Page 2 - Sculpting the Limbs

 

Step 1

While the head is cooling, let’s start on the arms and legs. I usually start with the baby’s right arm (just personal preference) so we’ll do that one first. Take a ball of clay about at big as the baby’s head and roll it out into a tapering log. Using the baked head as a guide, mark where the wrist and elbow will go with the pin, starting from the smallest end, which will be the hand. Proportion, just like with the facial features, is very important when determining the size of the limbs and the placement of the joints. Generally, I will make the arm as thick as a quarter of the baby’s face viewed front-on. Since this baby’s fist will be clenched, I would make her forearm, from her elbow to the tip of her fist, about ¾’s as long as her head. Her upper arm, from the elbow to her shoulder, should be shorter, ending at her wrist. The hand, when clenched, should be a little smaller than the length of the baby’s nose to her chin. These proportions are a little exaggerated because of how small the baby will be; if the baby were proportioned realistically, it would look odd.

 

Step 2

Once you have the wrist and elbow marked, use your pin to define the wrist by running it around the small end of the tapered log, along the wrist mark. Now with your toothpick, make a slight horizontal dent across the front middle of the hand to determine the placement of the palm. Use your pin to indent four fingers in the clay above the palm mark. Use your toothpick to define the fingers and knuckles; use it to roughly smooth out the palm as well. Again, pictures of a real baby can greatly help you when sculpting, especially for the complicated construction of hands.

 

Step 3

Guesstimate how much clay you will need for a tiny thumb and roll it into a blunt egg shape. Using your pin, carefully attach the thumb’s thicker end to the side of the hand. Next bend the tip of the thumb where it’s joint would be, making it slightly cover the forefinger and completing the clenched fist.

I should probably say here that sculpting the hands requires a lot of patience! If you are having trouble, try practicing big and working down small. It can also help if you get a magnifying lamp to make seeing your work easier.

 

Step 4

After the hand and fingers are roughly finished, bend the arm along the mark you made for the elbow. Switching between your overworked toothpick and pin, carefully thin down from the wrist to the elbow and start shaping the forearm. You can use the pin to make fine creases in the clay to represent the baby’s fat folds, and the toothpick to make the folds less stark.

 

Step 5

With the forearm about finished, figure out where the top of the baby’s shoulder would be (it should be about the length of the elbow to the wrist) and cut away the unneeded end of the log. Again, drag out your poor little pin and toothpick and make a few creases on the upper arm. The amount of creases will depend on how fat you want your baby to be.

I usually like to see how the arm will look on the baby before it’s finished, so let’s get her head. Trim the wire sticking out of her head so that only about a ¼” is left. Now roll out a ball of clay about the same size as her head. What we’re going to do is make a “dummy” body just to give us an idea of how the arm will look on the finished piece. The dummy body isn’t going to be used as the real body so it can be made out of any clay scraps you have lying around.

Roll the clay into an egg shape and mess around with it until it kind of resembles a body. Don’t bother spending much time on this; just flattening the egg slightly will work. Now poke the head’s wire stem into the narrow end of the egg and position it until you’re happy with the pose.

Gingerly stick the arm where the shoulder would be on the body. The clay should lightly hold it there for you. If you want you can carefully pose the arm until you have the pose you like—sometimes I have no idea what kind of pose the baby will be in until this step. If you’re happy with it, grab your paintbrush and baby oil, detach the arm from the dummy body, and begin smoothing it out.

When you’re done, bake the arm for ten minutes at 275 degrees.

After the arm has cooled, you can stick it back onto your dummy body and see how it looks. To make another arm, repeat the above steps and just reverse the placement of the thumb to create a left hand

 

Step 6

Now for the right leg. I create legs much like I do arms; I roll out a log and mark where the ankle and the knee will be. The proportions are a little larger than the arm, however. From the knee to the tip of the foot, with the foot pointed forward towards the viewer, should be as long as the baby’s head. The knee to the thigh should be a little shorter. Also, the foot should be almost twice as long as the clenched fist when you go to mark the placement of the ankle.

 

Step 7

After you have marked the ankle and knee, define the ankle with the pin. Use your fingers to gently pull the foot into a tapered spade shape. Define the toes with your pin and make sure that the tip of the foot slopes down from the big toe.

 

Step 8

Next use the toothpick to narrow the clay at the back of the foot and make a heel. Create an arch on the inside of the foot by gently rolling the toothpick back and forth a few times, then use the same method to flatten the bottom of the foot a bit.

 

Step 9

Follow through with the steps similar to creating the arm; bend the leg at the knee until you like the pose and start defining the ankle and folds. Locate the thigh to determine where to trim off the excess log and give it some folds as well.

 

Step 10

Okay, now you can finish up with some smoothing and detailing

Lightly stick the leg against the dummy body, pose it until your happy, and smooth the details with baby oil.

Bake it for 10 minutes at 275 degrees and take a quick break...you deserve it:~)