Finally, sculpting of the fox is done. The fur texture was added as the top layer of leather dried. Ears were also tooled and added on and the back of the ears have been filled with a leather and cement mixture (referred to as "leather putty"). Now it's on to color! [Hover over image to enlarge]

After much time and frustration, I finally got the fox sculpture core the way I thought it needed to be (I would later find that I missed a bit). The light areas on the first photo are areas that are built back up using a mixture of leather dust mixed with an adhesive. Due to the thickness of the top/finish layer of leather, the core needs to be cut down further than the finished state of the sculpture. Then the top/finish layer of leather is molded onto it and textured appropriately. It turns out to be a challenge to get the core to the right shape to account for all the folds and bends and textures on the top layer. I'm looking at a different way of doing this next time. (I really don't envy stone sculptors at all!!) [Hover over image to enlarge]

The next photo shows the initial top/finish layer of leather covering most of the core. The core was screwed to a piece of plywood. A hole was cut in the piece of leather to cover the core. The nose was inserted through the hole and the leather was molded to the core and nailed to the plywood to keep it in place.


Finally, the nose was covered with two more pieces of leather and properly sized and molded to best hide or camouflage the seams (we'll see how that works out later!!).


The next entry will show at least the texturing of the piece, if not the whole fox assembled (notice the ears are missing!).