My diversity penguins

One of the first characters I made was this little cartoon penguin.  It started life as a charm,  that shortly after joined my Christmas decorations range.

I love this little fellow so much, that when I started to make boxes,  I really wanted to do one of my little penguin friend.

Shortly after making my penguin love box, we where fortunate enough to witness a wonderful landmark in the evolution of mankind;  gay civil partnerships became legal.

I was so happy  for humanity, I wanted to celebrate the occasion.  So I decided to make 4 little statues and I felt that my penguin was perfect for the job.

I made 2 gay penguins;  2 penguins kissing,  one wearing a bow tie and the other wearing a scarf in the gay flag colours.  There is a little gay pride flag on the base.

Then it was the lady's turn.

2 statues of the same kissing penguins, but this time one had a flower and the other had a handbag.  They also had a gay flag on the base.

One of each of these statues have found their forever homes. After them being avaliable in my shop for a few months,  I was contacted by a lovely lady wanting a commission made.

She said that her best friend (Jacob) was a nurse who was also gay and she wanted the statue turned into a box for his 21st birthday.

I  was particularly proud of the name badge. 

Several months after this,  I was commissioned to make a box for a disabled people's help center called "The hub". 

As soon as I decided to make this donation, I knew exactly what I wanted to make and I felt that it really had to be my penguin again. 

They were really pleased with it and it has lived in the window of the premises on the main high street in Epsom, Surrey ever since.

I have ventured into more realistic penguins,  but I will always love my original cartoon penguin.

My penguin has donned his white coat again! This time it's for a name plaque that I have made for my GP.

Assuming that I am able to keep working as a clay sculptor,  I am certain that my cute little penguin will feature in future projects.

Copywrite. Why I can't make some things even if I really want to

The definition of copyright;

"the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material."

This is in the laws of basically every country.  If you discover that someone copying your work,  you have the right to legally force them to stop and you may sue them.

It will go to court and if a judge finds that it is close enough to breach the copyright,  then they will issue you a CCJ.

This means that you get it on your credit record and that becomes absolutely pants.  You will have to pay a large fine  (anywhere from thousands to millions), your court costs and the court costs of the people suing you.

Any insurance that you have,  will not cover you for this because you broke the law.  So,  it can ruin lives.

Without naming any names,  there are a lot of companies that have whole departments where looking for people who have infringed their copywrite. They have gone after fan art, very small businesses and even people who reviewed their products.

If you are making any money from it in any way,  you need the written consent of the owner or they can sue.  No exceptions.

Most companies will want payment for this consent,  if they decide to entertain the idea.  They can say no, with no reasons necessary.

I have terrible luck.  I bunked school once and was caught by a member of staff who only came in to the school once a year to do dyslexia assessments. I have a hundred similar stories of me trying to do something naughty and getting caught.  I  never get away with it.  NEVER!

I assure you all that I would truly love to make "Game of thrones" pieces,  or Disney,  Nintendo,  Nicalodian,  Saga,  Waner brothers etc. I just can't afford to. 

Yes, I know that a lot of other people do this and you can find tones of non official merchandise and they have sold for years with no problems.  I think they must have got my portion of luck.

On the positive side,  this allows me to focus on developing my own style. My art can come from my creativity and imagination.  When you copy,  you don't grow. 

Over the last year,  you can see my progress in my work.  I  have  developed so much as a sculptor and my biggest hope for my life is to be able to keep my business going, so that I can Continue this journey.

Finishing touch. Why I use varnish

Baked Fimo is very tough,  it is water proof and tougher than most varnishes. I have often heard of people's creations which after many years, have had the varnish crack and flake off and the clay itself is as good as the day it was baked. So, why bother?

If I use mica powder,  that needs sealing in, or the surface layer rubs off.  But what about non micaed pieces?  Baked clay is very matt.  It is so much so,  that you find it hard to see small details in a pattern and the colours are dingy.

This is a piece I have micaed.  The vine  inside of the circle has been varnished, but the rest has not.  The flower in the circle has not been varnished either.

Doesn't this just perfectlyshow the difference?  It just makes all the colours pop!

You can achieve this without varnishes,  through a series of sanding and buffing.  This really does look amazing and I would love to do this, but it is not an option for me. I suffer from Fibro myalgia, the pain it causes in my arms is significant at the best of times.

