Inspired by Ace of Clay, I'm gonna be
creating my very first sculpture using
this one that I found in the thrift
store and turning it into something
completely different
here goes!
♪
here is my victim: this cute little koala
as soon as I saw this koala it made me think of a
cat for some reason and I thought maybe
I could turn it into a lion if I
extended its rear-end made, the mane
around the Koala ears, and then extended
his snout
I decided to take some
inspiration from Devin Elle Kurtz over on
Instagram (and if you know anything about
this artist - which you should, I'll have
them linked in the description - this lion
is not going to be your ordinary lion
now before I even get the clay out I had
to bulk out the sculpture since I'm
going to be changing the shape of this
koala into the shape of a lion
I did this by using a mix of 
masking tape and tinfoil
what I did was just crumpled up
tinfoil and slowly build up layers
bulking-out the sculpture and then using
the masking tape to flatten that up
against the sculpture and like connect
it
and what I'm really trying to do is
make sure that there's no air inside the
tinfoil at least that's what I've
learned from watching Ace of Clay -  you
don't want any air in your sculpture or
it can crack and pop when it's
cooking and that's not what I'm looking for
(these aren't Rice Krispies)
from what
I've read you want to bulk out any of
the areas that I need to make at least a
quarter of an inch of clay thicker so
like the mane (although that exact same
source told me not to use anything glazed
as an armature so..... let's hope this
turns out)
so once I was done bulking-it-out
it looks kind of like this, the most
extremely paranoid koala on the planet
♪ paranoid ♪
and it was finally time to get the clay
out
I'll be using this super sculpey as
per Ace of Clay's suggestion, and let me
just say this stuff is so much softer
than anything I've used in the past back
when I was like a teenager I used some
like I think it was fimo polymer clay
and I tried to make like little tiny
polymer clay sculptures and I just did
not like it my fingers would hurt by the
end and it was just so hard to knead the
clay but this stuff was great I got it
on Amazon and it was quite soft so can't
complain
(I apologize if my yellow
nails are a little gross, the
medicine I'm on that keeps me alive
makes them a little yellow which is why
I usually coat them in something pretty
like nail polish but I had a feeling I
was gonna have to cut my nails to be
able to do this clay sculpture so I
wasn't really worried about painting
them again because I thought I was just
gonna have to cut them off which is why
they look the way they do but I
discovered they weren't really that much
of a problem so I end up painting them
later on)
this whole sculpture I think
took almost....*thinks*  no because I didn't record
the whole thing because there's a lot of
like repetitive stuff but I think it
took somewhere between eight and ten
hours (I guess that's a pretty big
difference) let's go with nine
so before
I can really sculpt it into what I want
I really need to just coat everything
that needs to be coated with the clay
and I'm kind of fighting with myself
through the whole process trying to keep
as much of the Koala as possible making
sure I'm smoothing out the clay as I go
- so then our little buddy looked like
this and I started to give him ears
because I want to see if I could turn
the Koala ears into our lion ears and
see how much of the Koala ear I could
hide with a mane and this is much
experimentation just trying to figure
out where to look good and I've never
really sculpted anything [like this] before so I'm
taking in a lot of information about
like what's working and what's not and
using that as I continue into other
elements of the lion - now Here I am
elongating the front legs because I
realized the lion doesn't have little
short legs like the Koala did and trying
to figure out how I'm going to add
detail to the feet at first I just like
drew into the foot lines but then later
I realized: "I think I'm gonna have to do
these separate and then just somehow
attach them" because the head was getting
in the way so I took a big lump of clay
etched in the four fingers of a paw ...ᴵ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ᵏⁿᵒʷ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗᵉʳᵐ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᵃᵗ.... but a key was to keep it
pretty round and
I also added bulk to like the
tip of the paw giving it that general
paw shape, like adding claws and fur and
then I had to attach it to the actual
sculpture by squishing the crap out of
it and then blending it out
and then
for paw number two, I saw on one of the
reference pictures of the many pictures
of Lions that I was looking at, the lion
had its paw flipped over (I assumed he
was grooming) and I thought it was just
so cute so I decided to give that a try
so for this paw I'm actually drawing the
bottom of the paw which was a lot of fun
adding in the pads and still playing
with that shape because after making
that first paw I kind of felt like I had
an idea of what they look like and then
I just translated that flipped it over
and added the little pads and 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙤 𝙘𝙪𝙩𝙚!
