Watch a Master Sculpt a Monster

Chris Johnson makes monsters. Operating as Darkbunny FX, Johnson has created creatures both scary and adorable.

It is interesting to watch how Johnson works. His workflow seems to incorporate modern digital mixed with traditional sculpting. As he points out in his video, he just uses whatever tools work for the job, and that makes sense. Starting in Autodesk’s 123D Sculpt (free for Apple and Android devices) allows him to rough out the concept, create mass, and play with shapes and colors. After that, he completely starts over with the digital sculpt as a reference.

Comparing his concept with the final product in this video is very interesting. You could be forgiven for assuming he 3D printed his idea then refined it if you hadn’t just seen him sculpt it from scratch.

While watching him create his beast, you might also soak up a little bit of his wisdom. Johnson talks about his design process as well as delving a bit into his work philosophy. Most importantly, the concept that the expensive tools don’t matter. You can create with whatever you have and whatever you can get. That isn’t to say that nice tools don’t help, but lack of access to them shouldn’t stop you.

It’s you as a designer that is creating this thing, not the tools that you are using. So, there’s definitely a difference between an expensive way of going down things and I’m not belittling that because you can create some amazing things by throwing money at it. However, I think you can also create amazing things by using your imagination and trying to think a bit outside the box.

This is such great advice. Creativity isn’t limited to your art, but is also invaluable to your process.