You can't just use any old varnish,  it has to be a polyurethane. Some varnishes reacts with the chemicals in the clay and turns it cloudy and yellowish over time.  Worse than this,  some react  and after a few months of being fine, it goes sticky.  Not just slightly tacky, proper sticky.

Although you only have one group of varnishes  ( other than resins,  wich I have no experience of) it is by no means a small group.  So which one to choose?

Most people start offby getting Fimo'sown varnish.  It is a tiny jar of watery varnish, that costs a lot and is not that shiny.  Thoroughly underwhelmed,  the serch is then on.

I found a lot of really good advice  (like thebluebottle.com) but they mostly talk about products you can only get in America.  This is no good for me in the UK, so I tried a few different ones out.

Some seemed to take days to dry,  where lacklustre, where not as strong as the clay  (chipped) or did not cope with the flexibility of the clay  (it is in the PVC family) so it cracked or flaked.

Then, after a few months I finally found it.  The one!  The quest was finally at a end,  I banked the experience points,  looted the dead and went back to town to get a new quest.... wait,  wrong hobby.  That's D&D 😄

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU THE WINNER 🎆🎉🎇🎊

Ronseal ultra tough hard glaze, clear polyurethane gloss varnish.

Wile I love this varnish, I do feel that I need to point out its more negative elements.  I  would say using the word bad here, would really be over the top.

1) drying time
It takes a few hours to dry.  I would say that it's around 4 hours,  but I honestly have not timed it.

2) colour
 It's not clear, it's amber coloured  (does what it says on the tin, my arse!). It does dry almost clear,  but if you put more than a very thin coat onto something white, it can suffer from jaundice.

I advice you practice applying a very thin coat,  I  have got it down to a fag paper. It does look far better with a decently thick coat and you can do this on most things.

3) quantity
comes in big tins.  You want to pour some into a airtight container, I use a jam jar. This is important for 2 reasons;

A) If it gets knocked over,  you would much rather be cleaning up half a jar's worth,  rather than a gallon.

B) all the time you have the lid off and the varnish is exposed to the air, it will set.  You will notice that you soon need to use something pointy to break through the skin that forms over the liquid varnish.

So, if you used it direct from the tin,  you will have to throw half of it away.

4) brush cleaning 
Your going to need to use white spirit.

I use a  plastic dish that I put in the sink and then pour a bit of white spirit in.  You wash the brush in that,  then move the dish out of the way and put some washing up liquid on the brush and rub in,  then rinse.  Then move the plastic pot back into the sink and repeat it all again.

Twice through usually does it.  Just make sure that you get right into the base of the bristles.

5) fumie
I don't varnish in bead  (like I do with the sculpting) this is because the 3 guinea pigs that live in a humongous cage in my room,  would all get high on the fumes.

You will need a well ventilated area.

6) the obvious.  It drips 😲
Put down a plastic black bin bag cut open,  weighed down at the edges.  Have kitchen roll to hand and a tray you don't mind varnish getting on  (to put bits to dry). Wear latex gloves.

7) you can not bake it
While you can bake Fimo as many times as you want,  you can no longer bake it once it has been varnished.

See not that bad and most of these would be true for all varnishes.

The only time I don't varnish a creation,  is when the person buying it specificallyasks me not to.

I have not looked into mat varnish, as I really don't see the point.

Lots of cat cuddles

As I have mentioned before,  I look through animal pictures on Google to get most of my inspiration.

A few months into the business,  I came across my most used picture. I was looking under the search term "cute animals" and amongst them was this picture of a really cute black and white pair of cats cuddling.  I will share the link rather than the picture as I don't want to infringe anyone'scopywrite.

http://www.redbarninc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/black-cats-cuddle-cute-heart-Favim.com-418491.jpg

Well you see what I mean,  it screams "you must put me on lots of boxes!  I am definitely the cutest protrail of cats you will ever find ".

With an argument like that,  how could I refuse?

At verious points,  I have made my version of this.  I have also done it with different types of cats.  Mabe one day I will do it with the wild cats too.

Some have found their forever homes and some are waiting hopefullin my shop,  but whatever happens they are never alone.

As a identical twin,  I  dislike my own company.  So, spending forever in a loving cuddle sounds great to me.  

I also volunteeras a cat behaviouralist  (I have studied feline behaviour and psychology), so these boxes are probably the closest to my heart.  

I think I will be making variations for the rest of my career. I will never make a mould though,  I  love freehand sculpting too much. 

My dragon's first ever cousin and I could not be more proud!