played around with that a little
bit more adding some more detail and
then I had to attach that to the entire
sculpture as well
after the paws were
firmly attached to its body I decided to
give our little koala a mane, I did this
by adding multiple like triangle
sections and then sculpting into it with
this like metal tool to create like a
fur texture but I also wasn't looking
for straight hair, I wanted it to be very
curly organic and almost leafy, 
like I wanted it to seem more like it
was solid and like a physical shape
instead of like flowy hair so that's my
goal for the mane because I'm not doing
just an ordinary lion as I said earlier
when I had this much of the mane done I
decided to start working on the face
because I wasn't entirely sure how I was
going to hold on to this object without
smashing in the mane and like I put a
lot of detail into that I didn't want to
ruin it so I left some of it plain while
I was working on the face - I started with
a big chunk of clay and then like
chiseled away at it kind of the way I
approach art and I always say like it's
kind of like a sculpture and you like
chisel away at the art so this time I
was actually making a sculpture and
chiseling away at like something
physical - it was pretty cool - this was
probably my favorite part, I enjoyed
every step of the face from like
chiseling away big chunks to chiseling
away little tiny bits and like adding
extra bits and like rounding them off and
then adding
a nose, and I just really liked this part
of it and while not everything I tried
worked it was still very very enjoyable
and I have to say this whole sculpture
was just so much fun like I haven't had
this much fun in a long time and I spent
like I said like about nine hours on
this thing and the entire time at no
point was I like thinking about a future
project or anything which sometimes
happens when I work on like long term
art projects it might be because this is
my first time sculpting so like I
haven't gotten to the point where it
feels a little redundant but oh!! I had so
much fun *happy sounds*
this reminds me of something
I was thinking of when I was working on
the face was I feel like I'm working on
like competing styles with this
sculpture and again that's probably
because it's like my first time
sculpting and I don't really know what
my sculpting style is but when I was
working on the face I was using big
chunky features and I loved it - it gave
me almost like Ice Age vibe you know how
like Diego's face is shaped, it's not
like it doesn't look exactly like a lion
it's very stylized and I love that I
guess he's a tiger actually I mean but
still the way his face is built, it's very
stylized and they exaggerate certain
features and I was having a lot of fun
doing that with my lion and it just
makes me wonder like the more I sculpt
things if I'll develop a certain style
and it's just it's so fun to think about
and I just wonder if I keep up with this
what will happen and I definitely want
to try sculpting again in the future I
need to practice all the steps including
the painting which we'll get to
now I can't have just a two-legged lion, I need
to find at least one more leg, the way I
have him sitting, he's sitting on top of
one of the legs so he's going to be a
three visible leg lion so very I'm
working on that third leg making sure
it's the same size as his other two feet -
he's kind of sitting on top of it and
this leg is gonna be very squished
underneath him
I just sort of repeat the
steps I did it the other leg and then
end up actually like cutting it in half
and then sticking it underneath the
sculpture so half the work gets thrown
away but I think it turned out really
really good and I've got a newfound love
for sculpting cat feet so.. (paws I guess
is the word) but yeah!
I enjoyed it!
the knee of that leg I first just sort of like drew
it into the clay with the tool to try
and get the shape of it out and then I
made that shape in clay and just
plastered it onto the side of the lion
and it actually worked really well for I
mean I think it looks like a leg so yeah
I can't complain there
then I went back
to working on the mane and I just
finished up the entire head so we have a
koala with beautiful locks and I kept
jumping between the mane and
other elements like adding legs and a
tail and then after that I had
everything basically done and it was
time to take a turn for the mystical so
here I am using a marker to flatten out
the clay because I don't have the right
tools and I'm using these very flat
sections to create roses now from what
I've seen and the research that I've
done they say you should use the color
of clay that you want for the rose
because it's very hard to paint them but
I wasn't about to go out and buy a ton
of different colors of clay so I decided
to break the rules and just make the roses
anyway, so I used these and I like kind
of just plastered them all over the main
because I'm picturing the main being
like a green color made of like leaves
and then the roses would be like
coming from that and the head is sort
of mossy and things are growing on it
and the entire lion is kind of meant to
be more of a mystical beast so it's not
your ordinary lion like it's not like so
dirty that stuff's growing out of its
Mane but rather its Mane is the growth
and that's the stuff that grows out of
his head is just roses and leaves and
bunch of organic stuffffffah
the most difficult part of making the roses was trying to make one small enough
where I felt like it fit into the
sculpture but since I did have so many
large ones I decide to incorporate them
into the sculpture anyway by like making
the lion sort of hugging them
I kind of
just wanted to use it because I had it
and I thought they looked cool so I just
basically plastered the
roses everywhere, since this idea was
working so while I also decided to take
parts of the mane and make them look
even more leafy by changing the shape of
them and having them stick out and like
come forth from the mane and you know
look like leaves and although most of
