New Merbaby on its way and Posable Baby Tutorial

Today I spent working on another little merbaby.  She's just getting started. I took this picture to help me see her symmetry better.  I've got some work to do!

I finished a little tutorial on how to create a posable baby doll.  I can't wait for winter time so I can find more of these cute, furry gloves to turn into baby bodies!

Give Kyle a Hand (or two)

I like to sculpt my hands out of a hunk of of clay I can hold onto. Then when I'm ready to attach them to my sculpt, I just cut off the "handle" portion I've been using.

Kyle's legs and feet have come together nicely. I think it's funny how the hand always looks like a glove at first.

A foot takes form (Kyle)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baking Kyle

I bake my sculpts over a bed of stuff (Polyfill) and am sure to support their bends and extended limbs with more fluff. I'm still shopping for a convection oven I like well enough to use for all my sculpts. In the meantime, I use a home oven, and bake the sculpts in this roasting pan. It minimizes the amount of chemicals that get into the oven itself.

Here is a shot of Kyle before and after he is sanded. In the second picture, he is still wet from the wet sand paper I use.  I start with 320 grit and work my way to 1000 or so.  I have up to 1500 left over from when I used to make jewelry and barrettes.  I usually don't make my sculpt THAT slick...they'd be glass-like.  But, one pack of this paper lasts forever!

Notice how he's pretty lumpy in the above pictures.  I always sand.  Polymer clay expands a bit when it is baked so no matter how smooth your sculpt it, the clay will come out a little uneven, due to the way it expands. 

Tutorial: Sculpting Kyle's Legs

I've finished sculpting the top half of Kyle and I've heat set him with a heat gun, to just bake the top a bit. His tummy is still soft clay, for blending into his leg clay. I've handled his armature so much, I'll need to rewrap that leg.

He's got a nice face and dimpled chin.

Notice I just gave him a partial butt to begin with. Here I'm just adding on more pancakes of clay.

I keep the clay I've run through the pasta machine in sheets wrapped in Glad Wrap.

I fill out both legs at once. Notice he's missing a butt.

A thick pancake will take care of that.

Filling in this gap with a small pancake.

Smoothing out another butt cheek. I use my wooden tool first, then smooth with my fingers.

Ta-da!

Filling in the legs.

I add a fake foot to get keep my proportions right.

Notice how he's missing his muscles above the knee.

Good quads give a leg a manly look.

It's normal for the sculpts to be pretty lumpy at this state. I'll smooth him well just before baking and then sand him a bit, but he'll be mostly smooth already.

Keeping his lower half under wraps as he waits for more attention tomorrow.