DIY Space Galaxy Dragon Poseable Sculpture Tutorial

this video is sponsored by skillshare more on them later hey you guys how are you doing welcome back to my channel and in this video we will be making a space galaxy dragon and this is a piece that i i just like i loved from like halfway through the sculpting i was like this is gonna be cool and it's just one of those pieces that just came together so well and i just love the outcome like he is my darling i love him so much but um yeah so i'm gonna be showing you guys how i made that today and to start off i always start with sculpting the head and feet um i use tin foil as a base and i do this for a few reasons the first being that it is going to save me clay because clay is expensive so we're going to cut corners wherever we can um it also helps to keep the head much lighter like i know you guys are making your own art dolls out there and one of the things i'm hearing is that my head's too heavy so you want to make sure that you're using like enough tinfoil as your base so that it keeps your head light enough that it's not going to fall over so that's like probably the major reason why you want to use tin foil is to keep the head as light as possible another reason is also just going to bake more evenly in the oven since your clay isn't as thick it's going to just have a much less likely chance of it cracking or anything like that so once you have your tin foil base you're going to want to cover that in a layer of clay and then you just want to start pushing it around and start getting the general head shape that you're going for for this guy i really wanted him like a very slender type dragon i didn't want anything too beefy or anything like that so i just made sure to keep in mind that i'm going for a very slender look and i'm also looking up uh just pictures of different dragons and and different things that artists have interpreted and stuff and using that as a guide for where i want my end result to be because as i always say say with me i'll stay with me references people references you will always need references it doesn't matter how good you are references because always help you get to that very next level it's just there's no downside it can you know when you're looking for inspiration that is a reference you know when you're looking for anatomy photos and and photos of whatever animal or thing you're trying to sculpt it just there is no downside they will always help you elevate your artwork to a new level and it's just it's a great thing to have in your arsenal so reference people so i was definitely looking up like just space things i was looking up uh slender dragons just anything to help guide me on what general look i wanted for this guy and to you know it really helped with the end result because i sculpted him a few times and hit like his first few tries he just he wasn't it he was looking a little wonky things were right and so i just had to i had to retry like three times before i got to a result that i was really happy with and that's just a testament to you um may not always get it on your first go and that's totally okay you do not need to be hard on yourself if you're not getting it right away and you're not getting it exactly how you want you just have to sometimes take a break step away and then come back later and give it another shot so if there's something that you've been wanting to do and you've been frustrated with it and you put it aside and you've forgotten about it hey just like in my last video i i'm coming for you hey go go go go go do that art go go do that thing you've been wanting to do it ain't even going to be art you know that thing you've been thinking about like i should do that or oh i'm not going to be good enough to do that no go go do it right however long this video is which i think it's like 25 26 minutes go go do the for that long for to challenge yourself the first step is always the hardest for like 25 minutes just go and give it a shot all right i believe in you okay you got this all right you got it [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] for a while i was conflicted if i actually wanted to give him scales but every time i tried it just didn't look quite right however i did think like since he's supposed to be space why not give him like like a moon texture or like an asteroid texture and it just so happens one of my clay stamps that i use for scales the back of it gave that perfect texture so i just like stamped that all over and it just gave a really nice result [Music] for his horns which are going to be very large i am going to be using cosplay since um as i've mentioned before cosplay is a type of material that once it's baked it still stays really flexible so it's a lot less likely to ever break or snap since it will just bend with whatever force is applied to it and that's really perfect for things like claws and and horns and just any small delicate detail it's just a total game changer and i will have the link for it in the description i'm not sponsored by them but i just it's really cool stuff and so i always want to recommend it to anybody who's wanting to do any type of clay sculpting it's just it's a total game changer and since i wanted these horns pretty big i am using an armature and i'm just taking some wire and just roughing out the shape that i want just something that the clay can stick to and not like immediately flop over so um yeah that's just something to keep in mind if you're making like something really really large you're probably going to want to armature if it's something like little small spikes and stuff you don't really really need to worry about an armature for something like that [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] it was [Music] [Music] know for his feet i just took like a rough triangle shape to start out with i always start that way and i'm not really sure why but it's just what i do and then i take snakes of clay and i just attach it to that um rounded triangle to make his toes and as you see i'm even using my own work as a reference