How to Make Polymer Clay Wings
Polymer Clay leathery wings. Click any of the pictures to expand into a larger view.
As for a material list, it’s pretty much the same routine on everything I do. Copper wire, aluminum foil, and polymer clay, much as you see in the polymer clay tree tutorial.
In this case, though, we need a gargoyle for the pieces parts of the wings to go on. On this gargoyle, wings were part of the original plan, but given a drill and some ingenuity, I’m not adverse to adding them as an afterthought, and have done so. Polymer clay’s a wonderful medium- cut it, sand it, drill it. Modify the crap out of it to your heart’s content.
From go, he was planned to have wings. Therefore, for the sheer strength requirements, the wing armature was heavily engineered into him from the start.
You’ll note that the armature is completely soldered up. It’s probably overkill on my part, but I’d much rather have a heavily over-engineered armature than one that’s too weak. It’s my engineering background coming into play- you’ll note out of some perverse sense of god-knows-what I actually tend to follow human skeletal form wiring these up. I could give you some weird justification as to why, like it makes it easier to enact pose changes. Believe what you want.
Given this type of flexibility with Polymer Clay, I chose to do his body first, and have the first round of baking completed before I started the wings.
Since I’m after a leather effect on these wings, I’ll chose polymer clay to be the wing membrane. The problem is that Polymer clay is not tremendously strong on it’s own, and would tend to sag and droop in the oven. The oven-bake polymer clay first softens, droops, then sets up. You have to watch out for that, and support it where necessary. Yes, that is experience talking, nor is it the first time I’ve mentioned it. However, while the wings have foil supporting them, I don’t always use it. For example, the loin cloth on the finished piece does not have support- it’s free standing.
However, the wings are a different matter- to start with, they are going to be vulnerable to damage. I’m making art here, not a doll to play with. First time it gets knocked over, it’s going to need repair. Delicate little bastards.
So, for numerous reasons, from support through baking to preventing knocking a hole clean through a wing the first time it’s bumped, there’s aluminum foil inside the wings.
It really is as simple as taking a sheet of foil, and laying it over the wire armature.
Then I trim it with run of the mill scissors.
Once it’s foiled out, we can start covering it with clay.
As much of a cheapskate as I am in doing art (for example, almost this entire sculpture was made with a manicure set), some tools you can’t half-ass. In the case of the wings, I needed precise flat sheets of polymer clay that were quite thin. Singularly, you can’t beat a pasta machine to do this.
That’s not to say you can’t come up with an alternative- for example, before I bought one of these, you can get away with two popsicle sticks and a glass to roll out a flat thin sheet. (See “rolling fondant” for cakes, if you love to Google weird shtuff). I’m just saying, these machines are worth it. Just keep them wiped down and clean- they’ll put black streaks in your clay, which can f%#k things up if you aren’t going to paint it. Besides, they are usually included in the rotating sales at craft shops, and you’ll often find them at 40 or 50% off. See cheap art supplies, one of my first posts.
So, back to the leathery wings: Roll out some clay nice and flat. Then apply it to the foil covered wing armature.
You can trim this with scissors as well.
Once both sides are skinned, it’s time to add whatever details you want.
In this case, I first textured the clay with a ball of tin foil. Then I rolled out clay snakes to make the “bony” supports.
Then I made very fine clay snakes to give the wings “veins”.
Once done, I baked him, and used a combination of varnish, artist’s black, and alot of water to make his weathered wash that gives the final appearance.
That’s it.
Regards-
V.
