Sculpting MEDUSA from Polymer Clay - Creating Your Requests E03

hey everyone ace of clay here and welcome to another video in this one I'll be sculpting Medusa all right this is another subscriber requested sculpture I saw so many comments from Medusa on my last video thank you to all of you for your suggestions she was a lot of fun to make a little tricky but fun nonetheless don't forget to comment on this video and let me know what you want me to sculpt next I may pick a crowd favorite like I did with this one or maybe a comment at random so with all that said give this video a like maybe hit subscribe and let's get started okay first step as always is armature I'm using 12 gauge aluminum wire to create the general shape of produces shoulders map out the length of her torso and begin the base of her snake tail and then quick note as always all of the materials that I use in this video are listed in the video's description along with my affiliate links if you'd like to purchase them and then for the tail I didn't run the wire all the way through I'm just creating it out of aluminum foil as I go and I want it to be fairly long once I've added the foil and shaped it out I am securing all of it with some masking tape then just adding some more foil here to bulk out some areas more masking tape until I'm ready to start adding clay but before I do that I have to attach the arms I'm attaching those this one piece of wire with masking tape and now it's time to add some beige suit sculpey and to get nice even pieces of clay like this I just rolled it right through my pasta machine [Music] and then once the base layer of clay has been added and smoothed out it is time to add some SKUs and these are the scales along a snake's belly that allow it to move they're actually a really important part of snakes being able to slither and I'm just layering those scoots one at a time up the front of Medusa's lower half and then I just drew some guidelines there so I can keep the width of the scales consistent and then one of the biggest challenges with this sculpture was figuring out how I wanted to design her I knew I wanted her to have a snake tail for sure and a sort of Ray Harryhausen Dinah Mason style but other than that I was clueless like researching her didn't help very much it actually made it harder for me because there are so many different depictions of her by so many different artists I honestly just had to step away from it all and just follow my gut and do whatever I thought looked good in the future though I would love to not only let all of you decide where I'm sculpting but actually get your input on how you want me to sculpt whatever it is by sharing polls and asking for your feedback while I'm sculpting so keep an eye out for that because I definitely want to do that soon and then here I just edit some strips of clay down the edges of the scoots to separate them from the other scales that I will be adding to the tail and here using a manipulated paper clip I am just pressing in a scale texture and then while I was doing this I did not like how these were looking at all so I get the idea to literally ahead the scales one at a time by balling up small pieces of clay and pressing them onto the surface this was an idea that I did sort of regret during the process because I had no idea how time-consuming it would be but all in all though in the end I'm really happy with how they turn out and I'm really glad that I put in the extra time and effort to make them like this I know for a fact but if I would have stuck with the original skills I would not have been happy at all and it would bug me every single time I look to her so a little more time than I had hoped for this by really good end result and then to do this just to maintain my sanity I am switching between balling them up and pressing them on as I go and then pre balling them up like right here and then adding them more quickly that way switching between these two methods like I said kept me sane and made me think that it was going faster than it actually was this whole process of adding the scales took me exactly four hours and I'm not exaggerating four hours to add all the scales and then here to make the top of her tail a little more interesting and speed up process let's be honest I'm adding larger scales the taper out into these smaller ones that I've been adding I like how this creates more interest and breaks up the texture and of course how it made this go a little faster and then I know that snake scales are not usually shaped like this but I really liked how this was looking so I kept running with it [Music] and they're done thank God okay now for the last step to finish off the tail I'm adding some translucent liquid sculpey all over the surface of the scales along with some clay softener to thin that out and then I brush all of this around to fill in the gaps between the scales this really adds a nice touch to the texture and makes it look much more refined I'm very happy with how this turned out and then after pre baking for the full cure time of 15 to 20 minutes at 275 degrees Fahrenheit it's time to start her torso and then quick note always follow the baking instructions on your package of clay that's provided by the manufacturer and then for the rest of this piece I am putting away in my regular super sculpey and I will be using sculpey firm