i'm making sure that the feet all stay the same size because that is one problem that i do tend to have it's that i'll make one foot just like way longer or way bigger than another one so now i try to make sure that they constantly match by like sticking them together to see if they're the same size um but yeah i just took a bunch of snakes of clay for his toes and then i am using a dotting tool to make a puncture in the very top of the toe to make a hole for his claws which i'm also using cosplay for since they will be definitely fragile if i wasn't and then i'm just inserting that into the hole and then i kind of squish the toe for one to make it a little bit skinnier and to then encase the cosplay so that it's really stuck in there and it's not going to fall out i love you [Music] once i have all the clay pieces baked in the oven at 275 degrees fahrenheit for roughly 30 to 40 minutes it's time to build up the body and to do this i'm using quilt batting and quilt batting is pretty easy to get a hold of it's at most craft stores um michael's hobby lobby joanne's even walmart sells it um it comes in these really long sheets and i just cut it into strips and start wrapping it around the body over and over until it's built up to my liking now you do want to keep in mind when building up the body you don't want to build it up quite as thick as you actually want because whatever fabric you're going to use is then also going to add thickness on top of that so especially if you're using like faux fur or something you really want to keep that in mind because faux fur is going to add a lot of thickness to it so if you build up the body as thick as you want the final result to be then it's going to end up being too thick and you may not like the result however um in my case since i'm using a sequin fabric it's a really thin sheer fabric it's not going to add a lot of thickness so i'm going to want to build up the body like 99 of what i want it to be so that's just something to keep in mind of whatever fabric you're going to use it's going to vary in thickness and so you want to like keep in mind like this is the muscle layer and so you want to make sure that you don't build it too much so that the skin layer can go on and it can still end up being the result you want however if you want a thick boy you go for if you want a skinny boy you go for it it's just something to keep in mind when you're building up the body [Music] [Music] total last minute decision on my part i since he's a galaxy dragon i thought about having stars in his body so i last minute decided to use some fairy lights and just wrap them all away around him and to get like that glowing star effect and it just looked so cool and i'm so happy with the results but it was such a last minute idea um the next step is to cut the fabric out for the body and i'm just cutting a piece of fabric the entire length of the sculpture and then i cut slits where i want the legs to pass through that fabric and then slide them through and then just trim the um the fabric down to size so it's nice and snug around the body and then i just sew with a simple stitch down the middle it's kind of hard to like put it into words but once you see the video i hope it makes a little bit more sense i don't go really complicated with this kind of stuff because you know i like to keep it easy sewing is not my strong suit but um this is the easiest method that i found to do it with and while i am sewing i'd like to talk about the sponsor of this video as mentioned earlier this video is sponsored by skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for curious and creative people being super affordable at less than ten dollars a month with an annual subscription and featuring a wide selection of classes ranging from photography film crafts animation productivity and tons more and it varies on skill levels so you'll 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membership like y'all can't it's free two months to learn whatever you want just there's just no downside so if you'd like to start learning today check out the description down below [Music] [Music] now [Music] oh [Music] of course this being a dragon he needs tons of spikes and to make the spikes i'm using instamorph an instamorph is just these little plastic pellets that you put in really hot water and once they kind of melt they become like this really moldable material and once they cool off they turn back into a really hard plastic so if cosplay isn't something that's really available to you you can also try insta more because instamorph is very rigid and so it's a lot less likely to break because it is so strong but i'm just using it to make the spikes to make the claws for the wings it's just a very versatile material and i just i like this stuff for very simple things like this but do keep in mind it gets really really hot so just be careful that you guys don't prune yourselves and to make these scales i am using just a black thick felt fabric i didn't want them as beefy as the ender dragon that i did because those were out of foam and i could carve in a lot of detail with those but these since i want to keep him a lot more slender i'm just using felt to get very simple clean scales out of him and i'm just cutting the felt in a bunch of different squares and making sure they're all around the same size so i'm just stacking them on top of each other just to make sure they're all the same thickness and then i'm just rounding all the corners and cutting out the scale that i want um it's very versatile since you can just cut whatever kind of scale you want so if you want a rounded scale a very pointy scale so you know it's a very simple and it's a very nice effect it's super easy and super effective so basically um but after i cut out all the scales i'm just taking because i glue them in a very specific way i glue them only on the very tops so that way when the dragon is being posed it doesn't have any resistance like if i glued the entire um scale then it will just like be way more rigid and be a lot harder to move since