the flowers are roses I did try to add
some variety with some more like pokey
looking flowers and more round bulbous
flowers and then at this point the tail
felt a little plain so I also included a
bunch of roses and flowers around
the end of the tail
I think it looks cute
kind of looks like it should be
a ribbon which I did try but it was kind
of difficult to sculpt so I decided to
go with the flowers since I had a couple
left over anyway - then I just took some
mineral oil and coated the outside
of it and this really helped remove the
fingerprints as the internet suggested
and it actually around the mane, when I
was sculpting the mane, there was all
these like beaded up bits of clay that
were kind of like stuck in the cracks
and when I went over it with the mineral
oil those things just like dissolved
which was fantastic this looked ten
times better after giving it a little bath
which brings me to my biggest
noobish mistake is that I did not cook
this thing long enough so it came out
very crumbly and a lot of the details
just like popped off and I was very very
disappointed about that little upset and
I realized I could either bury this
thing and have a funeral or I could
paint it anyway, put it on a mantel, and
never touch it again - and I decided on
the latter, so I picked out my paints: I
picked these pretty blue and greens and
one pink I did test out the colors first
on a piece of paper to see if these were
the colors I wanted to use for a lion
and I just sort of like created a color
key testing them out and I really really
liked it so I moved on to coloring the
actual sculpture
I decided to change
things up from the color key and make
the mane the darkest section of the lion
so I started with the very darkest color
coated over the mane and had it
get lighter as it reached the face of
the lion, I wanted it to be a gradient
and I think it turned out really good
like
originally pictured the mane being green
like I said with leaves and things but
even though I went in a more fantastic
direction
I think it's cool like it wasn't my main
idea but I like it, and then for the
face I went with the lightest color that
I had and colored that in especially for
the front of the face which on actual
lines is usually lighter than the rest
of the face so that's the lightest color
and then it gets a little darker and I
had a lot of fun painting the face of
the line I think I put the most time
into that - and the mane like right now
actually I really like the way that
looks right now but I start trying some
different techniques like trying to coat
just the outside edge and sometimes just
trying to color in the cracks and you
know playing around with it because it
is my first time painting a sculpture
like this so I really want to try and
gain some experience and see what does
what and when I use more ink on the
brush does it coat the cracks or when I
have more water on the brush
does it like flow over some of the
sections like what happens?
so I definitely use this as a learning
experience and yeah a lot of fun
now at this point the roses were looking a
little gross so don't worry about those
we come back to them but for now I'm
coloring the body with the lightest blue
color making it match the face and then
I'm also adding shading to that so even
though this is a 3d object I'm taking
time to like add darker colors like
between the paws and also like coloring
in the pads on his paw after coating the
whole body in the light blue I came back
around to the front which is where I was
focusing most of my attention and my
attempts to make it look good and really
working on that face and then the roses
were really where it was I feel like
lacking so I really spent a lot of time
trying to make the roses look good even
though I thought I was done but I went
back in and started adding some more
details to  those, really trying to make
the texture of the sculpture pop so
using darker colors further into the
rose
lighter colors farther outside of the
Rose to really exaggerate the shape of
the flowers and I went around and did
that to every single flower on its head
so starting with that one that blobby
one with the weird slug and then going
all the way around and putting extra
detail into those like big roses because
they you know we're bigger so there was
more room to put my brush and I could
put a lot more time into making those
look good and I think working on that
big rose right there it was when I
really figured out what I was really
trying to do so I was taking like the
farther points painting them darker and
the points that protruded further were
painted lighter and this just
accentuated the sculpture aspects of.. the...
sculpturrrre .......yeah.... that sounded clever
*slow claps*
good on me
but regardless of my inability to
form sentences I was just about done, I
just added some details here and
there just some finalized painty bits
and yeah!
and then after he was fully
dried this is what he looked like
I honestly I'm very happy with the way
it turned out like I see a lot of
mistakes and I'd really like to try
again in the future but like first
attempt I cannot complain
Tooting my own
horn but I just had so much fun and I
have this like trophy for what I've done
like it just it makes me very happy
because when I draw something on paper I
don't know some reason it doesn't feel
like it means a whole lot it's just
...you'know, something in a sketchbook
over there, some art I made, but with this
it's like a physical thing and like it's
3d and it's-it's-it's something you
could chuck and it would break!!
that just means something to me, and I'm I'm
very happy with the way it turned out I
had so much fun so I do want to thank
Ace of Clay for inspiring me, for some
reason you showed up in my
recommendation and I was hooked
I've watched them all including your
like Q&A videos which were very very
helpful so thank you for those anyway
this is my
sculpture I'm happy with it
so yeah thank you guys for watching I
hope you all have a delicious evening
full of waffles, I'll see you guys all next week!
BUI!!
♪
