About Me

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Santa Clarita, California, United States
Jonathan Payne is a freelance artist residing in Santa Clarita, California. His sculptures and paintings focus primarily on creature and character design . He has studied under Jordu Schell (Men In Black, Edward Scissorhands, Avatar), concept sculptor Simon Lee and fine art sculptor John Brown. He prefers to sculpt in oil, polymer and WED clays. Recently he has become consumed with creating an original line of tumorous balls of flesh known as the Fleshlettes. In addition to his macabre "babies" he also enjoys composing fine art sculptures depicting both wildlife and the human form. Jonathan is available for hire as a freelance artist and for individual commissions.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Mini-bust of man with long nose and scarred face




The title says it all. Done in microcrystallin wax. About 3 1/2 to 4 inch tall. Hard to photograph.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Character art for B&B


Hey Joe and Luke, here is the 98 percent finished main character body art.

Friday, September 26, 2008

First Latex mask/life sized WED sculpture




This is the first project from Jordu Schell's class. I'm very happy with the results considering it was my first WED sculpture, first life size sculpture and first latex mask.

Torso-Anatomy study



This is a loose surface style anatomy study of a male torso in a particular kind of pose. About 14in high. Supported by plumbers piping and armature wire. Chavant NSP medium clay.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Colors! sketch: Tunnel Mouth




This is a quick and distorted sketch of on of my newest sculpture characters. This is really a color and value study.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Mouth Study-first mold/casting


While working on the below head maquette I was running into some problems getting the correct shape of the mouth and lips and so I made a small study sculpture in pro-clay. I then decided it would be a perfect and simple sculpture to experiment with mold making on. I made a one piece tin-silicone mold (using smooth on OOMOO 30) and cast in Activa Permastone which is both durable and cheap :). Original on the left, casting on the right.

Dynamic Head




I'm currently taking advanced sculpture w/ John Brown at Gnomon and our first project is to create a dynamic head with very sharp and defined features so that we learn more about the planes of the face and how to create good old fashioned depth.

This is my unrefined but essentially finished head maquette.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Lefty




Foot anatomy study. 4 in. Micrycrystalline wax.

Monday, June 23, 2008

"The Boxer of Calais"




The hand that I sculpted for fun in my earlier post grew into a full figure that is essenstially inspired by (but not a copy of) my favorite Rodin sculpture "Jean D'Aire" from the "Burghers of Calais" sculpture of the six men from the town of the same name walking to their certain deaths. This is why the general pose and naming of the character is similar (although I changed it because the positioning of the original is so unnatural looking.

The person or character is taken from an image that sprung up in my mind of this very rugged, thick boned, older man who has spent his life fighting with everything and everyone and his face and hands now are broken and healed again into this grizzled character. Here is exploiting his natural strengths and boxing so that he can channel his aggression and strength into something slightly more productive and safe.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Rodin study





This is a study from memory (not a straight copy) from my favorite Rodin sculpture "Jean d'Aire". Microcrystalline wax, approx 5 in.

Wax Sculpting










I think I've found my favorite maquette sculpting material: microcrystalline wax. It smooths beautifully and easily by hand. It's hard enough to hold shape well and it's soft enough (in heat) to mold with your hands. It accepts shaping from tools extremely well and it sticks to itself but not to you. It also has virtually zero odor. You also get the added bonus of this beautiful black and orange bronzed look.

These pictures are of a sculpture I made for Steven and Lisa Runolfson, owners of "La Caille" (The quail) restaurant in Salt Lake City. This sculpture is for Lisa and Steven's 30th wedding anniversary and it is part wax (the birds) and part super sculpey (the base). It was created in the loose "Bart Walter" style. The sculpture is approx 15 in long and about 9 or 10 in tall.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

DS concept sketch


Creepy Abandoned Subway w/ shafts of light

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Mudbox! - another bald head





Here is my first foray into Mudbox and i must say I'm happy with the results. Mudbox really does have a better layout than Zbrush.

This could be considered a sketch as I'm only about 3 hours in and the ears particularly aren't really as developed as the rest of the face. That said i think it's a lot better than my last digital face sculpture: http://jengalog.blogspot.com/2007/06/accidentally-looks-like-silver-surfer.html

Friday, April 25, 2008

untitled




Here is what I've been working on lately. I'm still not entirely happy with it. It really photographs in a way that makes the proportions seem all wrong. The concept is partially inspired by a fellow MTA student at MSU.

Pro-Clay and armature wire. Approx 6 in.

Mignola-style Shrike


I drew a Mike Mignola-styled sketch of my Shrike design on a post it. The Shrike is the supernatural antagonist character from Dan Simmon's series of 4 Hyperion books and I have always been in love with it from a creature design standpoint.

Monday, April 21, 2008

quick sketch - T-Bone!


Done on my Nintendo DS with the program "Colors!" Drawn from imagination after a little bit of 'prep' (i.e. looking at pictures of different steaks to see how they're put together.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Last Jr. Nightforce painting

This is supposedly the final Jr. Nightforce concept art/painting. It is of the magical box/cube that Riley finds. This box unfolds and creates a magical map that leads Riley to his next task at hand.

So I can't believe how effective it is to do a smaller version of a painting (i.e. a digital thumbnail or layout) and then to blow it up and finish it. In this case I created the first (thumbnail painting) in "Colors!" the beautiful painting program for the Nintendo DS. The 2nd picture is the blown-up/finished version that I did in photoshop. Total painting time from start to finish is no more that 2-2.5 hours!!!

1st: (sketch in colors)



2nd: (finished in photoshop)

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Rubber Johnny - Done! (basically)






Any changes from here on out probably won't be visible in photo form.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Rubber Johnny, 5th pass




I'm still trucking along. Lots of refining to the muscles and skin of the chest, stomach, some smoothing of the skin and head. I need to be done with the sculpt this week.