Props A throne for the Prince

Hi all, thank you fro checking out this project thread.

I don't usually make project threads, mostly because I forget to take pics as I'm working or the project doesn't feel "large" enough to warrant a whole thread, but seeing that a) this one contains a lot of crafting "firsts" for me, b)the project is turning out to be a serious lot of work, c) I'm actually pretty proud of what I'm achieving so far and d)I need incentive to finish the projects I start I figured I'd make this one into a thread.

So, I have an Islanddoll Monster yo-sd sized tiny named Pumpa who is my Halloween Prince. I love Halloween and I adore him, the problem is that His Little Spookiness doesn't have anything princely other than his outfit. So I'm going to make him everything he needs for the role: a crown, a scepter, maybe a sword, and first and foremost his throne. For some reason I always underestimate the amount of time a project will take and as a result I start too late *glances at the basket of monster easter eggs for her gothic tinies that was finished a month after Easter* , so I'm not going to give myself Halloween as an actual hard deadline for this one. In my room it's Halloween all year round anyway.

I made some very quick sketches of how I might want the armrests of the throne to look and I have an idea for the rest of it in my head, but for the most part I'm winging it and making up details as I go along. I was smart enough to actually take the necessary measurements this time to ensure that Prince Pumpa will actually be able to sit comfortably on his throne and the thing won't end up a wobbly mess. I am sculpting the throne out of Super Sculpey over a wire armature, I'm still debating whether I want to make actual fabric cushions/upholstery (I know how, I just don't have any really suitable fabric). This throne will obviously be Halloween themed, so there will be pumpkins, bats/bat wings, spiderwebs and skulls/bones incorporated into the design. Also there will be an eye somewhere above his head in the back support.

So yesterday I started on the armature. I have sculpted before, but this is the first time I'm using wire armature (thick aluminium wire secured with small gauge jewelry wire) and as a result this took longer than expected. After a couple of hours I had the basic shape done (please forgive the mass of junk that is my work table):

Throne making by jefvonk, on Flickr

And of course the little prince got to check the measurements, seems a good fit so far He needs a faceup, and I want to do some body mods on him too to make him look more skeletal, but that will be another project.
Throne making by jefvonk, on Flickr

Throne making by jefvonk, on Flickr

Today I continued and made the armrests, which took a lot of figuring out. My plan is to fill the space between the arm rests and the seat with a preferably openworked spider web motif, but my original plan to make said webs out of jewelry wire and then add some clay overtop fell through, I don't have the patience or skill to do it that way and it would have gotten in the way when bulking out the seat. New plan is cutting spiderwebs from a sheet of clay and THEN embedding the wire into it and then placing the whole thing onto the throne in one go.:
Throne making by jefvonk, on Flickr

Then I bulked out said armrests and the seat with aluminium foil to save on weight and clay later and added some support points for the embellishments that will be on the top. I'm still thinking of a way to fill in the back a little so the clay will have more to hold on to. I should have grabbed that roll of chicken wire while I was at the hobby store a few weeks ago...

Throne making by jefvonk, on Flickr

That's all so far, hopefully tomorrow we start adding the clay^^.

 

Happy to see so many people interested in my little project^^. It turns out though that I just cannot get myself to craft when I have to work that same day, and coupled with preparations for this Halloween weekend (and the arrival of a new doll) I don't have anything to show you guys yet. For the coming three weeks however I have vacation from work, so Monday when I'm back home we should be in business^^.

Have a happy and safe Halloween, everyone!

 

Finally I have an update! Not as much as I would have liked though, but still, we have progress.

I decided to get some of that chicken wire for the back rest after all. I'm glad I did, it adds so much firmness to the structure and it gives the clay something to hold onto:
Chair by jefvonk, on Flickr

Then today I finally started adding the first layer of Super Sculpey and oh man, am I doing it the hard way. First of all I barely have any proper sculpting tools, but so far, since it's just the base layer, just using my fingers works fine. More importantly, the Super Sculpey I'm using is old. Like seriously old. I still had two and a half 1 pound packs lying around from a project from many years ago that used for a small sculpting project last Easter. Surprisingly it still worked as it should, it just required some thorough conditioning beforehand, so I figured I'd use up the rest of it for this project. So far it works, once it's conditioned it does what it's supposed to (we'll see what happens when it's baked), but the conditioning/kneading takes forever. Like when I take it out of the pack it's hard enough that it crumbles/breaks into pieces. I need to condition the clay with my fingers or a rolling pin for easily 5 minutes per piece, and I have to go piece by pebble sized little piece because my hands aren't strong enough to knead a whole or even half slab all at once. So after the better part of 3 hours of conditioning and applying, this is where I'm at:
Chair by jefvonk, on Flickr

So I guess the good news is Super Sculpey is still workable after over a decade(!) and you get a free heavy-duty arm and hand workout along with it:P. I should go look online for some clay softener though, and I think that when the whole base layer is on I might just get some new clay, I don't want to end up giving myself an injury from trying to work that clay^^;;.

