Here are two recent commissions I did. Both are creatures I have never made before and I think both turned out well, especially the second one.
The first is this
He's a professor and belongs to a friend of mine. This was the first time I'd made a human and to be honest, although I was happy with him, his skin darkened too much in the oven while I baked him. One of his hands was way too dark. I was pretty happy with his face and hair though. The character wears a lot of hair gel so I glazed his hair to make it look wet and keep it authentic.
He holds a death ray gun in his hand, which was probably the hardest thing to make. I used wire supports in his legs and the arm holding the gun but stupidly didn't make the wire go through the hand so of course when I put the gun in it, it threatened to break at the wrist and I had to bake him on his side.
I have problems thinking out ideas. Of course it's logical that the wire had to go right down the hand but I never thought of that. How I think bugs me a lot. I try to be logical but it comes out wrong. Anyway, I'm happy with this and I'm glad it didn't turn into a complete failure for a first try at a human.
Human heads are really hard to make though; I'm used to making muzzles and beaks on the front of the head and to make one that has no muzzle was strange for me. I like him though!
Here is the other commission, a ram. I've never made a ram before either but he was fun and fairly simple to make. His horns were the hardest part because I was afraid they would droop while he was baking and they weren't supported with wire since I didn't think they would need it. However I put in card supports to keep them in place in the oven and it worked fine.I like how I did his legs and hooves, they worked really great for a first try so that's something else I know I can do now.
I glazed his horns to make them look nicer and I think the hardest part with him was the different coloured markings. To make those, I make really thin bits of clay and try to blend them onto the body. I think the blending worked best on the legs. Blending is easiest with softer clay so you can rub it with your fingers and it will just smooth on to the rest of the clay.
I used reference drawings for both of these characters.
~Lara
