3 kitties

Further to the sculpting a cat post, here's the kitties finished. They're roughly 1:6th, play scale. Made with Puppen fimo and painted and sealed with a matt glaze, then flocked and furred using merino wool, alpaca and tussah silk.

Their names are Kobie

Sully

and Thurston.

They were done for Moxie's mum. Who is nuts for having faith in me to do her pets justice. These are the only cats I've furred apart from a little head and the first realistic ones I've done. I've only done two kinda cartoony ones other than that. I guess these still look a bit cartoony, I'm not good enough to get them realistic yet. I'm not very happy with Mason but pretty pleased with the other two. Strangely, Kobie was my favourite sculpt, but my least favourite to fur and Mason was my least favourite sculpt but my favourite to fur.

A store?

I'm considering opening up a 'store' (etsy, artfire etc) to offer a couple of bits for sale. There'd be a custom dog obviously but I've been creating a couple of other bits that could go in, here's a sneaky peak... Or they will sit on my mantlepiece (Ludo safe) forever more.


I've made some more book buddies, the last litter all sold to rabbits united members with profits going to HoneyBunny's rescue, so thanks to everyone who bought one or more! I've decided that any future ones that might sell will also have a percentage go to rabbit rescue.

In my last clay order I got some sculpey 'bake and bend' clay. I had envisioned this being really rubbery and with a multitude of uses but I think I was being too hopeful. I had to experiment with baking temps to get it right, but it needs to be baked hotter than the puppen fimo I use so my plan to use it in conjunction with that might not work. This bunny has flexible ears anyway. And google eyes from Bree!

I've also decided to try and make some christmas ornaments. I found some cute ribbon at my local haberdashery and thought of making some little angels. Their wings aren't big enough to fly yet so they will have to grab onto the stars to keep from falling from the sky.

Speaking of rabbits someone posted a link to a dolls house rabbit hutch on RU the other day and I was inspired to make a miniature rabbit. I asked for models from RU and picked a bun named Rosie, a netherland dwarf. It was tricky working that small! I prebaked her eyes and ears and kept loosing them on the way out of the oven, they were so tiny. lol. I probably shouldn't have started with such a small breed of rabbit. So here's my 1:12th rabbit. I preferred it before flocking, but it's all a learning curve, needed to make it thinner... I'm going to try some 1:6th ones too. Sorry about the poor picture qualities here, It's dark and dreary and I'm no photographer.

Sculpting a cat

I thought I'd take some progression photos of my sculpting process. This does change all the time though, especially as this is only my third cat.

I tend to do a quick sketch of how I want it to look (unless I'm copying a specific pose from a photo) Since I'm not familiar with doing cats. I printed off an anatomy and I like to have a picute of the animal I'm creating too. I then make the armature bits and the basic body shape. The tool you can see is my trusty blending spatula. I use the bottom end rather than the knifey bit. It came in a kit with my first clay order.

 

I attach the legs, then create definition, paw pads etc,

I then bake the body so I don't smush it. Usually I will only bake the body if the paws will be on show so that I don't mess them up, otherwise I don't since I am TERRIBLE at attaching unbaked clay to baked clay. I put a bit of wire into the head so I don't need to touch it too much. I make the basic shape with my fingers then mark out the eyes and nose then add the eyes and definition with needle, knife and an embossing tool. Ears come last.

 

Then I try and attach the head, with much aggro. In this case I made the next too long and it kept on bugging me so I had to saw poor Kobie's head off and remove his neck and reattach and file to smooth. That's the joy of polymer clay. :)

Two naked kitties.