for the torso arms armor and head and I'm going with sculpey firm just because I love the control that it gives me and since I'm still not sure what I want to do with her it's harder to smash it when you're still working and the opaque gray color really does a great job of showing details and honestly it really just helps me feel more in control over what I'm doing and I just started using sculpey firm recently with my chrome Reaper sculpture and I'll link that up above wanna check that out and I love it so you'll definitely be seeing more of it on my channel for sure alright now as you can see there I roughed out an idea for the shape of the top of her armor and I just finished off the bottom there by cutting a nice clean edge with my broken pallet knife and now I'm just adding her collarbone and then to create her neck I'm just pressing in a bamboo skewer here and then adding some clay err on that alright so believe it or not this is the first time I've ever formally sculpted armor and the reason I haven't done it before is because it intimidated me I always thought it would be this long drawn-out process and it has to be perfectly smooth and geometric so I've never really had the desire to sculpt it in the past but now that has all changed I made a point to force myself to sculpt armor on this piece and I'm really glad I did because now I'm finally over my fear and this goes back to the whole getting out of your comfort zone thing if there's something you want to create but you keep talking yourself out of it just do it don't be afraid don't limit yourself there have been so many times where I've talked myself down from cool ideas just because I didn't believe I could do it and I would make up excuses not to oh there's not enough time I don't have the right materials I can't afford to waste time on a fail right now I should just do something easy bla bla bla bla don't limit yourself if there's a will there's a way if you screw up you're the first time then that's just a good excuse to do it again so get up get dirty and bring that vision to life now it's time to sculpt her hand and I loved all of the footage in of this just so you guys can see my process [Music] and I wanted to be in this sort of stuck up fancy pose like she thinks she's better than you like a Disney villain of sorts if you will now it's time to start the armor and forcing myself to make armor for her I found out that I actually really enjoy it especially the style that I use here I want her to have a fancy breastplate with embossed designs all over it and Here I am just detailing everything like crazy and I am really enjoying the process because it's finally coming together I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm really happy with how it turns out that's looking pretty good [Music] to create the trim on the bottom of the breastplate I am just pinching a snake that I rolled out before applying it so that it has a nice pointy tip to it [Music] I'm adding some fancy embossing details these were a lot of fun to do a little tricky because they were so small and I don't do all with really small stuff but I make it work somehow and I really enjoyed it I am really liking how this is turning out and I really wanted to make sure that I don't overdo it so I do have to stop myself at a safe spot because I could have gone on for days adding details to this thing now I'm adding some arm cuffs like that just a little strip of clay through my pasta maker I think on the three setting that I trimmed and attached and then adding some more details here with some more snakes keeping the look of all the pieces that I'm adding consistent of course they all look like they are part of one set and then this time around I didn't do the details on her back just because I don't want to smash the front when I'm adding those so I pre baked her and then fill in those back details next step here as a nod to Ray Harryhausen and his version of Medusa in Clash of the Titans I'm going to make mine with a bow and arrow as well as opposed to a sword and shield or nothing at all so I'm just covering a piece of 12 gauge aluminum wire with some sculpey firm shaping out how I want the bow to be [Music] then before I get too far on the design I want to add pipo string I'm using some regular floral wire for this and I'm just wrapping it around each end very tightly stretching it and then tightening the wrapped areas with Mark Lane [Music] and then here I'm just playing with a couple different designs for the bow trying to figure out what I want to do I make a snake wrap that around it not feeling it so I end up arriving at a solution where the bow is actually a snake with a head on each end so I thought that was kind of a cool idea I wanted it to be not really a focal point so I didn't want it to be too bulky but I did want you to notice it so I felt like that was the best method for that [Music] and then to finish it off I do add some embossing details to match her armor and that's looking pretty good I'm happy with it now for this sculpture I'm going to show you a different method for sculpting eyes this method involves pre-baking the eyeballs adding them to the sculpture and then sculpting around them this is a great method because it allows you to do whatever you want around the eyes without the risk of smashing them normally I sculpt them into the head but I want to