Early Work

I apologize for the pictures here. I was using a very cheap, disposable, point and shoot camera and this is what came of it. I meant to go back and get better pictures, but I never did. 


Blue and Brown were created in 2006, I believe?

To the right, the brown blob, was supposed to be the 'brother' to the finished blue dragon. He never got finished, and shortly after these were taken, I had to move out of that apartment, and put some boxes in to storage. The box that held him somehow accidentally got put into storage, and when I finally found him some long, hot, months later, he was a giant mess, half baked, half cracked, smooshed in other places from the other items in the box - so he ended up being thrown away. 

The blue dragon with the rainbow scales and wings was my very first dragon. 

He taught me mostly what NOT to do with polymer clay in larger forms such as this. 

See, the book I was creating him from was meant for kids. I bought it because it had him in it. The major fatal flaw for Blue there was the instructions say to make his body solid. I was making him about 2-3 times larger than the scale in the book, so his body is solid clay. 

At the base of his tail, he's about 3 inches thick. Thats a lot of polymer clay to bake at one time. His tail is a lot thinner, as you can see here, and many of his other parts, the scales down his back, his teeth, his horns, are also a lot thinner. 


When I baked him, he was in the oven for about an hour. I know now that wasn't nearly long enough. If you look closely in that last picture, you'll see on his one side a large ear, but on the other, no ear at all. Thats because when you under bake polymer clay, it crumbles as it cools. The polymer is only half way bonded, leaving the finished piece weak and very fragile. 


Thats what happened to old Blue. 

He broke into about 15 pieces within a week after baking him. Tail snapped into thirds, all his scales came off, his teeth broke, he lost both arms, part of both legs, and finally, his head broke from his body. This was while he was sitting here on the shelf, next to my kitchen appliances, just like he was pictured here. This was his display spot, and after I took these pictures he just started crumbling apart. I couldn't fix him because the pieces that came off, just turned into smaller bits of crumbly clay.


RIP Blue. You had a short life, but you had friends while here.

Little pinky and Brown. I didn't make pinky. Don't remember where I got her though.

You can't see her face, but that was Ms. Witch. She had lime green hair that was formed by squishing the clay out of a clay gun extruder. Her hat and cape were made from black clay mixed with irridescent glitter for bling. She was given a pumpkin candy bucket, but the pumpkin burned while baking. Early mistakes are the ones you learn the most from. Was a lot of fun making her.

Again, hard to see the sparkles. But they are there. She has chipped some over the last few years, but is still intact.

Mr. Snowman there was still in progress. I finished him then sold him a few weeks later to one of my co-workers who collected snowmen. No idea if he's in one piece anymore or not. 

So this past week, after finally digging up the password to the photobucket account all the above images are stored in, I did some shopping, reading, thinking, and then more shopping. 

Rather disturbing picture, isn't it? I especially like the drafter that has a blue wire for a neck, and the pinto without the head. Well, they be mine, as soon as I can get off to the post office and mail out the money order for them.

Yes, I bought broken toys. On purpose.

What am I going to do with them, you ask? 

Ah, that will be for the NEXT blog post.

At the same time as I was looking at these from the MH$B , I also bought stuff to repair them. Amazing Apoxie Sculpt is also on its way, as well as a DVD I can NOT WAIT to get here, a Model Horse Prepping Instructional CD from Feldman Studios. There is also a booklet on how to make model horse halters and a traditional PAM coming from ebay too. 

I also got a new pasta machine from Sculpey, to replace the one I had that no longer had a crank handle (another reason for a year of no sculpting) for $13 at Joanns!

I also received the two books previously mentioned, and have already spent hours pouring over them, learning and memorizing. 

The Amazing Apoxie will not just be for repairing and rescuplting the bodies above, but it is also a sculpting medium in its own right, and I'm hoping that I can use it to create prototypes for lots of other things to be cast into resin. 

The baby steps are on their way - and progress is being made. I'm hoping to have some actual work done on the dragon and the bodies pictured above by mid July.