Well i was hoping to have the skin completed on my ouroboros to show you today but sadly i barely had an hour or so to do anything today. I did get the upper body skin on however & can show you that at least. It still requires a little work smoothing it out, adding the face features & of course the scales as yet. Here it is so far.
I will get some more done with it tomorrow. I was going to make it a specific breed of snake at first but then thought, no. If this turns out good enough to put in my Etsy store i could harm sales by making it a particular breed of snake. After all we all have our favourite breed of dog, cat, horse etc. So in the end i am simply going with a random snake design, no particular breed in mind. Saying that hopefully different people may see some familiar snake similarities in the design who can say.
I have also decided not to go with the way i was going copy the final design too. The ideal method for creating the skin would of course have been to use real air drying modelling clay or sculpting clay. Not only would that be a little expensive it would also go against the point of this blog ie: You 'don't' have to use what the experts say you do nor do you have to buy the most expensive tools either. More on the tools i am actually using in a second. I was going to cut the final design in two then copy it in plaster but then decided to leave it whole as the soft clay i am using would get damaged too easily whilst cutting into the harder PM armature underneath. As i know that this type of clay won't adhere to liquid latex i am going to use that method instead. Also if i give the liquid latex a supporting shell of plaster i won't have to use a huge amount of liquid latex either. Thus saving even more on the projects already minimal costs.
Modelling clay wise i am using my tried & trusted 'cheap' favourite child's plasticine, or as it is being called now modelling clay. The last time i purchased this it was a great bargain at 70p (UK Pound) but now i can get it at a much lower 40p. Here it is for those who have not yet read my earlier custom mask making posts.
You don't get a whopping load of it but a few packets for the current price still works out cheap, I purchased the stores entire stock of thirteen packets for £5.20p. More than enough for this project & one or two more i have underway lol.
Now to my inexpensive tools that mostly would be found around any home especially any crafters or sculptors home anyway.
In no particular order:
1: A section of bamboo skewer.
2: A craft knife.
3: A simple household knife.
4: A small section of plastic straw.
5: A small wooden rolling pin (The handles run free from the main roller).
6: A small section of webbed cloth (from one of my sons 'half mask' projects).
The use of each of these items i think is self evident? The bamboo skewer for poking small holes etc. The kitchen knife for smoothing etc. The cloth mesh for making the scales in the clay (more on that technique later), the plastic straw for cutting out the eyes etc. The rest i know need no explanation lol.
So that's how things look so far. Hopefully tomorrow i can get a lot more done. So until then have fun. More soon.
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