 

@Answer42 (great username btw^^) Thank you^^. Yeah, a pasta maker/ roller would make things a lot easier, but I don't have one, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to shell out 50 euros for the one specifically for clay they have at the craft store^^;;.

 

Teeny tiny update:

I decided to give myself a break from sculping today because the pads at the top of my palms actually hurt from working the clay, but I did finally whip up a sketch of how I want the front of the throne/ back support to look. The idea is to adorn the back with another relief, and I'm still working on how the "skirt" around the seat and the legs are going to look, although I'm getting a pretty good idea about those now, just couldn't fit them on this particular drawing. I hope I can pull it off^^. That eye would be a cabochon or maybe glass doll eye. Not sure about how to do the "frame" around the back support just yet, I drew it so it looked kind of like it was made from bones, but it looks more like bamboo this way>.>;;.

Throne sketch by jefvonk, on Flickr

 

Thank you.

Put on the remainer of the base layer today:
Layer 1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Now let's hope it won't start cracking/flaking when I prebake it.

 

Thanks @becky97 @Ligaya24 , I love enthusiastic feedback like this .

So I prebaked the throne today (had to lay it on its back to fit in my oven) and when it came out of said oven it looked fine, no cracks. I then caused some cracking on the back legs when I carefully tried to bend them in position a little more before the clay would cool and completely cure, but nothing some more (liquid) clay can't fix.The clay is fused to the armature and can't fall off, so no worries there. So I put the throne back in my workroom to completely cool and just now I went to check...
Cracking after baking by jefvonk, on Flickr

Cracking after baking by jefvonk, on Flickr

Cracking after baking by jefvonk, on Flickr



It started cracking after all (that leg was my own fault). Again, nothing I can't fix, the clay is firmly attached to itself and to the armature (this here is why that chicken wire was a good idea) but it makes me worry for the next layer a bit. Seeing how it's mostly in the places where two sheets of clay meet and on the seat where there's foil underneath I suspect that despite my efforts to prevent it, there may have been air bubbles trapped in/under the clay that caused it to crack as they expanded in the hot oven and then shrunk back down as it cooled.

Just to be safe I am going to order new clay before I proceed though, so next update may take a while. Thanks for the support so far !

 

@becky97 That's a very good question actually, I'm not completely sure myself. I don't think baking and then attaching would work though as there would not be an exact fit between the parts. I intend to fill the cracks with liquid sculpey and then sculpt over the baked clay making very sure there's no more air. I might have to invest in a pasta roller to condition my (new) clay too, I noticed that flattening it with my rolling pin seemed to actually cause bubbles to form although the fact that the clSculpey I've been using is almost 15(!) years old and seemed to have lost a bit of the chemicals that made it supple and elastic probably didn't help with that>.>. I'll have to do some research on this, I'm not that experienced a sculptor^^;;. Thanks for bringing this up!

 

@becky97 if I had any, maybe, my experience with air dry clay is that it shrinks even more than polymer clay when it cures and I'm not sure how well the two would bond together. I know that DAS airdry is one that supposedly doesn't shrink, but I'd have to find that online too, and according to the poster below you staying with the Sculpey should work, so I'm going to try that first Thanks so much for coming up with suggestions though, the more options the better!

@Mirth thanks so much for the tips, I was hoping someone with some more experience with Super Sculpey would chime in I always thought one of the perks of polymer clay is that it doesn't shrink, not noticeably anyway, but apparently it does (when it's old anyway). Pasta roller wouldn't be so much just for the conditioning, but for easily making larger, thin sheets of clay of an even thickness I can then for instance detail/sculpt onto and then transfer the whole thing onto say the back of the chair to attach with liquid sculpey/bake-n-bond in one go, but I'll first try and see how sculpting directly onto the throne works, some parts I'll have to do directly onto the piece regardless. Technically with new Sculpey that's softer I can just make a sheet with my rolling pin. Thanks again!

