modeling

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act or occupation of forming models, or of bringing objects or figures to a desired form; specifically, in the fine arts, the act of a sculptor in shaping his model for any piece of carving, or the art of shaping models; also, the bringing of surfaces of the carving itself into proper relief and modulated relation; in painting, etc., the rendering of the appearance of relief and of natural solidity and curvature.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Fine Arts) The act or art of making a model from which a work of art is to be executed; the formation of a work of art from some plastic material. Also, in painting, drawing, etc., the expression or indication of solid form.
• noun a small plane for planing rounded objects.
• noun beeswax melted with a little Venice turpentine, or other resinous material, and tinted with coloring matter, usually red, -- used in modeling.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb Present participle of model.
• noun The art of sculpting models from clay etc. to create a representation of something.
• noun The representation of depth in a two-dimensional image.
• noun The profession of someone who models clothes.
• noun mathematics The construction and use of a computer model of a physical system.
• noun The learning of a new skill by copying other people.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of representing something (usually on a smaller scale)
• noun a preliminary sculpture in wax or clay from which a finished work can be copied
• noun sculpture produced by molding