show you guys something different and then I'm sculpting her other hand right here alright now it's time to start her head I'm just adding some sculpey firm over a ball of aluminum foil and then I push a skewer into the bottom of it so that I can hold it and now I'm making the indents for the eye sockets with a large ball stylus and then adding my pre-baked eyes firmly pressing those in getting them in the right position bringing up the forehead adding the jaw smoothing everything out [Music] bulking out that forehead a little bit more just so the eyes are more recessed [Music] and then once all those parts are done it's time to add the eyelids like I said I'm not worried about smashing the eyes so I can screw up the eyelids as much as I want in the lower lid here blending it all in with my spoon tool and repeating the same process on the other eye of course the second eye always takes longer than the first always works out like that [Music] and I think this is the first head that I've done in a while where I couldn't picture it before i sculpted it so I'm really just playing as I go here now we're just going to create an exaggerated brow bone I've seen my other sculptures you know I like a good exaggerated brow bone on a villain so we're doing that here playing around with some different looks making her like super angry like that don't really like how that's looking so I do change it trim off some excess there using my color shapers my spoon tool my dental Explorer tool Paul styluses whatever it takes to get the job done now it's time for the lips I'm creating the bottom lip first pressing out the shape of it in my fingers and then adding it to the sculpture and blending it in now for the top lip adding that on and blending it in as well any little Cupid's bow detailing out everything here and then bringing out the area above the lips a little bit more and at this point I'm debating on whether or not I wanted to give her a nose I could go the Voldemort route and not give her wine but I thought like I already made a sea witch that doesn't have a nose so I want her to look a little different so we're gonna tear her nose in this one just adding some cheekbones here blending all that in my color shaper [Music] [Music] now it's time for her nose and I'm just shaping it out roughly before adding it to her head trying to make sure that I get the right size and shape that I want and I do want it to be a little snarly looking so I'm taking that into account with everything else I'm adding the nostrils smoothing out the areas around it I added some smile lines here everything out some more little wrinkles and I'm really happy with how she looks at this point [Music] cool cool I ain't mad and then before I bake her I'm just brushing the surface with some clay softener to remove fingerprints and then I attached her hand off-camera just because it was stressing me out and I didn't want the camera to be in my way it wasn't anything crazy you're not missing out I just wrapped the wire around the bow and then added her hand on top of that and smooth everything out so really it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be I probably could have filmed it but I didn't just to be safe then I added a couple more cuffs like that detailing those out and then adding some more embossed swirls to those as well really happy with how these look I really feel like he's just finished her off [Music] getting rid of fingerprints with some clay softener and out of the oven she's looking so good I'm so happy with her time to attach the head I had just added a little bit of bacon bond edit the head to the skewer and now I'm connecting the head to the neck with a little piece of clay like that and using my firm rubber tool to smooth that out and now it's time to create her snake hair I'm using black primo for this primo because it's stronger than super sculpey once cured and black so that I don't have to paint all the crazy nooks and crannies that there will be and then to create the snakes of course I rolled out a snake kind of shaped out the head editor mouth and two eyes and then textured the body quickly by rolling the textured part of my stainless steel tool on the surface and that creates scales that can make a fabric texture it can do so many things I love using my stainless steel tools for texture like that and then while I was doing this I decided that I wanted her hair to be a combination of snake heads and tails so I really like how that looks I'm just placing out the hair adding a little bit of bacon bind to the pieces that are touching just to reinforce everything [Music] now it's time to create her quiver I'm just shaping out the general shape of it with aluminum foil covering that in firms to / sculpey and just shaping it out adding a few details some embossing effects later on and then to create the arrows I'm using toothpicks I trim off the pointy end and a little bit of bacon bond and finish off the details and clay adding some details here finishing off that quiver and then getting everything into the oven for one final bake when she's out and completely cured cooled down it's time to paint I will be using an assortment of full cart paints here I mixed a light blue with green and brown and black to create this green color here I'm darkening her eye sockets to create that green I just added a little bit of black to the