Still working on ordering more Super Sculpey, not many (online) stores from my country sell it apparently and prices vary wildly for some reason. I'll put in that order soon though, then it should be only a few days for it to get here. In the meantime I think I'll try making some scepters and other small things with my old clay, see if stuff that is so small it doesn't require bulking out stays free of cracks.

 

Small update. My vacation time was over so I had to go back to work the past week and as a result I didn't have very much time to sculpt, but I did get new clay and sculpting tools^^. Today I took some time to see if the old super sculpey was still good for making small things and to practice working with liquid clay to bond pieces together, so I made this scepter for the little prince:
Sceptre by jefvonk, on Flickr

Sceptre by jefvonk, on Flickr

I love how the tiny ghost at the bottom turned out^^. I took extra care to not preheat the oven and not take the piece out until the whole oven was completely cooled down again to minimize the chance of more cracking happening, and it seems to have worked so far. I didn't have Pumpa around when I made the scepter so it's probably a bit oversized, but hey, I can always make another one. I'm looking forward to painting it and i really hope I can find more time to sculpt this coming week!

 

@becky97 Thanks! I have an idea about how I want to paint it, yes and it will largely match the chair. Hadn't thought of glow-in-the-dark paint for the ghost, I was thinking of a pearlescent white, but GID might be a really awesome touch, thanks for the suggestion !

 

Long time no post^^;; After last time I posted I suddenly got a lot more hours at work, including weekends, to cover for people who took time off before the holidays, so I didn't have time or the energy to sculpt, then the holidays themselves happened, and now we're here and I finally got some more sculpting done. I really should have used super sculpey firm for the top piece, it looked amazing when I sculpted it on my glass plate, but of course when I took it off and put it on the throne I couldn't avoid smushing part of it and I had to fix up a whole bunch. Also the piece turned out a bit smaller than I had drawn and even though I tried I didn't manage to sculpt bats or spiders tiny enough to fit on there. Might give it another try with SS Firm, see how that goes. Anyway, we have progress:

Throne progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

Throne progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

See, the eye, the beads around it and the webs got smushed and had to be fixed. They look okay now, not happy with the lower left web though. I am however proud of how that teeny tiny skull turned out

 

Glad you're all enjoying my work so far Got some more done this weekend, it's starting to look like something:

Getting there by jefvonk, on Flickr

I keep putting off the next prebaking because I fear more cracking, but oncethe armrests and the "skirt/decorative trim around the seat and the legs are done I will have to. I think I might cure some fragile bits like the pumpkin's wings, the tiny skull spires and the mended cracks in the back legs a little bit with a blowdryer before sticking it all in the oven, just to make sure they're sturdy enough to survive the trip from my workroom to the kitchen^^;;. Everything's secured inside with wire, but still.

 

@Krissim: thank you so much, I always love getting tips from experienced polymer clay sculptors Yes, I only prebaked so far, as I've seen the polymer clay sculptors I follow on youtube (Ace of Clay, Zan von Zed and a bunch of others) do all the time. I know baking in general comes with the risk of cracking, is there a reason that prebaking in particular might be a risk? I personally figured the reason my throne started cracking was due to me
a) using super sculpey that was over a decade old and has likely lost a lot of its plastilizers(?)/chemicals that make it pliable (sorry, non-native english speaker here)
b) not paying enough attention to the EXACT baking directions and putting the piece in a fully preheated oven and taking it out immediately after baking (rather than putting the piece in a cold oven and heating it all up at the same time and then leaving it in until the oven has completely cooled down) which probably caused too drastic of a temperature shift and therefore cracking, especially since the piece has metal armature inside as well
and possibly c) putting the piece on its back while baking, creating extra pressure on the backsupport and the back legs due to the back legs protruding out some.

I'm definitely always willing to learn new things though, thanks again for your input, I'll take your tips to heart .

 

Long time no post^^;;. I kinda got stuck on the lower half of the throne, I tried something for the armrests that cost me a whole afternoon of work and didn't work so I had to remove it again and after that I just left it all for a while. This past weekend however was a 4-day-weekend (today was a holiday over here) and I got the idea to make a footstool to go with the throne to get my inspiration flowing again. That helped. I love how the little thing turned out and it helped me figure out how I want to do the legs and seat trim on the throne itself.

