The key to sculpting realistic human figures in clay is understanding how all the muscle groups work together. If you’re after lifelike sculptures, you’ll definitely need to study human anatomy and know it, well, inside and out. Philippe Faraut knows anatomy inside and out. We shared a little bit of Phillipe’s knowledge in a video clip a couple of weeks ago, in which he discussed how to sculpt an anatomically correct skull.

 

Since, we covered the inner anatomy on that video, I thought we’d move to the outside today. Today’s clip focuses on expressions; specifically a happy expression. We all know that a smile means happy, but what happens to the rest of the face when you smile? Philippe knows, and today he’ll show us as he transforms a sculpture with a not-so-happy expression into a bright, smiling face in about four minutes (in about four minutes!). – Jennifer Harnetty, editor. 

 
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This clip was excerpted from The Art of Sculpting with Philippe Faraut – Volume 2: Expressions and Facial Construction, which is available in the Ceramic Arts Daily Bookstore.