Human mouth sculpture

Eric Goldfield

 Does anyone  have experience sculpting human lips and mouth area? If so, could they describe the technique?

Ryan Endersby

Hi Eric, 

I am in the middle of focusing on human anatomy and portrait sculpting, to improve my ability and creature design in clay - mostly my interests are in masks and portrait based creature/character Maquettes. I would highly recommend the work, study materials and classes offered by Philippe Faraut. I had a chance to study with him briefly last year at his studio -  He has some demo items available on youtube but has a wealth of sculpting resources that will help in features such as eyes, mouth, nose, etc. 

His book - "Portrait Sculpting" pg 57 covers some very helpful methods in detail regarding the mouth. I can not recommend this book enough to enhance the grasp of human features that certainly will in turn improve creature design, etc in my opinion. Also available from his online store is some reference casts that I am finding to be critical to have at my home study whether I am attempting a quick portrait draft or my iteration of Frankenstein's monster! 

One thing I am finding useful to do is to practice making small plates of an eye, mouth, nose, ear (the hard one for me). For the mouth - following Philippe's examples I find starting with the top lip as a rolled tube, then shaping that roll to a sort of trapezoid shape with a middle indentation for the philtrum demple. Two presses in the bottom center of that and you have the beginning formation of the upper lip. To start the lower lip area I use a smaller coil/rounded shape in an upside half moon - pressing two distinct shapes to form the lower lip. There are many ways to attack this feature but for me breaking it down in the way Philippe introduced in his first book clicks with me, breaks it down for me in a manageable way. 

Again I can not recommend this book enough (Portrait sculpting - anatomy and expressions in clay)- meeting Philippe (who is an amazing and funny teacher!) and studying his work is helping further my discipline not only in my human portrait study work - but of course my hope is to have this firm foundation improve my ability in creature and monster designs.