Post #684785 by Gene S Morgan on Fri, Jul 5, 2013 8:08 PM

This is the beginning of another long rambling post like only I can do. I am still on the Ipad obsession, but this time I'm going to be talking about sculpting instead of painting. Yes, you can sculpt digitally. I have a past thread here where I demonstrated on the PC using a program named Sculptris. There are several Ipad apps than can work in a similar way. This is a quick sketch I did using a app called 123D creature. This looks like gray clay.

As usual I feel the need to explain some stuff. A couple of terms I often us are inspired by and stylized. Those are words I use to let folks know that I never try to make exact copies of any tiki, whether they are traditional historical tikis or interpretations by artist. I realize that I am often viewed as an outsider from the modern pop tiki culture and in truth I probably am. I came to tiki through writings about historical tiki culture. In the late 1950s when I was in junior high school I read Kon Tiki. In high school I read Aku Aku. I was hooked on Heyerdahl. That lead me to lots of other reading …. This image is the last one after being run through some graphic filtering adding color and texture.

Something I cannot forget when I am creating my own tiki images is that the historical island tiki creators were not just driven by the need to produce art, but by a deep spiritual desire to illustrate their own religious beliefs. I do not share that spiritual need but I feel the need to respect it. So when making tikis I let my imagination lead me away from making exact copies of religious artifacts. (I don't make images of Jesus or Buddha either) At the same time I appreciate good art and do not force my own beliefs on others, so I love good tiki images by good artist …. This image is another different graphic filtering attempt ….

I come from the Midwest and as far as I know there is no full blown Pop Tiki Culture revival going on around here. I have no hands on experience with that culture as practiced on the West Coast. I have studied this forum trying to get some understanding. I must admit I get pretty confused at times. When I was young tiki culture was everywhere even here in middle America. We did not have an ocean and palm trees don't grow so good in the snow, but for over a decade I was aware that tiki was all around …. I'm going to get around to showing how an aged texture like this one can be added to a sculpt.

I spent my honeymoon at the Tiki Motel in the Wisconsin Dells. There were these giant carved tikis on each side of the door of the motel office. I wish I had taken pictures. My first up close look at real tiki was at a place called The House On the Rock near Dodgeville Wisconsin. This rich primitive art collector built this cool rustic house on a bluff in the woods. I would sit on a rough stone bench listening to exotic music with birdcalls and vibraphones and studied these amazing wood carvings. Again I wish I had taken pictures ….. This image may seem like nothing, but what it is is texture and I'm not afraid to use it.

In my study of tiki I came to the conclusion that there was a varied and rich interpretation of spiritual artistic definition of deities by the primitive cultures of the Pacific islands. But, in Modern Pop Tiki Culture, tiki is limited to a few similar tiki representations. What confuses me more, some obviously tiki inspired cultures such as Hawaii are discouraged in spite of the fact that one of the most common sculptures I see here on the forum is a Hawaiian tiki war god … I am so confused … Applying that last texture to a sculpt like this image gives it more impact ….

Now I will really get into trouble. I never do moai because I do not consider them to be tiki. Rapa Nui was settled from the west by Polynesian travelers, but it was very isolated from that culture. The art of the island is quite different from the rest of Oceanic art. It is also obvious that there was an outside influence. Heyerdahl talked of island legends of visitors who were considered gods …. This is again a stylized moai … I am using it because it is perfect to show how textures can affect a sculpted image ….

Is this a moai? It has most of the characteristics of Easter Island statues. The nose, mouth, the elongated ears, and even the turban that resembles a moai topnot look very much like a statue from the shores of Rapa Nui. It came from the mountain city of Machu Picchu. South America was the obvious source of the island's outside influences.

Moais look to me to be inspired by a real person. They all look alike. They are not strange alien looking abstracts like tiki on other islands. There is nothing abstract about this deity. He makes me think of the plastic Jesus on the dashboard of a car. They surround the island for what, protection, luck, to worship? Like I said I don't make images of Jesus, so for me moais are out. But, I must say I really love how other artist interpret and expand on those simple stone statues.

When I finally get around showing how sculpting on the Ipad works I will show a number of ways to add texture. Here is one texture.

Texture can show age or the material the sculpt is supposed to be made of.

Texture usually starts with a simple image created in a drawing or painting program or app.

In a filtering art app that image is embossed. I will explain this as I go along.

Applying that embossed texture to the sculpt gives it a more realistic look.