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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Sculptor Verity Filipow’s work attracts attention on social media

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Verity Filipow's sculpture of Jodariel from "Pyre"

Though Instagram was primarily in the public eye this summer for snake emoji-based celebrity feuds, and Twitter has been best known recently for hosting an unfiltered Donald Trump,  both have also become platforms for artists to flaunt their pieces. Bristol-based sculptor Verity Filipow is one of the artists sharing her work with a growing fanbase online.

By day, Filipow creates models for the upcoming stop-motion film “Early Man” (2018), the latest picture from celebrated stop-motion animation studio Aardman Animations, also behind the beloved “Wallace and Gromit” (1993-present) series. Outside of work, Filipow shares photos of her sculptures of creatures and characters on Instragram under the handle @creaturecave and on Twitter under the handle @Creature_Cave. Filipow’s work, with surfaces both hewn and smooth and sporting fully-realized texture, detail and beautiful paintwork, is reminiscent of the art from video games such as Telltale Games' work, Runic Games' Torchlight series (2009-2012) and Supergiant Games' Bastion (2011) and Transistor (2014).Indeed, Filipow counts Supergiant’s art director Jen Zee among her influences, saying that Zee is a “huge inspiration.” It was this reverence for Zee’s art that drove Filipow to create a sculpture of one of the characters from Supergiant’s upcoming game Pyre (2017).

It is not difficult to see why Filipow would, as an artist, hold Zee's and Supergiant’s work in high esteem. Supergiant’s first effort, Bastion, won praise for its painterly characters and environments and also for its unusually active narrator, who chronicles the player’s every action in a continuous series of folksy aphorism, delivered in smoky, rumbling tones. Bastion's iconic cover art depicts its protagonist, The Kid, with his shock of wavy white hair, crouched contemplatively on piece of masonry with a shaggy sod of emerald green grass under him and an almost comically enormous war hammer resting behind him.

Supergiant’s second game, Transistor, also won plaudits for its art direction and, once again, the game enjoyed a well-executed piece of cover art: a gorgeous rendition of the game’s main character done in luscious greens and oranges. When the Daily caught up with Filipow via Skype, a framed print of this piece was visible in the background; she jokingly pronounced herself “a bit obsessed” with Supergiant’s games.

When Supergiant announced their latest game, Pyre (2017), earlier this year, Filipow was instantly aware.

“I’m really into Transistor, I’m really into Bastion, so as soon as they tweeted the trailer for Pyre I immediately watched it and was like 'Oh my God! These characters look amazing! I have no idea about the story, I have no idea what this is about but this look awesome.' So I immediately started sculpting," Filipow said.

Filipow began her sculpture with an armature, which she described as “just a skeleton on the inside to help support the sculpture.” Filipow builds these armatures herself out of “bits of brass, or steel, or aluminum or whatever [she] can find” and pointed out that these support structures are “really not that complex” and could often be as simple as “a stick with a ball at the end.”

Once the armature is finished, Filipow begins the sculpting process. Working with a wax-based clay called Monster Clay, which does not set, she lays the clay over the armature and shapes the sculpture for “however long - until [she's] satisfied.”

Once the sculpture itself is complete, Filipow creates a mold in “silicon rubber and then [casts] it in resin or some other material” and then, once casting is complete, assembles the sculpture, hides any seams and moves on to painting.

Filipow worked on the sculpture during her lunch breaks and in short, half-hour bursts. In all, the piece took an estimated 100 hours, spread over four months, to complete. 

As she was working on the piece, Filipow tweeted a work-in-progress picture at Supergiant and then another photo of the finished product. After working out the details of shipping the sculpture to Supergiant, Filipow posted the piece. The finished sculpture now resides in the display case of the studio’s California offices.

Filipow’s completion of a complex and polished piece on her own time was not an isolated incident but rather a manifestation of the intrinsic motivation to improve that continually drives Filipow to create outside of her day job. Filipow emphasized that the key to success in the arts is constant hard work.

“I think that people have the perception that it is really easy to get into the arts. It’s really not,” she said. “Working on my own stuff while I’m working a full-time job is no easy task. A lot of my family is like ‘you never go out, why don’t you go out and see the town?’ and I’m like, because I’m always working, I’m always practicing, I’m always trying to strive to be so much better.”

In addition to simply improving one’s skills, Filipow also stressed how important it is for creators to cultivate a robust online presence. “I think for anyone, any creative person, you need to have an online presence, whether it’s just a website or whether it’s through social media, especially in this day and age. It’s so important," she said.

When asked if she could see herself working in the games industry in the future, Filipow responded, “Absolutely! I really want to get into digital sculpture … and I’d love to do character models, or environments or anything really.” Filipow is also interested in creating designer toys, remarking that, “If I had my way, I would have my own studio and make my own pieces and sell that stuff online.”

Wherever her artwork takes her next, interested readers can find Filipow’s work on Instagram at @creaturecave and follow her on Twitter at @Creature_Cave. Information about commissioning Filipow can be found at verityfilipow.com/contact.