R. Ruggles

I sculpt and paint whimsical and delightful creatures. Follow along as I bring them to life. Subscribe to my newsletter to purchase original artwork and keep in touch.

  • Smoothing Giant Panda

    Sanding and troweling joint compound over the concrete paper clay to smooth the surface of the panda and correct any blemishes. Sand, fill, repeat. Wear…

  • Don’t Skip Primer

    Lesson learned. Magic Sculpt and epoxy clay need to be primed before painting with acrylic paint. Also, heavy body paint leaves lots of brush strokes,…

  • Cardboard Bird Armature

    Fill in the bird with cardboard strips and develop a rough shape for the bird. Bulking out the form with cardboard is very satisfying. I…

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  • Cardboard Armature for Giant Nuff Bird Sculpture

    Following the lessons from Laurence Vallières’ Online Course for Cardboard Sculpting, I’m attempting to make a giant version of my Nuff bird. This will be…

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  • Laurence Vallières

    I recently discovered and am obsessed with Laurence Vallières and her giant cardboard animal sculptures. I immediately signed up for her online class that teaches…

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  • Nuff Napping

    Stanley was my first sculpted Nuff bird, and I’ve been dreaming up even more Nuffs to accompany him. Dreaming + Birds = the napping Nuff…

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  • Color Testing with Procreate

    Unsure of the robot’s colors, I used my iPad and Procreate to mock up some colors in a quick digital format. Randomly dropping colors into…

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  • Painting Robot

    I had some struggles figuring out what color to paint my HiROo robot. His name is Dewy, and he’s a librarian robot the HiROo built…

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  • Robot Cutting Robot

    The irony of a future with AI is that today, I’m cutting a robot artwork with my Shobot. Robots cutting robots! Humanity’s days are numbered.…

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  • Sketch to Vector Art

    In this photo, you can compare my original sketch and the resulting vector version done on the computer. With this vectorized illustration, I can scale…

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  • Heart Feet

    The Magic Sculpt has cured, and I’m amazed at how fantastic the heart feet look. It adds a beautiful symbolism and looks magical and cartoonish.…

  • New Bird Legs

    The bird can stand again with more muscular metal legs made from screws. I also adjusted the tail feathers to form a point, reshaping this…

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  • Broken legs

    Often things don’t go as planed, this is when a lesson is learned. After working on my bird for an afternoon I pressed too hard…

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  • Bird for panda

    I began sculpting the little bird that will perch on the panda’s nose. I built the armature out of foam balls, dowels, and eva foam.…

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  • Book to wall

    I’ve decided to cut out my sketches and post them on the wall so I can interact with them more. It must be better than…

  • Specimens

    The HiROo collect specimens from human dreams and store them in a library full of originals. Each jar a perfectly preserved hologram of an idea.…