3D project: 'Creative Paperclay' long-legged robin

Hi, hi.

If you remember my Month in Numbers post from last week you might remember seeing the
rather unusual birds we roasted on our crafty weekend away. And now today, as promised, I'm sharing the end result ... a paperclay robin who did indeed begin life drying out in an electric oven on low with the door open!

As the paperclay is available here from 3DJean, this is also my 3DJean Design Team project and if you'd like to read more details of how he was made hop over to my post on the DT blog for that.

But for lots of pictures ... you can stick around here if you like.

Effie and Jean put the whole kit together for us to play with over two days while we were away. On the first day we made the basic structure by covering over a lightweight modelling ball with the paperclay and adding a ball of clay for the head:

We also wedged the wire legs into the body and smoothed the clay down from the body to create thighs and I also added a stubby little tail:

Then we left the whole thing to dry out - which was partly why they were in the oven ... not because they needed to be, the Creative Papaerclay actually air-dries ... but because we were impatient!  Eventually we gave in and had to wait until the next day to be able to sand and paint them in our own style.

I chose a homespun rustic style for mine complete with a big heart, heat embossed silver wings and white Posca pen faux-stitching:

And as for his patterned legs ... if only I could get away with wrapping my own legs with text print washi-tape!:

Oh and a quick tip for lovers of googly eyes [the crafty kind of googly eyes that is ... ]

I'm a big fan of adding googly eyes to things [I don't know why, maybe some therapy could reveal the answer ...] but I didn't have any with me at the cottage when I made my robin so ...

After painting the eyes on with acrylics I tried out a blob of Glossy Accents on top:

Granted they eyes don't actually wobble and 'google' about but I think they're a great alternative.

He [I want to call it 'he' even though I gave it little rouged cheeks ... maybe he's just been out in the early morning chilly November air] .. anyway

... he/she/it now lives with my parents as he was a birthday gift for my Mam who's fond of a robin or two ... even the ones with unspecified gender ... and ones with a slightly shrunken wing where someone [ahem] over enthusiastically weilded the heat embossing gun over them. Even those.

Thanks for dropping in on me today.

Julie :-)