This was my second self portrait sculpture made over a few months in 2021- this one of my torso and upper thighs standing up, but still missing the arms and legs. I definitely became more confident with sculpting during this process, as you can tell by the detailed pubic hair, stretch marks, and nipples visible in the photos before glazing. The shapes are definitely more refined and less rough than the first self portrait sculpture I made, and I was really happy with the overall shape and sculpt. Unfortunately because I went for a thicker, opaque glaze that is made for dipping a lot of this detail was lost in the glaze firing, as the glaze obscured and covered up a lot of those details. I hoped that spraying the glaze (rather than dipping) would prevent this, but as you can see that didn’t work. The glaze also came out patchy on the shoulder area and inner thigh area, although you can’t really tell from the photos here.

I think if I wanted to attempt something so detailed in the future some solutions could be using a thinner, transparent brush on glaze, or just sculpting it on a much larger scale, which is something I would like to try once I get a bit more confident. Despite all the hiccups I can see how much I’ve improved already since my first self portrait, and I’m excited to keep practicing and trying new things!