Wrinkles: These are folds of skin, either small and delicate or rather bulbous, in larger rolls. They can appear
on the neck, throatlatch, between the ears, between the
forelegs, on the pastern when flexed, in the elbow area,
on the flanks, on the hindquarter or were the buttock
meets the back of the gaskin when the hind leg is flexed
or extended. They’re also common on the face, such as
the brows and muzzle, and that wonderful squishy chin.
Studying the living animal and photos will reveal that
wrinkles are very common and can appear in the most
unexpected places. Because wrinkles are folds of skin,
they can also be more substantial like those on the crest
of a Welsh Cob stallion or Drafter, or sometimes on the
torso if the horse is really bending around, perhaps to
scratch his barrel. And it does not matter if a horse is
wiry or pudgy, various types of wrinkles always occur,
and so infusing them into our sculpture will do wonders for adding life’s texture and “touchability.”
Depressions and Concavities: Goo also manifests itself in the depressions and concavities muscle assume,
especially when in motion, as the flesh is mushed,
gooshed, pushed, pulled and pooched, forming dips
and channels that don’t exist when the horse is simply standing. Remember, the horse is a three-dimensional animal and so his muscles don’t simply move
over each other, they also dip in and out and smoosh
around each other during contraction or relaxation.
That is to say, muscles don’t only move back and forth
and up and down, they also move in and out. This
kind of goo does amazing things for sculpture by instilling a sense of mass and fleshiness, keeping it from
becoming a “flattened” technical depiction of anatomy we see in a diagram. Truly, muscles aren’t stiff,
fixed masses, but kinetic and squishy, dynamic features, producing lovely contours as they react to each
other in motion.
Sliding Skin: The skin isn’t attached to the muscles or
bone on the whole of its inner surface as though natured coated it with spray adhesive and smoothed it
evenly over the muscles. Rather, it is “tacked down” by
fascia at random points, allowing the skin to slide over
muscles or bony areas with relative ease. And the more
mobile an area, the more likely the skin is “slideable”
over that area. For example, the skin on the elbow has
a lot of sliding ability, which you can watch every time
a horse lifts his foreleg. Also look for this effect on the
ribs, stifle and shoulder. Watch how a horse flexes his
“The Goo Factor”
Amoeba: When studying motion, it is important not to
interpret the body as moving like a stick-figure or an
articulated paper doll. Granted, movement occurs at
the joints and those joints have parameters for articulation, but within those parameters is life. That means
it is a mistake to think only of the skeleton and forget
that its cloaked in flesh that smooshes and stretches
during articulation. This is the amoebic nature of flesh
KATHMAN
What kinds of goo exist? Well, a lot! Wherever there’s
something fleshy and mooshy, there’s goo. For instance:
hind leg and see how the stifle slides under the skin,
or when a horse breaths deeply, how his ribs ripple
underneath.
The substantial wrinkles on the neck of this Gypsy Cob look a bit
like soft pleats along the top of the neck.
KATHMAN
So what kinds of Goo are there?
This Miniature Horse has begun to turn his forehand, causing the
skin to wrinkle all the way down his neck and torso.
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