Today, I want to talk about the series I created for the most recent Pure Art Collab theme. The overall theme was fantasy creature, with four weekly themes of dragon, mermaid, fae, and phoenix.
I could tell you guys were really excited about this theme because we had so many people participating in the polls to help us decide it this time around. Not to mention, the amount of submissions we received was insane!
I like to brainstorm what I’m going to do for these themes ahead of time so I have a game plan. As I was running through ideas, I felt a very natural connection between the elements and the themes. Phoenix was very clearly related to fire, and mermaid to water. I always get a very ethereal feeling from fae, so I connected it to air, and that just left earth.
As I kept making these connections, I got an idea to create a resin base for these figurines that represented the element. Earlier this year, I had bought some liquid silicone and thought this would be a great time to test out a fairly simple cast. I had never worked with liquid silicone before to make molds.
Another way I wanted to experiment with connecting this series was through a shared color palette. Not every piece would have the same main color, but every piece would pull from the same base palette.
In the end, I ran out of juice to create for the last theme, not to mention the liquid silicone I was purchasing was really expensive. However, I managed to create for 3 of the themes, and I think they were a successful experiment!
Dragon
Clearly, this theme was made for me! (I had no part in voting—this was hands down the most popular fantasy creature chosen by our followers). Since earth was the last element unclaimed, I set out to make this dragon earthy. She’s content sitting on an earthy resin base clutching a resin rose quartz I made. In hindsight, the element theme would have hit closer to home if I would have made her a drake, but I just love winged dragons too much!
Overall, I was very pleased with the amount of detail the mold kept and carried over to the resin. I used transparent dye on purpose, as I was inspired by the little elemental bases of some Pokemon figurines my husband has, and I thought it provided a nice contrast against the sculpture.
I also tried styling her photo shoot a bit. This was my first attempt! I purchased some vinyl backdrops that are fairly neutral and tried adding some props for interest. What do you think?
Mermaid
For the mermaid theme, I took creative liberty and translated it to my dragons. I sculpted a merdragon and created a mold of a short, cylindrical base. My plan was to fill it with sand, shells, and resin, and then sit the merdragon in it to look like she was hanging out in shallow water.
To give this sculpture that extra fantasy touch that mermaids have, I dusted her with some color shifting powders from Solar Color Dust and Sophie and Toffee. Her fins and facial accents really glimmer in the light!
I added a slight tinge of teal to the resin to slightly color it, but I didn’t want to obscure the sand and shells.
Fae
I made a fairy dragon for this theme. It’s been a while since I’ve made one, so it was nice to play with Angelina film again. I decided to mimic a pose I did a few years ago the last time I made elemental dragons. The air dragon was my favorite of the set; I thought she looked so snug in her bed of clouds.
I sculpted a cloud base using a technique I learned from @willowworksstudio. This technique was a game changer! I’ve tried sculpting clouds a few times now, and I had done so much research trying to find a good way to accomplish it in a way that looks smooth. This is hands down the best one I found. So easy and soooooooo effective!
I added some swirls around the base and then cast it in white shimmery resin.
And there they are! My fantasy elemental series. For the phoenix theme, I was planning on creating a firey, feathery dragon on a base of flames. This would have been the hardest one to do, I think. I planned on using the orange as the main body color and then using some of the pinks for accents.
I imagine my base would be similar to the earth one where there would have been a border of flames around the dragon, and I would have attempted dropping in different colors of resin into the main orange resin to create color effects.
At some point, I’d like to still make this dragon, so I’ve added him to my list of ideas to pull from later on 
.