base color green adding some shadows to her cheeks here darkening the eyes even more by adding more black to that green and then going over everything with some nice highlights to create the highlight color of course I added white to my base color green again [Music] now it's time to paint the whites of her eyes I'm not too worried about these being perfect just because I'm going to go back around with some black to clean up the edges getting those nice and finished I'm going in with that black really chisel these eyes out and I leave the eyes completely white and then I forgot to hit recording when I was painting her lips so I apologize here's me pretending to paint them for a second alright now it's time to paint her armor I'm using I believe this is brown black and white I used to create this color and I'm just painting the entire surface of the armor but this and then this is going to create a nice base for the metallic that I will be adding [Music] and then I am painting the bow and quiver the same color as well now it's time for that first satisfying coat of metallic I'm using full cart chocolate brown metallic paint [Music] and then for the bow I'm using 14 karat gold full cart metallic and then to create a nice supernatural glow I'm adding some full cart color shift paint in the color aqua flash I love these colors paints when they say color shift they mean it I've used these so many times in the past and I love the effect they create and then to finish off her armor I'm just dry brushing and a little bit of that same aqua flash color shift now I'm going back over her hair with a little bit of black just to get all those spots that I hit when I was painting the rest of her painting her arrows finishing those off I want these to be gold to match her bow and then the quiver of course to match match the rest of her armor and then once everything is completely painted I will be attaching this quiver to the back of her using some e6000 industrial adhesive and I didn't want to put a strap over the front just because I didn't want to cover any of that armor and then for her suits I'm going with a nice mustard yellow color going over all of those and then once that layer is completely dry I'm going to highlight them and then to create this highlight color I added some white to that base mustard color that I used it was really satisfying highlighting the hunt now as you can see there I painted the other scales brown first and I didn't like how that looked so I wiped it off dried it and then I'm going over it with this nice green color that is similar to her skin tone [Music] going in with a finer paintbrush here to finish off the scales in the front so I don't get any green on the scoots now I'm going to use an effect called antiquing to create some shadows in the scales this is just some watered-down dark brown and I'm just brushing it on and wiping it off with a paper towel and this really gives some dimension to the scales really makes them pop I put so much work into those scales I want you to be able to see them from outer space okay so we're gonna make them as detailed as possible with this paint right now I'm going to highlight them with some light green I created this by adding white to my base screen and I'm just dry brushing this on trying not to overdo it and making them as even as possible this really heightens the details of those scales I love it so such a satisfying process and then the last thing to paint on her is her snake hair I am just lightening it a little bit with a greenish gray color that I created and then I work my way up to a lighter green eventually and then once those coats are done I'm using some more of that color shift aqua flash from folk art to really make that hair pop and I love how this is looking I'm so happy with it and to finish off the tail I lied this is the last thing I paint I think I'm just dry brushing some 14 karat gold folk art metallic on to that surface like I said before I attach the quiver with some e6000 industrial adhesive and she's time I am so happy with how she turned out let me know what you think in the comments [Music] and that's a raft I really hope you like how Medusa came out I am so glad that I got over my fear of sculpting armor again let me know what you want me to sculpt next in the comments down below the music for this video was created by tip music if you like this track you'll definitely like his other work so be sure to check out his youtube channel in his patreon in the description box and then of course be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe follow me on Instagram Facebook and Twitter ace of clay thank you so much for watching thank you so much for being here and I will see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Ace of Clay

Views: 755,541

Rating: 4.9276896 out of 5

Keywords: medusa, polymer clay, clay art, satisfying clay video, free sculpting tutorial, how to sculpt, how to paint, how to make a figurine, how to model clay, sculpting with clay, sculpting for beginners, fantasy art, greek mythology, goddess, crafting, crafts, painting a sculpture, greek god, creature design, sculpey, premo, fimo, sculpey clay tutorial, beginners, 101, artist sketch, ace of clay, nerdecrafter, clayclaim, lorechirik, free episode

Id: u6lP1HkMiBA

Length: 30min 11sec (1811 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2019