Gnomes for Christmas

In the summer of 2022, my mom came to visit, and while we were chatting, I made a gnome out of clay. The gnome was simple and crude, but she loved it. He now hangs out in her garden. Throughout the year, whenver we'd talk she would tell me about the gnome and how he was doing.

I decided to take it a step further, so I created a more detailed set for christmas.

I have been sculpting a lot more recently, and I felt pretty confident that I could create what I wanted. I'm not quite sure the best technique for working with sculpey, but my method works for me. I'll likely add a more detailed post in the future about the birds that I made for my Turnip28 army.

I started with an armature, and I steadily added more of this 'bad' orange clay that I had been trying to get rid of. It isn't very firm, and it was kind of a pain to work with, but it did let me get to the basic form before I started adding more details to it.

After I got the form down, I started using the sculpey firm to add more defined features. I did these one at a time, which is slow, but it let me have a lot more control over the process.

I started with the face, since I knew that would take the longest, and then moved on to other features like the hands, feet, and finally their outfits.

After all of this work, I primed them on the absolute coldest day of the year (and maybe the decade?). I did it very quickly, because I wasn't sure if the can would work properly if it was exposed to the cold for any length of time.

I felt pretty rushed towards the end, since it was a gift for Christmas, and I was hosting my family. I finished the project until Christmas Eve! If I had had them for a little while longer, I probably would have taken some better photos.