VanTiki Mugs: Octopus Time Lapse - Other Crafts

V VanTiki Member Hawaii Joined: Nov 25, 2005 Posts: 1046	V VanTiki Posted posted on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 11:48 AM Babalu - I'm Soooooo happy to be playing with the clay again! glad you like the progress shots. I love it so much when other TC artists show their process - so I feel compelled to share as well. Charita - Mahalo! It is going to be hard to box that one up and send it away. Sigh.... BigToe - I'm happy to say that "Caution: Giant Squid" mug photos are mere sentences away! Robb - Yeah, it is beefy! Hewey - Ms. VanTiki shares your shipping concerns. I keep telling myself that I gotta do a few smaller works next, but big is so fun! OK - on to the new one! I call it "Caution: Giant Squid". Took a bunch of shots as the mug took shape. First off - the sketch. I really enjoyed making those tentacle mugs last year, and I thought I could expand on the idea with a bizarre "wine glass" type of mug - with the stem of the glass being a tentacle and the bowl being a skull. Fist step was spending an hour or so producing a zillion suckers of various sizes. Did these out of a vivid blue porcelain Next up I rolled out a hefty slab of the ceramic paper clay. THe clay looks red (the black streaks you see are mold - eew!), but it will be an off white when fired. THe wood strips on the side help me control the thickness of the slab After a couple of test rolls, I cut a piece of clay pie And roll it into a big pointy cone! NOw - the nifty thing about this paper clay stuff is you can attach dry clay to wet clay - that is how I could wrap the wet tentacle around the three-day-dry skull. After a few test fits, I scored and slipped the skull and tentacle together At this point I hit the tentacle with my blowtorch to firm it up. Wanted it to hold its shape without slumping before moving on to the next step. This is another great thing about paper clay - I can force-dry it with almost no worries about cracking (or so I am told). From this point on I added all the details. Texturing the back and "fleshy underside", adding some edging, and sticking all the little suckers in (which had dried out at this point, letting me press them into the wet tentacle without distorting them). And here we have the finished sculpt! Not quite as cute as my original sketch - but I can always try another! Mahalo for peeking, Henrik "VanTiki"

Babalu - I'm Soooooo happy to be playing with the clay again! glad you like the progress shots. I love it so much when other TC artists show their process - so I feel compelled to share as well.

Charita - Mahalo! It is going to be hard to box that one up and send it away. Sigh....

BigToe - I'm happy to say that "Caution: Giant Squid" mug photos are mere sentences away!

Robb - Yeah, it is beefy!

Hewey - Ms. VanTiki shares your shipping concerns. I keep telling myself that I gotta do a few smaller works next, but big is so fun!

OK - on to the new one! I call it "Caution: Giant Squid". Took a bunch of shots as the mug took shape. First off - the sketch. I really enjoyed making those tentacle mugs last year, and I thought I could expand on the idea with a bizarre "wine glass" type of mug - with the stem of the glass being a tentacle and the bowl being a skull.

Fist step was spending an hour or so producing a zillion suckers of various sizes. Did these out of a vivid blue porcelain

Next up I rolled out a hefty slab of the ceramic paper clay. THe clay looks red (the black streaks you see are mold - eew!), but it will be an off white when fired. THe wood strips on the side help me control the thickness of the slab

After a couple of test rolls, I cut a piece of clay pie

And roll it into a big pointy cone!

NOw - the nifty thing about this paper clay stuff is you can attach dry clay to wet clay - that is how I could wrap the wet tentacle around the three-day-dry skull. After a few test fits, I scored and slipped the skull and tentacle together

At this point I hit the tentacle with my blowtorch to firm it up. Wanted it to hold its shape without slumping before moving on to the next step. This is another great thing about paper clay - I can force-dry it with almost no worries about cracking (or so I am told). From this point on I added all the details. Texturing the back and "fleshy underside", adding some edging, and sticking all the little suckers in (which had dried out at this point, letting me press them into the wet tentacle without distorting them).

And here we have the finished sculpt!

Not quite as cute as my original sketch - but I can always try another!

Mahalo for peeking,
Henrik "VanTiki"

Post #428924 by VanTiki on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 11:48 AM