Randall's Urban Architectural Sculptures

Griffin model Nr 90-R is now completed other than some minor surface cleanup as the clay dries more, now a few photos before it’s bagged in plastic to slowly dry out;

Detail views

He now has an official model designation which is 90-R

I did some major alterations this morning after coming back to it fresh, first, I knew his body height was not enough, so I wound up cutting his head off, and neck off, and building up the upper chest, resetting the neck and then hollowing out the head so that is done.

Adding the two wings and rough shaping them, and finally for authenticity and to provide a niceopen back for me to pour the casts into- adding the flat backer portion which on the original would be the section that is embedded into the brick wall.

I’m still not happy with the shoulder assembly but it’s coming along, I also want to add more forehead, change the eye angle a little more downward, and create more “stop” between the muzzle and forehead, as well as maybe add a little more brow over the eyes for more depth.

I’m not happy yet with his expression in the mouth area which from the front angle looks “happy” and that’s definitely not the expression I want, so that’s another area to be looked over.

So far 160# of clay has been used, though now I am at the point where I’ll begin hollowing the body out a little and thus salvaging some of the very moist clay inside. Hollowing is necessary regardless, so it can dry out and shrink while not cracking. If left this solid the exterior inch or so would dry and begin shrinking while the interior would still be very moist soft clay.
There’s much to do yet so to keep the moisture in and the clay soft It won’t be hollowed out until all of the additive and subtractive modelling is done and it just begins to start getting firm, then he can be hollowed out and shortly afterwards the surface detailing and texturing can begin.

Now after some modifications, compared to the above image

I decided to make him 28″ tall (wet clay size) and have my visual photo scaled to that specific size so I could point measurements for various landmarks in CAD.
I have the clay set up on a board on my modelling stand, and in about 90 minutes I had him really rough shaped to see tomorrow if the point up landmarks are in the right locations. My estimate of how much clay it was going to take was so far just right, this is 125# so far with more to add yet.
The head will need to arch forward a bit yet but I didn’t want to push it yet while the clay is still pretty soft.

Also, he will have about a 2″ deep flat back section which on the building the original is on would be embedded into the wall, in this case it will give me a nice large open back to pour concrete or hydrocal in and get into the mold’s interior easy than trying to pour thru the feet a free standing piece.

Later last night I decided to do a little more work on him, and then both lengthen the neck as well as arch it forward to tilt the head down closer to it’s proper position;

As the head is still quite heavy and the clay soft I am not trying to do much to it just yet, to let it set in a bit and firm up, there is a metal rod barely visible in the second photo that is there to stake the head in place so gravity and it’s weight dont cause it to move or fall onto the floor!
Once I get the head around the size and shape it needs to be I can remove it and hollow it out and the weight won’t be an issue, by then the clay will be firmer as well.

As is typical, these models change drastically during the initial roughing out stages, and proportions and angles are adjusted and corrected. In this case the griffin’s anatomy is not yet defined well, there will also be a pair of short wings and the flat back but those will be added as the clay firms up and after the basic body anatomy and spine are satisfactory.
The really interesting thing about the original griffin is the extremely well detailed paws and claws, that aspect on most all griffins I’ve seen always seemed to be minimally done, this one has some extremely detailed paws and that is one aspect I liked to pay a lot of attention to in my dog bronzes in the 90′s- heavy strong detailed paws showing the strength and power, so the griffin will be very pleasant for me to spend a lot of time on detailing those paws.

Now I’m off to do some things and then back to the griffin this afternoon, there will be more photos tonight here

Planning to do a model of this really neat griffin. The original (shown above) is on about the 19th or 20th floor of a Cass Gilbert 1906 landmark, opposite the former World Trade Center site on West Street.

The building’s North facade was extensively damaged by the collapse of one of the trade center towers, and fires raging inside for days burned off the roof and copper mansard roof.
The entire North facade had to be stripped off to the steel frame, 7,000 damaged pieces of terra cotta, including some 100 gargoyles, griffins, owls, eagles and more replaced.

The original griffin is around 3 feet tall, paws to head, my model will be reduced in scale to 28″.

Cass Gilbert also designed the well known landmark Woolworth building nearby- another gothic styled skyscraper office building.

The 3rd and last panel in the set, work in progress

Waaaaay up near the top of this Cass Gilbert landmark is a series of these little guys.

The second panel in this series of three panels is now completed and drying, this is the typical “tragic” mask found on theaters but with a typical Art Deco flavor.
The third model with the comic mask has most of the same design elements the other two panels have, while the three panels all have the same Art Deco design on 2/3rds of the surface with the two flowers etc, each panel requires a completely new model made from scratch, in other words not one model simply changed a little each time. So there will be differences between each “identical” section of course.

Work shall begin on the last panel model tomorrow after I cut replacement wood strips for my box form to replace the ones I used which are now warping.
I want to keep all three panels as close in specific size to each other as possible so that they may be used as a set and all be consistant in size with one another in any combination, this can be a challenge with clay models as the clay shrinks approximately one inch per foot as it goes from moist to kiln fired. As I do not fire these the shrinkage is slightly less at around 3/4 inch per foot, thus when I want a model to end up 22″ long it has to start out at around 23-3/8″.
Sometimes the shrinkage varies a little more from model to model even if they start out exactly the same due to specific moisture percentage of the clay to begin with, how firmly it is packed and other factors.