Pearl Clan | Lillie Ver.Ka 🏳️‍⚧️

fat cat is not the best example of what this effect can do because i got impatient and messed it up. but it works really well !

this is gonna sound hella weird because it's a very trust the process thing but here goes:

1. work with a pastey polymer clay. the easiest way to achieve this is by slowly kneading baby oil into the clay until it is the consistency of sticky, overcooked porridge. this clay cannot and will not hold any shape, so it needs to be applied on top of a very solid base - not only foil armature, but a prebaked clay under-sculpture. you are just dressing up that under-sculpture like some fucked up papier mache. plastering it with polenta. putting the mud buttercream on your mud cake, if you will. works best if your clay is very old and very crumbly, because it remains full of tiny chunky bits. texture ! kneading the top layer clay for this cat took me about 3 hours.

2. i don't like doing any post-baking sanding or carving because i mainly work in my kitchen, so i make sure to add a lot of texture before baking: most of this just happens by itself ! because the clay is so damn sticky and liquidy, it will desperately cling to your hands, so all of the texture of your skin will get stuck right in. bonus points if your hands are extra dry and cracked. the clay will try and succeed in coming away from the under-sculpture because of how sticky it is, so you might want to work in sessions with breaks inbetween if doing something more complex, to give clay time to harden a bit. i like to add a few cross hatching bits in random parts just for fun. it's less like sculpting with mineral clay and more like trying to dress your under-sculpture in slip ...

3. bake as normal. expect air bubbles. the two sculptures i have made in this style are the only ones i've ever had air bubbles on. it is not due to the liquidy clay but due to sealing cured clay under more clay with no air space.

4. it will still look shiny and plasticy when it's done, so you have to emphasise that texture now. very important to not use anything glossy or that dries shiny. i use an old, very thick titanium white acrylic paint that i mix close to 50-50 with powder (old, cheap eyeshadow i scrape out of the pan). i used various earthy tones. this will result in a very thick, very not runny, very dusty paint. finger paint this on in thin layers. takes 3-4 layers? for the clay to be completely covered and its original colour to no longer show through. once this is done, mix some more of the powdery-paint - ideally you want to have many close but still distinct shades all throughout the sculpture. use a tiny amount on finger and slowly rub it across, essentially drybrushing it all over that nice textured created from the mega wet clay and the previous layers of powder trapped in paint. this whole process adds extra texture and emphasises all of it, and completely removes plasticy shine.

where i went wrong with fat cat compared to my first attempt: i thought i could be speedier and skip steps, so i did thicker, fewer paint layers, as well as less passes and colour variations of the dry brushing. and then i added gloss varnish on top. this kind of ruined the effect as it looks more plasticy now. i will edit my first attempt soon and hopefully that will show it better !

(sorry for writing you a novel. i feel like my process is unhinged and needs detailed instructions)