During the past few weeks, I have been busy with finalizing my book (which will be out soon) and also starting a new sculpture. This time it is not a small full-body sculpture but a life-sized aurochs head bust. It is based on the Ilford skull at the British Museum of London. I thought it would be most precise to at first replicate the skull as accurately as possible and then to reconstruct the soft tissue and fur around it. This is the replica of the skull, made of paper maché, fimo air and polyurethane foam, photo taken today:
It looks a bit slenderer than the Ilford skull, which is only on the photo. Perhaps due to perspective. A 3D-scan of the actual skull was very helpful to me for getting the proportions right. My replica is exactly 73,5 cm long, which is the size of the Ilford skull that I was told.
It was quite difficult to get the horns right, due to their highly three-dimensional curvature.
The next step will be connecting the lower jaw to the skull and then creating the base of the neck with the foam. Then I am going to sculpt the horn sheaths over the cores, which always involves some speculation as there is no rule of thumb of how much the sheath adds to the length of the horn. The final surface of the bust will be made of fimo air and I am going to paint it with acrylics.
