I recently was invited to be a guest vendor for Handmade Haven, an auction/sale group of some wonderful makers on Facebook. When they told me their upcoming theme was Game of Thrones, I just knew I needed to get involved.
Supplies:
- 2 different colors of polymer clay (doing more gets tricky depending on the length of your horns—just experiment and see what works best to fit the amount of colors you want)
- Roller (or pasta machine if you have one)
- Exacto knife
Step 1: Start your gradient
To start this technique, you’ll need to roll each of your polymer clay colors into a tear drop shape.
Step 2: Align your clay
Once you have your shapes formed, it’s time to line them up! This is done by alternating the position of your tear drops. For the first color, my tear drop point is facing up, while the second color is flipped so that the point is facing down. The skinny (point part) of one color is always next to the rounded thicker part of the color next to it.
If you have more than 2 colors, continue to alternate their orientation until all of your tear drops are in a row.
I like to give them a bit of a squish here so that they stick together for the next step.
Step 3: Start rolling
Using your roller (or pasta machine if you have one), lay your clay on your work surface and start flattening it, rolling in the same direction as your tear drops (away from you and toward you so that you’re stretching the clay out at the points of the tear drops).
Step 4: Fold over clay
Once you’ve rolled out your clay, it’s time to fold the clay in half. This should be done in a manner that keeps each color folding onto its own color. It doesn’t need to match up perfectly since this point is where the gradient will be made. Make sure the fold is nice and flat, however, so that you aren’t trapping air pockets in between the clay.
Step 5: Continue rolling and folding
You’ll repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve reached a look you’re satisfied with. You’ll notice the clay will start changing shape as you roll and fold; I like to push the sides in every couple of cycles so that I have a thinner strip of a gradient instead of a wide strip. This will depend on what you want to use the gradient for, but this is optimal for making horns.
Note: I recommend keeping the colors on the same side throughout the whole process, especially if you’re working with a color combination like red and white. This will minimize color bleeding. For example, if you start out with your red clay on your left and the white on your right, keep the red always on the left, and the white always on the right so that your work surface isn’t transferring that color. Pay attention to your roller too—you’ll want to keep using it so that the same side rolling the red doesn’t accidentally become the side that rolls your white clay later on as you risk the same problem.
Step 6: Trim off excess
Once you’re happy with how your gradient looks, it’s time to trim down so we can start making the horn! I still like to leave a little more than I’ll think I need because it’s much easier to trim off more at the end than to add extra clay on if you trim off too much. This will also give you flexibility in being able to choose where your gradient is positioned on the horn once we start sculpting it.
Step 7: Starting the horn
We’ll want to tightly roll up this swatch of clay, taking extra care to make sure the gradient is lining up throughout the whole roll. It needs to be a tight roll so we can minimize air bubbles trapped in the clay.
Then, to help roll out air bubbles and smooth out the exposed edge of clay, you’ll want to keep rolling your clay, putting even pressure on the entire length of the tube.
Be careful not to roll this tube into a thin snake. If you notice that it’s starting to get thin, stop rolling and push each end of the roll toward the middle (I like to pinch it between my fingers) to thicken the roll back up.
Step 8: Finishing the horn
Now all that’s left is tapering one side into a point for your horn! You’ll want to blend this taper through the length you want the horn to be. You may also find that as you’re creating your point, your horn is now too long, or the gradient is now too close to one side and you’d rather have it closer to the other side or in the middle.
Just manage this in small steps—work on the taper, trim off a little if it looks too long, and continue to roll the point some more. You can trim from both sides until you have the gradient exactly where you want it.
And there you have it! The finished gradient horn. I like to use these for my dragon horns, but you could do lots of different things using this technique. I made several for Viserion’s head, as well as spikes for down his back.