I made a sculpture figure of Spark Iskra from my manga 'Of Spark and Cats'.
She took 23 hours to make (6 sculpting + 17 painting) split over 2 days. She's made with Sculpey Ultralight clay and therefore really durable (but super hard to sculpt because it didn't want to hold its shape -- I baked it partially as I went to avoid losing progress). The face looks more retro than I initially planned, but I'm so glad she turned out as she did! My favorite details besides are the ruffles around the skirt and the shape and shading of the shoe, as well as the stars on the skirt side panels.
[image descriptions: photographs of various small ceramic animals. there is a multiple-tailed red fox wearing a black mask, a creature like a wolf with bunny ears, a white pangolin, a yellow rat, a speckled pale-green chinchilla with its paws on a 20-sided die, a frog-like creature with bulgy eyes, a white two-tailed fox looking over its shoulder, and a blue bunny with a white moon on its flank standing up on its hind legs. The animals are displayed on different colors of minky fabric and clear glass.]
Handmade by me, from Super Sculpey polymer clay, and painted with acrylic paints to resemble antique bronze. It measures 3 inches (10cm) in diameter. I sculpted onto a watchglass so I could get a curvature. The watchglass was removed after baking. It took me approximately 25 hours from start to finish.
A lot of fans talk about wanting a replica of Uhtred's sword. However, I wanted something more personal and meaningful to me. I had been planning to make this brooch for over a year now, and finally had the time and motivation to do so.
Progress photos and reference screenshots below the Keep Reading.
Progress photos. I rolled out the clay and molded it onto a watchglass. Then I printed out my sketch and used a pin to pinpoint the locations of the main features (the little spheres). Afterwards, it was just a lot of fiddly sculpting work to create the details. This was 100% done by hand; I did not use any molds or pre-created forms for this.
Painted version in indoor lighting.
Screencaps of the brooch. And you can see what I had to work with here, lol. Weird fact: his brooch changed color over the seasons! It was shiny gold colored in season 3, silver in season 4, and antique bronze in season 5. Don't know why it changed so much. Aldhelm's brooch is very unique and particular to him. He had a standard large bronze Mercian boar brooch in season 2, just like Aethelred, but for some reason that was changed to this one in season 3. It seemed to coincide with the change in his apparent personality, so I wonder if it was intentional or not?