Creating a custom

     So, hi again! I just got a new commission this past weekend for a 5" to 6" Oswald (hippo) and I've been working on it steadily for the past four days now. I just finished painting it and wanted to show you guys how it came out, as well as the process I go through to sculpt a figure. 

This pic shows a bit of foil and a bit of polymer clay. I use the foil as a skeleton type structure, like a guide. It also saves on polymer plus your piece will cook evenly with less of a chance of cracking or breaking. I then start to roll out the clay and then place pieces all around until all the foil is covered.

                 

                                   

       This is when it started to take shape and make sense. I added the feet and mouth.

               

        Here I added the arms, tail, eyes, and dots. I use my fingers and a bit of water to smooth it all out. As you can see, compared to the original Oswald, the custom is a tad different but still looks pretty darn close.

        In this pic, I had already baked the figure at 275º F for 10 minutes and let it cool for about 45 minutes. Then, after the sculpt completely cooled, I started with a grey base coat of acrylic paint. For some reason, I always have issues with spray paint directly on Sculpey. I don't know if it's a chemical reaction. Adding a couple layers of acrylic, and then spray paint, works for me. After the base coat I started painting it with several layers of a deep blue acrylic.

         Here I spray painted the pink on oswald as well as the  light blue.

         After painting oswald I spray a matte clear coat over   him to seal in the layers of paint.And finally the finished   product.
                                                                    

       Hope you enjoyed reading this, and hope this helps someone out there.