Harold Soriaga and his Superman sculpture
Harold Soriaga, a working father of two, sculpts his favorite characters in ceramic and clay. After starting his hobby eight years ago, he has now around 50 sculptures.
By TYRONE A. VELEZ
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — While fans of comic superheroes get to collect comic books, trading cards, DVDs or toy figures, even going to great lengths to buy these things, one fanatic makes interestingly otherwise.
Harold Soriaga, a working father of two, sculpts his favorite characters in ceramic and clay. After starting his hobby eight years ago, he has now around 50 sculptures.
His works were exhibited last June 13 to 19 at the Abreeza Mall. Many Davaoeños at first thought they were looking at a collection of imported sculptures, only to find out they were created by one local hobbyist. Indeed, Soriaga’s works showed great details in costumes, muscled frames and poses of popular characters from DC such as Batman, Superman and Justice League and from Marvel like Wolverine, Hulk, Captain America, Thor and Spiderman.
And he was surprised to get so many positive reactions. “There was even a priest who said these reminded him of his childhood days when they would wear superhero costumes,” Soriaga told davaotoday.com.
Surprisingly, this Davao native has no formal schooling in sculpture.
He shared that he picked up this hobby after his son’s birthday when he made a figure of Batman using Plaster of Paris. He added that using a substance not intended for sculpture was not easy, “(I) just made a lump of muscles and a pair of slit as eyes. That was my Batman.”
And that experience prodded him to learn how to sculpt by researching on methods through the Internet then doing this during weekends after work.
The process starts with making a wire frame for the figure then molding clay into it, then sculpting and adding the details. After this, the figure would be baked to dry, and then finally painted over. Each figure, which is about a foot high, takes about three months to complete.
He said he imagines the poses of his figures without copying from drawings or other sculptures, except for the Superman figure dragging up a car while in flight.
It takes a lot of patience, he noted, to work with clay. “When I do wet clay, I have to do it quickly before it dries,” he explained, citing the helmet of Magneto, a character of X-Men. “I did the helmet three times over because each time something goes wrong, I had to start all over again,” he said.
Among his collection, Soriaga said Spider Man was the most difficult to sculpt “with all those lines and webs all over his costume.” His Spidey comes perfect though with the signature crouch and web slinging pose.
He also shared that he gets tips and critique from his wife, Jolla, who paints. His background in mechanical engineering might have helped in this hobby.
After his exhibit, he said, there are requests to buy and do more superhero figures. However, he confessed, “it’s hard to depart from your work.” So he only selects some of his works for sale.
He will possibly do a repeat exhibit come December. And what would be in store for his next project? “I still have to do Iron Man. Aside from superheroes, I want to do Transformers,” Soriaga said.
Just like superhero movies, we would like to see that sequel. (Tyrone A. Velez/davaotoday.com)
