Incredible, amazing realistic sculptures of creepy, grotesque, mottled skin and uncannily gigantic proportional figures that have adorned the Millennium Dome as well as Charles Saatchi’s living room for a number of years now. made by an Australian hyper-realist sculptor in UK Ron Mueck.

His early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s television and films, notably the film “Labyrinth” staring Bowie. He moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. That led him in turning to fine art, particularly, sculpture.In the early 1990s, still in his advertising days, Mueck was commissioned to make something highly realistic, and was wondering what material would do the trick.

The real magical appeal of Mueck’s sculptures lie in the meticulous process, which begins with:

1. crafting of a series of small clay models - this enables him decide on figure positioning
2. Mueck then creates a series of drawings in different sizes - this enables him to make decisions about scale
3. Next, Mueck sculpts the figure in clay - this includes fine details of expression and skin texture
4. a mould of the sculpture is made using silicone (or in the case of larger works, fibreglass).
5. Mueck completes the process by meticulously painting (by hand) finer details (like veins and skin tones) on the surface, before finally sculpting the eyes, bringing his creations to life.

Source: Ron Mueck