So today after finishing the footstool I finally felt confident to give the throne another bake along with baking the footstool. I put the throne on its back again on an oven dish with a tiny dish as an extra support under the legs so there would be no pressure on there. Made sure to put the pieces in first, heat the oven second and leave the pieces in after turning the oven off until the oven cooled down completely. Then I took the throne and footstool out for inspection...

Uh oh. Looking a bit overcooked there, but at least no new cracks.
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Well, [censored]. That's not a hole in the back of the pumpkin btw, it's a shiny (liquid clay?) blister.
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

So the first bake was 15 minutes, this one was 30 (in a gas oven, lowest setting). What happened was that it seems that the back of my oven gets a lot hotter than I thought, and the blackened piece was the piece that stuck out of the ceramic oven dish I used to support it with and was exposed much more than the rest of the piece. There's some bubbling (may be the liquid clay?) and it's pretty dark but it's still sturdy and structurally sound. I'm not sure what'll happen if I bake it another time though (fully protected from the direct heat of course), maybe this is a good time to finally get that new tub of apoxie sculpt and finish the piece with that. It's all going to be painted over anyway.

That said, the footstool came out lovely, maybe even a bit undercooked at the front since it was positioned to the side and somewhat in front of the throne in the oven. I'm proud of this^^.

Front:
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Left side:
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Right side:
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Back side:
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

And the whole set^^:
Throne bake 2 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Now I've got to figure out a way to finish this thing up without it turning to charcoal dust.

 

@VampireAngel13 Thanks so much! I want one in my size too XD Now if I had any molding and casting skill (and a lot of money and a workshop) I might see about making copies at some point. I'm gonna be happy just finishing this one though, it's turning out to be quite a project^^;;.

 

Thanks for the sweet comments, everyone^^!

@Anita2006 There's nothing wrong with that, sewing is just as great a skill as sculpting and it's never too late to learn something new^^. I myself can't sew at all, so I guess we balance eachother out nicely

@sylfr Aw, I'm so glad to hear you feel encouraged Just try it, take your time (I have like 16 hours of pure sculpting time into this one myself and I'm nowhere near done) and don't be afraid to have to redo things. I didn't say it here I think, but I spent over 2 hours working on something to close the sides of the armrests with and it ended up backfiring spectacularly (uncooked clay is SOFT, if you make a wire structure/skeleton for a part you have to either make it out of a sheet of mesh or at least make sure the wire is all attached to itself in some way rather than just embedded into the clay, otherwise it will all just come poking out when you try to manoeuver it into the final position). So that was an afternoon spent on something that didn't work, but in the process I did learn what DOES work and what I do want it to look like when I tackle that part again. Don't fear mistakes, they're your teachers

 

*drags thread back up from the abyss*

High time for a little update! I haven't forgotten, this project is not dead, just life got in the way a little^^;;.

@Valdemagra: yes, there's more coming, yes I will paint it and I'm so glad I could encourage you to do something like this! I love when my work inspires and encourages people.


So. I waffled for a long time on how to proceed after the poor throne emerged from the oven all overcooked. Eventually I decided to switch to using apoxie sculpt for the rest of the throne. I've used it before and I have some doll mods involving apoxie in the pipeline, so I figured I might as well. That way there will be no more baking necessary and the apoxie should fill in any cracks nicely (and it would theoretically force me to work faster too, since apoxie has a limited processing time before it gets too hard to work with anymore). I was almost through my old, tiny container of apoxie though, so I went to order some more, a much bigger container this time. The site (domestic online art shop) said it was in stock, but ten days after payment the order still hadn't been shipped. So I called them. Turned out it wasn't in stock and their supplier didn't have that particular color in stock either and had to order more from the source. They did however have another color in stock at the supplier (surprisingly white, the color I initially wanted but wasn't in stock at the site so I ordered natural that was supposedly in stock instead), so I got that one and two weeks after ordering I finally got my apoxie.

Aside from that I also got more hours at work due to coworkers in other locations getting sick with covid (I'm a cleaner, we generally work at multiple places), so it took me a while to find enough time and energy to get back into the sculpting. Just for a couple of hours today, but hey, it's a start^^.

I haven't done much, the paoxie is taking a bit of getting used to since it behaves quite differently from Sculpey. It's stickier, it's more difficult to roll into little snakes and you can't really smooth it with a tool (not with the ones I have anyway, silicon tipped "color shaper" tools should work better than metal ones), you need to smooth it with some water and your fingertips instead (which does work amazingly). Here's the result of a little over an hour's work, on the back of the winged pumpkin that sits at the top of the back support^^. I'm now thinking I could have made the skull a litle bit smaller, but too late now.

