Jack Skellington

Title: Jack Skellington
Date: 04/2000
Size: 6" x 3" x 19"
Medium: Ceramic Clay - Overglaze

A sculpting project from my High School ceramics class. One of our last assignments was to sculpt a figure standing 18" - 20" tall. This was decided out of both desire and necessity, as it was a character I had wanted to make for a longtime and it was a good opportunity to do it. And at the time I didn't have a whole lot of clay left to work with, so the figure couldn't take up a lot of volume space and had to be real skinny. So who better to sculpt than the Pumpkin King himself - Jack Skellington! The beloved title character of Tim Burton's holiday classic "The Nightmare Before Christmas"!

It was a very delicate piece, so I worked from the bottom up making the base and the thin legs first and they were fired as one whole piece. The torso, arms, hands and head were all sculpted seperately, joined together and fired as another whole piece. After being painted with black & white overglaze, the legs and torso were fired and then joined together with a strong glue and so it was finished. You can probably see at the waist where the two parts were joined.

It's a decent sculpt, but I despise the glossy, glazed surface. I plan to make another sculpt of this character someday using a metal armature, different clay and a better paint job. This one was made without a wire armature underneath, which would've allowed more control over the pose.