased Lightwave 3D software I was eager to create my unique figures. I’ve worked in 3D long enough to know it’s much closer to sculpture than painting. Why not take a sculpture class and learn the modeling software at the same time?

The Art Students League in New York has been teaching sculpture using nude models since 1875. I loaded the software onto my old Powerbook 1400 and off I went to the League’s basement sculpture studio. Walking past the wood carvings and life size clay figures wrapped in plastic, I entered a studio filled with student sculptors hammering chisels into stone. The students gathered in amazement as I demonstrated some quick 3D software capabilities such as multiple views and modeling simple shapes. The instructor Gary Sussman welcomed me to the class.

The weeks passed as I struggle to learn the software. Flying marble chips
and dust would land on my keyboard as I studied the nude models. I began to realize my years of painting did not help my sculpting. Painting is the representation of light and shadow. Sculpture forced me to look closely at how the nostrils sit on the face. In painting I could indicate nostrils by creating a shadow under the nose but with sculpture I had to get up under the model and carefully examine the angle and gentle curves.

The enthusiasm and curiousity of my classmates turned to arguments. They claimed I was not creating sculpture If I can’t feel or touch my artwork. Looking at the flat computer screen they could not grasp that I was working in a 3D space that happened to be inside my computer. The instructor began to pass me by as he critiqued each artists work. At first I did not mind because I was struggling to push & pull polygons into a human form.

My initial attempts at modeling the entire figure proved to difficult. The sculptors working in marble created human forms faster than I could moving points in 3D computer space. I focused on just a portrait of Stella. She was and exotic South American model with strong cheeks and jaw. I used large polygon shapes to indicate her long thick hair. I felt it would show the raw material of my chosen medium similar to the unfinished areas of stone the other sculptors would leave on an otherwise smooth and polished form.

Wireframe

I pulled the instructor over to see my portrait. He apologized for avoiding me claiming he did not know how to critique a computer model. I spun stella around showing him all sides but it did not help. He could not see my sculpture. He asked me to make paper prints of the various views. At the next class I showed him the prints but got the same response. I asked him to pretend my computer was not in the studio and that my prints were photographs of my sculpture. It clicked! He told me all about how my proportions and angles were completely off. There was a bit more to correct than expected, but I was happy we were communicating. Showing the same prints to my fellow students I got comments like, “why don’t you just use clay?” and “It looks like a computer made it.”

The spring class exhibition was coming up and the months of hearing I was
not making sculpture made me even more determined to prove them wrong. I found a web site ZCorp out of Massachusetts. They create rapid prototypes from 3D computer files and the first one is free. I E-mailed my file and within two weeks a box arrived at my door. I danced around the room after pulling the sculpture from the box. It was a perfect copy of my Stella portrait model. Zcorp uses a combination of resin and powder which gives the sculpture a beautiful white translucent quality and allows light to pass through thin skin areas like ears.

The class exhibition was to open that following Monday and they would all see that I was indeed making sculpture. The gallery was a buzz as I passed through the door on opening night. Forty perfectly lit sculptures on white stands stood out among the wine sipping crowd, but I could not find Stella. There in the dimly lit corner was Stella on a stand with nails holes left over from the previous exhibit.

Sculptors and their families questioned me about my process. “That’s cheating,” one woman responded. “It’s like buying sculpture from Sears,” said another. I was crushed. Then two well dressed women came up to say how they loved my work and asked what I would be doing next. They were not artists but claimed they just loved sculpture. How is it possible that the sculptors are more closed minded than the public? Photographers must have run into the same arguments when film began to replace paint brushes.

Back in class the following week the arguments continued. I tried to point out that a clay sculpture must have a mold and plaster cast made before it ever becomes a bronze statue. Therefore it’s two copies away from the original. “You’ll never convince me this is sculpture,” said one classmate. “I thought you were just here to stare at the nude models,” said another.

Across the studio, another sculptor chipping away at his marble torso screamed. The entire foot of his piece fell and hit the floor. The other artists rushed to console him. I smiled to myself and thought, I could just copy and paste a new foot into place.