Chair back by jefvonk, on Flickr

 

@Vindalootoo: aw, thank you so much for doing all that research! I did it myself too, found about the same things you did (I'm sure my oven does overheat, it's 40 years old after all...), but I found so much info that seemed to conflict that I just decided to go the safe route and stay away from more baking altogether. Do let me know if you find something else though, I very much appreciate it.

 

Update time! With fall creeping in and the first Halloween stuff entering the stores I figured I should get a move on with this thing. Of course with me being me that means I'm still spending far too much timne working on teeny details, but I've been making some good progress all the same I think^^.

So first I covered the back with apoxie. No more ugly burnt bubbly clay! I will be putting a scene of some sort in these spaces.
Throne progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

Then I covered the underside and the sides of the seat and worked on the legs. Also added a couple of tiny bats and full moons to the top panel. I haven't managed to sculpt the teeny tiny spiders I want in there as well, but I'll figure it out somehow.
More progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

More progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

The sides of the seats look messy, but that's because I decided to remove some apoxie and make "slots" to fit the skirt panels in.

Then I drew how I wanted said panels to look, fitted to the shape of the gaps between the legs (which is pretty uneven), then sculpted onto the paper so it could dry flat without sticking to the surface the parts were resting on and I can hopefully stick the whole panel in the gap between the legs in one go. I am so proud of how these are turning out. All I need to add to these is that spider from the sketch, again a spider:P.
Throne progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

Throne progress by jefvonk, on Flickr

So yeah, that's where I am now. It still needs sanding/finetuning, those skirt panels put on and the back decorated, but the end of the sculpting face is definitely drawing nearer^^. I'm really proud of those spider webs, but man was it a pain to make them. The apoxie is not as flexible as polymer clay so even though getting the strings of apoxie that thin wasn't that hard, they kept breaking on me and sticking to my fingers more than to the piece. But it was worth it!! Also my shoulders are/have been giving me grief (I work as a cleaner and I'm making a lot of hours these days with lots of mopping and vacuuming, so by the end of the week I'm sore) and sitting in this tense, hunched-over position for prolonged periods of time while I'm sculpting makes it worse and tends to give me a headache if I keep it up too long, so it's all going a little slower than I want. But it's going and I'm continuing tomorrow^^.

 

@Valdemagra Thank you and you're welcome^^. I'm glad to inspire people, just keep in mind that polymer clay and apoxie sculpt are not that cheap. Still less expensive than upholstered furniture from a decent furniture maker though^^. If you have the time, the funds and the inspiration, go for it!

 

Lol, yay thanks! Yes they are apoxie, sorry if I didn't make that clear enough. Everything is apoxie from here on out.

 

@Vindalootoo Well, apoxie adheres to pretty much everything except silicone (so it really helps to use a silicone mat to work on and designated tools that you don't use for sculpting with any other kind of clay, you can't really roll the stuff into nice sheets like you can with polymer clay either since it sticks too much), so adding it onto cured super sculpey (or even onto paper like I did with the skirt parts for my chair) works like a charm. The other way around (adding super sculpey to cured apoxie) I'm not sure, you'd need a bonding agent like bake 'n bond/sculpey clay adhesive or just PVA glue to help it adhere properly. I do believe cured apoxie can be baked, I've just never tried it. I wouldn't try mixing uncured products obviously, no telling what chemical mess that might cause. Good luck and if you decide to start sculpting furniture of your own please make a thread here, I'd love to see^^!

 

*drags thread back up*

Well, long time no post^^;;. This project isn't dead, I worked on it right up to Halloween, which was my self-imposed tentative deadline. Then I finally cleared out a shelf for my dolls, put Prince Pumpa on the unfinished throne... and he's been there since. I WILL finish this thing, but between spooky season being over and the days (and therefore daylight to work in) still being pretty short, it's sort of on hiatus for the moment (but who knows, maybe posting this will give me some incentive to start working on it again^^). Also I've been really inspired to start a new (long term) project that involves modding actual dolls, so I want to work on that first for a bit, but this throne will get done! This is where it's at right now, sculpting fase nearing completion:

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr

Progress1 by jefvonk, on Flickr