I knew I wanted to work on crows after the first batch of teacup griffins. I had already started thinking about the shape I’d need, the chameleon powder I’d use to make them shimmery, and how many feathers it might take.
But then I decided to put it off (and make owls!), because crows bring out my inner perfectionist.
One of the big things holding me back were the feet: creating wire feet and making something stand is hard, and while I’m happy to spend all day cutting out and texturing polymer clay feathers, fighting with wire is not my favorite (it is one of the reasons the griffins take so long to make).
My solution? Remove the legs and make cute little feet.
It was working! Until I was ready to make the big one. I wasn’t sure that look would work with one so large–also, I wasn’t sure how it wound up so large–but I didn’t want to spend all that time making it to decide that it didn’t work. I decided to do the scary thing and try to give it legs.
I had some heavy duty wire, so I started out with that. I added toes and wrapped it with other wire, because taking out the soldering stuff would’ve taken me another week. As I was doing it, I wondered why I was doing that to myself, but I kept going.
And I got it to stand! I celebrated for a good 30 seconds before I realized that the weight distribution would be entirely different once it had feathers.
The other challenge to the big crow was the eyes–I use glass eyes in creatures, and I generally order 10mm and 12mm ones to use in most things, but this crow was too big for those. But all those hand painted pendants use the same glass cabochons, and I have plenty of those on hand.
Once I had a standing crow, it was time to try painting some eyes. Definitely not something I had done before, but I had a bunch of little ones for reference. I only had two sizes of cabochons that were round, so I couldn’t be too picky.
After that I moved on to feathers. At that size, I didn’t have any clay cutters that would work, so it was just me and my xacto knife, trying to get vaguely similar sizes and shapes. For the bulk of the body I did have a cutter that was about the right size, but the wrong shape, so each one had to be trimmed after cutting.
About two and a half hours in, I had hit that dreaded part in the process where I was just wondering what crows actually looked like, because I certainly didn’t know anymore.
About four an a half hours in I reached the feather size that didn’t require trimming and I could use a cutter for, though texturing each one by hand still took time!
About five hours in, I reached the head! Which felt like I was almost done, but there were still smaller feathers, eyes, decorations, wings, and so on.
This one required some extra rhinestones.
It was probably about six hours in that I realized I should’ve perfected the feet before I added any feathers, because picking up the crow meant squishing the feathers and texture. I definitely stopped at “good enough” rather than getting them to the point I would’ve liked.
And then, I had to make it stand again.
Since this one was so big, I wanted to use the chameleon powder with a bit more of a plan - to paint it onto the edges of the feathers and not the whole thing, giving it a little more dimension as I went. Of course chameleon powder does not care about your plans, but I like the result.
Then, it was just baking–and worrying that it would fall over in the oven. I checked on it more times than I would like to admit.
Taking it out and putting it with the others, I still couldn’t believe how big it was, or that it worked at all. From start to finish, it took about 7 hours to make, so I’m not sure there will be another, but I’m really glad I made this one!
I still can't believe how big it is.
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