Sculpting figures with clay can help improve your drawing skills because it trains your mind to notice small visual details and see your subject as more than one-dimensional. Although, sculpting a torso out of clay might seem like a complicated process, it is not as difficult as many people may imagine it to be. According to Karen Skophamme, "Clay is ideal for a first sculpture project. It requires very few tools."" (Skophamme, 26-27) This paper is about the process of how to sculpt a female torso out of clay and how this process can improve your drawing skills. .
You'll need the following tools: a variety of sculpting tools, water based clay, a wooden tablet and a pipe. You can find all of these items at most art stores or online art suppliers. .
There is more than one technique of sculpting a figure, but I am going to explain the easiest methods.
First of all, create a base (foundation) for your sculpture. You'll need to have a wooden tablet and a pipe that has at least two holes in one of its sides to attach it vertically in the middle of the wood surface by drilling it. It's important for the pipe to be longer than (or close to) the sculpture size so your sculpture stays strong and doesn't move while you're in the process of sculpting. One of the reasons of why you need the base to be wooden is because the clay will easily adhere to it after you've sprayed the wood with water.
The next step is to begin molding the clay around the pipe, from bottom to top. You will need to divide your "torso" into three sections; chest, hip, and the top of the thighs. Be sure to make simple geometric shapes and planes for the three sections in this stage. For example, Figure 4 shows how the chest is a long rectangler box shape, the hip with a wide rectangular shape, and thighs with two cylinders. You will need to measure the distance between each part as if you are drawing it 2D.
After getting the basic form of the torso, you will start to take out the extra clay from it after marking the areas that needs more or less of the clay by using the modeling tool, please look at Figure 5.