As all who follow my blog know,  yesterday I posted my first ever tutorial  (other than the page showing my swerly parren). I  posted it on various polymer clay groups,  fantasy groups and dragon groups,  only really expecting a couple of likes.

This morning however, I saw that someone hadactually commented 😲

It was a lovely woman called Jamie  (a complete stranger). She said that she could not sleep last night,  so she decided to follow my tutorial with some scrap clay.

She had never made a dragon before and had found that when other people had posted illiterated tutorials, they where difficult to follow,  but  she didn't find that to be the case with mine.

Here he is!  It's not the greatest photo,  but  it's good enough to see that it's a truly fabulous little fellow,  especially since his mum was tired and doing this for the first time.  I  assure you that he is far superior to my first.

I asked her if there was any part of the tutorial that she thought I needed to change in any way and she said no.

I was so happy that I actually cried a little and I am not a crying kind of girl!  One of my big dreams/ ambitions, is to become a polymer clay tutor.  There are a fair few out there, but most teach you how to make jewellery, beads, replica food and model babies and canes.

I want to teach model making and home decor items such as my boxes and bowels. I am too ill at the moment to do this,  but I am slowly working on writing up some lessons and handouts.

I have even got  (through much scrimping and saving) all the kit required for 8 people plus me. As soon as I stop shaking  (it's been happening for over a week and is really annoying, I am having to adapt my clay techniques to cope with it) I will be filming my first YouTube tutorial.

So, unbeknown to the lovely Jamie,  when she decided to combat the boredom of insomnia. She had actually validated all of my dreams and hard  (usually painful) work.  I'm not delusional,  I can actually teach 🎆😆🎉

How I make my dragons in 30 steps. Fimo / Polymer clay tutorial

Today I am going to show you how to make this lovely blue dragon.  I  have used my swerly clay pattern that I show you how to achieve here How to make swerly patterned clay

You will need:

• 2 different coloured clay (Fimo/polymer clay)
• 2  crystal beads for eyes and any crystals you are going to have it hold or mounted in its head. 
• Some florists wire and something to cut it 
• A pin or pin tool 
• A rounded tool for smoothing and making the eye socket. 

A base to mount it.  I  have  used a lid of a box I had previously made and baked.

Method

1) Roll out a ball of clay,  making sure that you have it smooth.  Then, one Side you roll between your fingers and pull out into the tail. Using the same technique,  pull out a thicker and stumpyer bit for the neck as shown in the above picture. 

2) Putting the body to one side,  we are going to make the legs.  The top 2 are the arms and they are in the position to hold something.  

Make sure you start out with 4 smooth balls the same size. Then you use the same technique as with the neck and tail, to pull the clay out into a long cone shape.  You then manipulate it into the right shapes as pictured. 

3) Very easy.  Get the body and press it firmly onto it's base.  Remember,  the  base needs to be able to go though an oven baking without melting. 

Pinch along the back to create a spine. 

4) Using your contrasting colour,  you are going to roll out 12 tiny claws, like in the pipicture above.

5) Push the back legs onto the body and get the feet into a position you like,  then make sure they are secure.  

Then add 3 claws onto each feet.

6) If you are planning on having your dragon hold anything,  then add this to the front and push it against the chest to start to secure it in place. 

7) Add the front arms.  Make sure you press them to the body,  so they are firmly attached. You then position the arms and paws where you  want. Make sure that they are firmly stuck to the base and the crystal,  as you want the crystal to be very secure. 

8) Now add 3 claws to each of the front paws.  They will overlap.

9) It's time for the tail to get some TLC. Position it how you like  (I often bring it round the back legs ), remember that if you have it lifted off the ground,  it is far more likely to break while baking.  

I advise you insert an extra bit of florists wire to strengthen it.  Don't forget to cover up and smooth off the resulting hole in the tip. 

I  decided to add a spiral in the contrast colour.  Make a small sausage and press it flat,  then twist it with your fingers. 

10) Put the body to one side as we are going to make it's head.  

Roll out a smooth ball,  then roll on side of the ball to make a kind of pear shape  (like in the picture).

11) Using a ball tool,  uo make eye sockets on both sides.  

Remember that predatorshave their eyes to the front and prey have their eyes to the sides. 

12) If you are using crystals for eyes,  place a bit of baking foil in each of the backs of the eye sockets  (shiny side out) and smooth it in place with the ball tool. 

If you are using a ball of clay or something not reflective,  don't bother with this.  It will make your crystals sparkle. 

