3D Illustration: John Lennon and his Rickenbacker

John Lennon
16.5 inches
wire, gouache, acrylic, gesso, aluminum foil, felt, pins, liquid laminate

For our final Illustration Techniques I project we had to make a 3D illustration of a musician to potentially go in Rolling Stone Magazine. I narrowed my list of artists down to David Bowie and John Lennon, and ultimately chose Lennon. I took pictures with my phone while I made him. It was more fun that I was expecting it to be, and definitely more rewarding towards the end when everything started coming together. At times I felt like a surgeon reattaching extremities, and other times I felt like a tailor, cutting out and piecing together the felt for the suit. I had to cut the pieces much like clothing patterns for them to drape properly.

Lennon was sculpted from this material called Paperclay. It is essentially airdrying clay made from volcanic ash, paper pulp and a few other random things. It was easy and hard to work with depending on situation. I made a basic frame from armature wire, covered it in aluminum foil then applied the clay to the structure. At some point I had to adjust the posture a little so that he can stand. I painted John with gouache, and added liquid laminate to his shoes for the shine. The suit is made from felt. The guitar is paperclay painted with gesso, acrylic paint. I used thin wire wrapped on tiny pins for the strings and tuners.

My professor, Ed Briant put up the pictures he took of the project on his website.

John joins the Mantel Collection:

Work in progress: