Pointing machine

[Norman Watts <Norman_Watts@zzzzzzz>]

Having neither a formal art education background nor other experience
in figurative sculpture I am completely ignorant about the making a
human face. And before anyone advises me to do that only much later in
my career, let me say I have no intention of doing it any time soon, or
ever.

That said, I would think of a pointing machine as just about the only
solution (for me) to create a true-to-nature sculpture of a human face.
But at some point someone has to have done the original. This seems to
me to be, probably, just about the most difficult accomplishment in
sculpting, particularly so because in stone carving you are in the
subtractive mode. Depending on the scale, but certainly anything close
to life size, a quarter of a millimeter too far in some direction or
other and the face is almost irreparably lost.

How then do professional sculptors arrange to do faces on a figure?
Aside from knowing anatomy and getting the proportions roughly right at
the roughing stage, what else is done to assure success? In fact, at
what point in the whole process is the face done on a full-human
sculpture? In a way I would think you would do it last, but then its
the most easy part to get wrong and by that time a huge amount of
effort has already been invested. So what does one do?

OK, back to work,

n

Norman Watts, Ph. D.
National Institutes of Health
50 South Drive, Rm. 1509
Bethesda, MD 20892-8025
Phone: (301) 402-3418
Fax: (301) 480-7629