I  like to use coloured Swarovski crystals. 

13) Add your eyes to each eye socket.  

14 ) Putting the head to one side,  we are going to make eyelids.  

You want a small sausage tapered at both ends,  for the bottom lid.  For the top lid,  you want a little semi circle that is flat and tapered at the corners. 

I  have  put a eye crystal next to them,  so you can get a size idea. Obviously you want 2 of each unless you are making a cyclops. 

15) Put the bottom eyelid in place.  Make sure that it is overlapping the crystal a little bit,  as it is the job of the eyelids to hold the crystal in place. Press it firmly to the head.

 16) Now for the top eyelid.  Just like before,  make sure that it overlaps the crystal a little bit and press it down firmly.

17) Smooth the joint  of the top eyelid over with the head.

This is so it looks like part of the head rather than something that is attached.  It looks far more natural.

Repeat this process with the bottom eyelid and then repeat on the other eye.

18) Add 2 little balls of the contrasting colour to the tip of the nose and press down firmly.

19) Using your pin tool,  wiggle some nostril holes in the blue dots and then use it to make a mouth.  I  turn up the ends for a happy look.

Sometimes, I make 2 of the claws in white and place them under the top lip as fangs.  Use your pin tool to make sure they are firmly attached.

20) The head goes to one side and we are back to the body.

Remember how you smoothed the eyelids to the head?  Well we are doing the same thing for the shoulders.

In the picture, I have done the 2 on the right and not the left so you can see what a difference it makes.

21) It's time to put the head on the neck.  Make sure you push it down firmly, so it bonds well to the neck.

If your neck is thin or long,  you will need to put some florists wire down the neck.  Leave some sticking out,  so you can inpale the head on it.

22) Roll out a tiny sausage that is long enough to go around the neck.

23) Put the sausage around the neck in the join between the head and the neck.

24) Smooth the sausage intothe joint to strengthen the joint and make it look natural.

Position the head in a pose you like.

25) Make 2 thin sausages out of the contrasting colour,  then press them flat.  Then while holding one end,  you twist the other.

Do this with each ofthe 2 sausages, then place them above the eyelid,  going in a slight curve down the back of the head.

Then put it to one side.

26) Cut 2 L's of florist wire.  I hold it against the dragon and then I can see how big to make them.

You're going to need a few centimetres of wire out the bottom of the wings to stick into the dragon's  back.

27) Roll out 2 balls. On each of the balls, push one of the wire Ls through the middle until the ball is in the corner.

Roll and pull the clay out, like you did with the tail.  One side of the L is thicker and it stops half way and the other is thinner, covering the whole wire completely. Make sure you cover and smooth out the tip.

Use your fingers to pinch out a little hook at the corners.

28) Roll out 2 balls of the contrasting colour. Using your hands to flatten the balls into disks,  the thickness you want the wing.

You then press the sides of the disk against your board,  to turn it into a triangle.

Then using any of the tools handles ect,  put in 3 dents along the long side and smooth out any creases this causes.

Then push the tangle into the L's.

29) Roll out some long very thin sausages in the mane colour.

Start them from the corner and bring them to the top of each of the dips in the edge.

Push them down firmly, to make sure they are attached.

30) Push the wire ends of the wings into the dragon'sback at an angle.  I  tend to do both wings at once,  so they lay right.  

Push until the side of the wings are securely attached to the back,  making sure that the rest of the wing is laying right and not getting caught up in his leg. 

Smooth down the join of the wing to the back and ad a polished pebble for a front horn if you wish. 

All finished!  

You can do verious embellishment's like spikes on the back and various head frills and horns.  Play around and see what you like. 

Baking

Follow the instructions on the packet. 

I  personally use the temperature needed for Fimo professional  (110oc) but as it is a thicker piece,  I  bake it for an hour. 

I  generally cover the tray it is on in baking foil  (as my husband don't like the smell of Fimo in the oven). 

I  would use a oven thermometer to make sure that your work is at the right temperature.  Too low and it stays like soft clay inside,  too hot and it will scorch.  

You need to leave it in long enough to make sure that your creation gets to 110oc all the way through, as a soft core will cause cracking and even breakages. You can't bake for too long,  as the clay is happy at that temperature. 

You can give it a coat of varnish once it has cooled,  but only certain varnishes.  I  will do a blog on that in the future. 

Do show me your end results and let me know if you have any questions and tell me if you found this helpful. 

Good luck and big hugs.