I promise I’ll do another tutorial at some point, but I’ve been doing a lot of cool projects that I’d like to share behind the scenes photos for.
A recent custom order I completed involved building a sculpt on top of a paper mache skull. I didn’t want to risk ruining the skull by baking the dragon on top of the skull in the oven.
I sculpted onto a piece of aluminum foil that was molded onto the skull. This kept the dragon from sticking to the skull while allowing me to shape the dragon to fit it.
The dragon itself ended up being a bat dragon mash up, featuring a few characteristics from each. While the body was predominantly dragon, I added in bat features. This included a nose, the absence of upper appendages, wings with “fingers,” and fur details on the back.
For the skull, I decided I wasn’t happy with the original shape of the skull. The teeth in particular weren’t very prominent, so I bulked out the teeth with apoxie sculpt.
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- Before teeth
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- After teeth
I then layered up gesso to smooth out the sheets of paper. This softened the lines of the paper mache while still allowing for texture to show through.
The entire skull was covered in white acrylic paint and accented with other colors to look more like aged bone. Overall, I’m very happy with how the skull turned out. I don’t normally add these kind of accessories to my sculptures, but I thought I’d try something new.
When it came time to bake the dragon, I carefully supported the foil over another ball of foil once I had pulled it off of the skull. After baking, the dragon was permanently secured to the skull.
Halloween items are always fun projects to create, and this was no exception! I’m so glad I took the opportunity to challenge myself with this sculpt.