Who do you want to be?

As you have probably guessed by now if you've read the content of my last few posts, that I am a regular gym user and have been for some time now. I'm in relatively good shape but sometimes after a hard day at work, followed by the mental battle of coming up with ideas for drawings and sculptures. I don't always have the physical or mental energy to push myself when I get to the gym. That was until whilst searching online for gym motivational tools, I stumbled across this incredible video by me hero Arnold Schwarzenegger 'Who do you want to be?'. This video had a profound effect on me, having watched it numerous times, it has helped me push myself not just in the gym but in all areas of my life. That's enough of my life story, the point I am making is this piece I designed and have made is thanks and tribute to Arnolds words of wisdom.

I wanted to make something strong. Create an image that was powerful enough to inspire people into taking their life into there own hands and pushing themselves to achieve their dreams. Here are a couple of my original ideas about having the world in your palm...

Then I thought about how to display the idea that you need to push yourself to achieve. My dream has always been to be a beast of a man, to look like Michelangelo carved me out of stone. It was this sentiment that gave me the idea of what to do.

Drawing a man carving himself from stone is powerful imagery and represents you decide what you want to be. Work hard and you can be anything or anyone  just "Do not be afraid to fail". With my Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational video on repeat in the background I began to make.

 

Creating a face fitting to the piece really turned out to be challenging endeavour, hours spent doing and re-doing it became extremely stressful. I was relieved to finally create a face that I was happy with.

 

As you can see the detailing was a gruelling but rewarding process. This have become my favourite sculpture to date. I think that the roughness of the rocks contrasts well against the smoothness of the torso.

Never satisfied.

I'm sure everybody is well aware of the serious condition of body dysmorphia. Well my piece never satisfied is designed to address the issue. 10% of the nation suffer from body dysmorphia and a staggering 40% of body builders have what's known as muscle dysmorphic. This condition is when as a muscular man looking in the mirror you always feel scrawny. Occasionally this can lead men down the unhealthy path of steroids... Anyway that's another story.

 

I decided upon creating a sculpture to represent the issue of dysmorphia. Firstly I chose a suitable body building pose.

Arnold Schwarzenegger striking an iconic pose.

 

I began sketching out the body of my piece...

 

With the body of my piece settled up on I needed something to create the element of dysmorphia. To dramatize the feeling of not being who you want to be I chose to put a mask on to my figure.

 

 

Using the theatre masks to add truly dramatically theatrical depth to the piece I began to make. 

 

 

Never satisfied is a fine piece even if I do say so myself, I am particularly happy with the muscularity of the piece. Getting all the muscles in proportion and including the serratus was challenging, this has been a learning curve.

 

I have spent today glazing this model with the same black an white glazes you can find the recipe for in my post 'a glaze of glory' I have opted for the black and white as it offers a strong contrast on what is a serious matter.

 

 

 

 

 

Muscle study.

Hi,  I thought I'd talk you through some of my research pages. My research pages are made up of many sketches, which are crucial for me to reach an understanding of the form I intend to create. This is very important if I wish to model something as complex as the human anatomy accurately. First of all I begin to seek images from where ever I can, of the kind of bodies I aim to recreate, in this case its of body builders. Google images, deviant art, fitness magazines and even gym motivation pages on Facebook are all choca block with images like that. As well as body builders I gather pictures of human anatomy and muscle structures.

Dorian Yates posing for the Mr Olympia competition.

Once I have a good understanding of an overly developed muscular body I use the anatomy images to learn which muscles are which, and how they connect to each other and contract during movement.


 To make it as realistic as possible its important to capture and understand the lesser known muscles and bones. for example the serratus and clavicles. These small details is the key to transforming a model from inaccurate to excellent.

These are a couple of the pictures from sketch books that are full of similar drawings. Hours of research and sketching is taken for me to be able to make my models.

 

Pumping Irony.

As mentioned in my last post I have gravitated towards the idea of bodybuilding, not todays modern Mr Olympia Jay Cutler, whose roided up to his eyeballs. I'm far more impressed by the 80's style of au natural body building. When I was about 14 I first watched  'Pumping Iron' and that started me off on the road to a fitness life style. I cant say I haven't fallen off the wagon a fair few times but I always climb back on. Anyway I'm going off on one when really what I want to address is the fact we are the Iron generation, gyms are big business now a days everybody wants chiselled abs and bulging biceps but nobody wants to bust a gut trying to get them.
There is a common misconception that going to the gym and throwing some dumbbells around will lead to a superman torso. Unfortunately its not that straight forward, believe me I know...
Too many people will walk into the gym, have a short, half arsed work out. In which they play on their phone making sure to check in to the gym on Facebook so that there 600+ friends know that they are in great shape. Ironically these are the same people who are drinking sugar filled caffeine energy drinks, consuming more calories than they are burning off by playing candy crush sat in the leg press machine! Then up on leaving stopping off to buy a snickers from the vending machine because they have just "earned it". This is madness, abs are made in the kitchen, gym discipline is only 30% in contrast to Diet which is 70%. Sorry to rant but this is my motivation an inspiration for 'Pumping Irony'

I have heard this all to often...

Here are two of my sketch's which became combined in my latest model.

The Irony stems from the fact that a super hero Enjoys a beef burger whilst sports the recognisable McDonalds M on his chest. Now McDonalds in itself would be enough to create the irony in this piece. McDonalds create the worst imitation food going an yet have managed to become the most recognised brand ever. Basically to much McDonalds = obesity leading to a heart attack waiting to happen.

Water melon vs mcdonalds this shows the amount of additives included in a hamburger and fries.

 

 Anyway I digress, when it came to making, luckily my earlier study of hands came in handy (no pun intended) allowing me to make accurate hands. I also did an in depth study of all the muscles of the male anatomy which I will put up as a post later in the week.

 

I am pleased with how this Idea has come together, the muscle contours have given me the confidence to tackle more detailed muscle definition.