you now have like a lot more glue and no movability so you want to make sure if you're doing scales just to glue the very top edge so that way it can still bend and flex with the wire or whatever armature that you're using [Music] [Music] [Music] to glue in the spikes i'm just making a slit in the fabric and making sure it goes deep enough into the quilt batting to make a nice pocket and then i'm just attaching it with glue next is the wings and i'm just cutting out a piece of fabric the entire length of the wing you make sure that you have the wing as expanded as you want it to be because if you don't do that the fabric is going to restrict it so you want to make sure that you have it as open as you would like the end result to be and then i'm just taking the fabric and i'm folding it over the wire and sewing underneath the wire so i'm just making a little pocket sleeve for the wire but i'm making sure it's nice and snug so it doesn't go anywhere and i'm just doing that the entire length of the wing and then once it's all sewn up i go back in i trim in all the little curves and stuff that i want the wing to have i usually start from the front and then make my way towards the body i find that that has the nicest result to make sure that it's the shape that i want and once i am done with the wings it is time for painting and to paint i'm just using folk art acrylics and most of him is black except for like his horns and his scales and wings but most of it is black i just wanted the vibrant colors to really be focused on his wings and scale so that's where i want the galaxies to really be [Music] to bring some of the detail back to the forefront i'm just dry brushing a lighter grayish color over the entire piece and dry brushing just means you're taking a little bit of paint like very very little and you're just dragging it over the very top of whatever you're painting and that just brings out all the texture and whatever details you sculpted it really brings it to the forefront and it's a really nice result it's really simple to do [Music] now painting galaxies is a really easy thing to do but it's also like a kind of trust the process kind of thing to do because for a while looks kind of weird and janky but the end result looks really really cool you always want to start with dark colors first so it's like i'm starting with a black base and then i'm just taking some blues and purples and i'm painting it all over wherever i want galaxies to be i'm just painting it all over and you're always going to want to start with dark colors first and as it dries you want to just get lighter and lighter and lighter but then you also want to paint in thinner thinner areas so you want to think like the lighter parts are like the really concentrated galaxies where all the stars are and things like that so you really want to keep that in mind so always rule of thumb start dark a really wide area with dark paint and then as you get lighter make it smaller and smaller and smaller and then once you have all that the final step that really brings it together is just the stars and it really just ties it all in it's crazy how much it just like finishes off your galaxy to make it actually look like a galaxy and my trick is i take some watered-down white paint and then i just um i'm sorry my wire from my microphone was in my paint cup and i was like ah that's like that's probably an electricity hazard let me just pull that out but anyway anyways um you want to dip a toothbrush actually into the white paint and you just want to flick the toothbrush um bristles onto like for this case it's going to be the wings it just flicks a bunch of stars it's so amazing because if you try to dot them all yourself that takes forever but if you just use the toothbrush and you flick like it's magic it's absolutely magic [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] here [Music] one feature i did want him to have is the reason i sculpted the ant the antlers horns as i did is i want him to have floating like orbs in the middle like i think of him like being so gigantic he has little planets that he's holding and um i just took some epoxy and sculpted it into a ball and then used a hand drill and i just um drilled a little hole down the center of it and i'm just painting those orbs now but to attach them which i thought was really clever is using fishing line if you get like clear fishing line and i just wrapped it around the horns and glued it in with super glue it's just the effect it's just it's so cool and it actually just looks like it's floating there and it's just it it really tied him in for me it just really made him look like i am space i hold planets this is me so it was a really cool effect and i've always wanted to try it um and i'm finally glad i got the chance to actually try it after that he is done and full disclaimer uh the montage is a little shaky and my camera on the wrong setting but we're just gonna pretend it's all like magical and ethereal okay here we go [Music] um [Music] my [Music] god i love his photos so much um thank you for watching this video thank you for sticking around because i know it was a long one i'd like to give a shout out to my patrons thank you so much for sticking around with me especially with everything that the world is going through right now i just i really appreciate it and i just i'm very grateful for you guys support but yeah thank you so much for watching and i will see you guys in the next one bye

Channel: KaypeaCreations

Views: 276,562

Rating: 4.9253926 out of 5

Keywords: art doll tutorial, art doll, how to sculpt, diy art doll, poseable art doll, scuplture tutorial, how to make a art doll, diy craft, diy sculpture, poseable sculpture, poseable sculpture tutorial, kaypea creations, sculpting tutorial, how to airbrush, airbrushing fur, making of, timelapse, artisan crafts, bjd, creaturesofnat, bubbly leaf, dollightful, diy, diy how to, sculpture, etsy, fantasy, ball and socket, bjd doll, Dragon, Galaxy, Space, Skillshare

Id: _E5yXLids8M

Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020