Clay Gift Project

The head of the figurine was the first piece I worked on. The base of the head took around 4 hours total to complete, with the smoothing of the head taking an additional hour. I then set the head to dry for the rest of the day, making the process a total of 24 hours. First, I created a ball out of some regular tinfoil and tried my best to smooth it out and create a nose area. After, I made a square of clay with equal thickness and wrapped it around the ball, cutting off the pieces that didn't fit. I stuck two black marbles in the eye sockets and placed clay around them to keep them in, then created some ears. I finished by smoothing out the area and adding details such as moons, circles, a nose, and a mouth.

After the head, I started working on the body of the cat. I created a bean-like shape out of tinfoil and covered with another slab on clay. I began building onto the body, making it thicker and creating the spots where the legs and tail would go. This is also around the time I had the idea of making a bell collar around the neck, so I began working on sculpting the bell. Once the body dried a bit, I began smoothing it out with clay water and once this process was complete, another 24 hours total had passed over a span of a week.

I used cheap acrylic paint for this figurine. I used a black base mixed with a bit of blue and white for the main color and, for the accents, I used brown mixed with white paired with a feather-edged flat brush to get the fur strokes. I also painted the marbles to make it feel more like an individual cat, as well as added the silver accents with metallic paint. I chained the bell collar together, made sure the crevices were all painted, and made sure the figure had 72 hours of drying time.

This marked the end of the project, and I was very happy with the outcome. Originally, I had wings attached, but ended up not using them in fear they would fall off in postal. On April 18th, 2022, the figure was sent to Tennessee to my best friend. She received it in perfect condition on April 20th.

Right now, the figure sits next to the ashes of Tweety, who the figure was based on. It's also right next to a painted rock of her other past cat, Nemo, that I also made for her.