Clay Pits

The idea this week was to make all the little bits and pieces the castle needed from polymer clay.  Between interuptions, a marked lack of ability and a rapidly dwindling pool of enthusiasim only a few items were made before I packed the clay away again.  As for those items I did make . . . well, there is a varying degree of success there.  For example, Gertie the Ghost was made for the Crypt.  She does look sort of ghost like and she even glows in the dark, but she's really too big and too dominating for the space.  I did use the remainder of my glow in the dark sculpy to make a single disembodied arm that could be positioned to reach out from behind something as an alternative to Gertie but every time I try and glue it in place, it falls down.  That's all right though, I'm not really sure I like that yet either.  Yep, it was that sort of week.

The rest of the items made with the clay are for the Magician's Cave.  Mostly they consisted of dragons and gremlins.  Making gremlins is actually fairly fun, but for goodness sake leave the dragons to the professionals.  Mine look like rats that have been exposed to large doses of radiation!.  The two dragons I did make are on the right side of the photo below.  The green dragon is in a cage while his lavender toned friend swings beneath it in an attempt to spring the captive.  I guess things would have gone better if I wan't being so ambitious and just made freestanding dragons in bland poses.  In the cage beside them is a yellow dragon made by Nickycc.  Even though he doesn't show up too well in this photo it's still clear how much better the yellow dragon is than my attempts. 

It's really very surprising how tiny Nicky's dragons actually are, I kept having to make mine smaller and smaller and still they're giants compared to Nicky's.  The third cage at the back holds a gremlin I made with legs hanging down.  Both the dragon and gremlin in cages that I made were sculpted in bits (i.e. body, head, wings) out of the cage then assembled in the cage.  Yes, there was cursing involved at that point.  In the Grotto area there is a small mermaid and a beflippered water dragon.  I don't have a good photo of either because the whole grotto area needs . . . .well, something different to them to give it more of a boost.

The last clay items made were people.  They didn't really want to co operate either.  Below is a photo of the man who was supposed to be a wizardly companion for the sorceress.

 Overlooking the fact that his head isn't on straight, there really isn't anything very wizardy or magical about him is there?  He looks more like a servant somehow.  He'll find a home somewhere in the castle, but not as a wizard.  I also made two women who will be positioned in the Hall, but they're still naked and bald and refused to be photographed until next week.

At this point I gave up on the clay completely and set about making things for the Cave from everything but clay.  I made stacks and stacks of books by cutting blocks of balsa wood to book size and wrapping them in leather covers.  Glass bottles were filled with "magic" ingredients, paper was rolled into scrolls and cnadles were made from wax.  When I though I had enough of everything I started loading up the shelves.

 Hmm, not bad but I think they could use some cobwebs.  Billy the Gremlin is holding a bottle on the top shelf.  He's another of Nickycc's masterpieces and the reason why I tried making gremlins was so he could have some company.

After the shelves were filled I had enough books left over to make a few crazy stacks to spread around the cave.  I had been having trouble finding furniture that looked right in the cave and have reached the conclusion that I can only add very low items if I want things to look at home.  The current low table is an agate slice sitting on a stool.  With proper legs made for it I think this is the winning option, plus it allows me to display more of Nicky's dragons right at the front where they will be most noticable.