I had a very interesting assignment: find an interesting person around and capture what makes them unique in a clay model. So, I left my campus and bumped into Suresh, a friendly guy selling fruits and coconuts by a busy street in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
At first, Suresh was a bit shy. I didn’t want to push him, so I just hung around and made a quick drawing of him. I gave him the sketch a couple of days later, and that really broke the ice. He started chatting, introduced me to his family, and let me hang out and draw more about his life - his cart, his fruits, his customers, and all.
I spent a lot of time watching Suresh. He's a hard worker, always there with a smile, serving thirsty folks stuck at red lights with his fresh juice. In my head, I started seeing him like an angel in disguise. So, when I sat down to draw and sculpt, that’s the idea I ran with.
I started with some wire and foam to make a skeleton for my sculpture on a wooden base. Then I added clay – I even mixed the colors myself to get them just right. I tried to get his face to look just like Suresh, especially his eyes and smile. For his clothes, I sewed them out of cloth, just like real clothes. I made his hands and feet a bit bigger to show all the hard work he does. And, of course, I gave him wings to show he's like an everyday hero.
I painted my clay Suresh to bring out all the details and posed him in cool ways to take pictures. He really looked like a character straight out of a story.
I love playing around with 3D models and animations, so I scanned my clay model into the computer, cleaned it up in a program called Blender, and got it ready to be animated, giving my clay Suresh some moves!
It was awesome to take someone real like Suresh and show off how cool regular people can be through art and design.