3 years ago

NOTE: The dragon head pattern is now finished, and you can see it here: https://youtu.be/299S-32bnLo

The video for my Silky Smooth Air Dry Clay recipe: https://youtu.be/YOiovGN-yHA
The written version of the recipe on my website: https://www.ultimatepapermache.com/new-air-dry-clay-recipe

If you're sculpting a dragon, lizard, snake or fish, and you'd like a reasonably fast way to make the scales, try this method. It isn't nearly as precise as sculpting every single scale individually with small sculpting tools, but it is faster. And at a distance you see really nice shadow lines around all the scales, too.

But it's still going to take some time. If you're wondering if this would work with a store-bought brand of air dry clay, I really don't know. The only way to find out is try it. You might want to test it first, just to make sure the clay won't come loose from the base of the sculpture after it dries.

This time I used brown paper and cooked flour and water paste for the first layer, before adding the air dry clay. The air dry clay will stick to dried paper mache clay, too. The brown paper is just unbleached newspaper, that's found in some boxes from amazon.com. I use it because it looks better in a video. Newspaper works just fine.

Recipe for cooked flour and water paste: https://youtu.be/K0w82bQcnMU
Recipe for paper mache clay: https://youtu.be/1YQ6eUqcEh8

If you have an idea for easier or more realistic scales for a dragon, lizard, snake or fish, please let us know in a comment below.

The patterns for the masks and wall sculptures behind me in the video: https://www.ultimatepapermache.com/patterns

My sculpting books:
Fast Faces - Unleash Your Creativity... https://amzn.to/2DSNXfG
Make Animal Sculptures: http://amzn.to/1nMUO3a
How to Make Masks: http://amzn.to/2obUDmq
Make Tiny Paper Mache Dogs: http://amzn.to/1KXd9zg

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:09 Kneading flour into the Air Dry Clay to the right consistency
2:32 Practicing with different tools on cardboard first
2:59 Adding the first scales to the sculpture
3:32 How to add more air dry clay for more scales
4:40 Making some flat scales
6:43 Preparing edges for next day's air dry clay
7:24 Adding round iguana-like scales to the face
8:00 Putting wrinkles around the eyes
8:31 What to do next
9:22 Request for ideas for easier scales
10:02 Outro