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Description
Here's a brief little tute thing on how I made Connor's bear-claw necklace. There's a couple of steps I didn't photograph, because I never intended to make a tute on it, but it's not that difficult to fill in the gaps

You will need: polymer clay (I used premo! but any will work), paint (optional, if you want to add detail), skewer, leather thong, reference pics, and obviously an oven to bake the polyclay in

I specifically used premo in Ecru; premo is nice to work with without being overly soft. Ecru is a pretty good match to the colour of both reference pieces. I decided to go with the 3-claw necklace, which you can see in game. I made this before the game came out, but I can't remember where I got the original reference pics from. The trailer and the promo poster have 1 claw. Anyway, after you figure out what you want to go with, it's handy to have a reference picture of the real thing, and I've included the bear-claw necklace reference picture I used - ain't I nice?

After you've conditioned the clay (warm it up in your hands, knead it a bit and/or run it through a pasta machine), you want to cut yourself 3 even pieces. I just eye-balled how much I thought I needed. Roll into 3 evenly sized balls. Now, to get the rough shape of the claw you roll the ball into a tear-drop shape, and just elongate it. This will help give you a nice tapered shape, rather than a fat sausage (which is what you'd get if you just rolled out 3 sausages. Not very claw-like). Shape them up with your fingers to match the reference pics, remembering that there's a slight curve, and that the claws aren't perfectly rounded - they're slightly flattened on the sides. You will find that the soft clay will droop and won't keep the curve - that's ok! When you bake you can prop them up on some paper or something that won't melt/burn in the oven, or lay them side-down. Before you bake though, you want to make a hole so you can thread it onto the thong. You can do this once baked, but it's more difficult, so why make more work for yourself Use a skewer or something pointy to make the hole TIP: make the hole slightly larger than what you need. I've found that the clay expands a bit after baking, so the hole shrinks. You can use a rounded file to make it bigger, but it might save time to make is slightly larger (not too big though, or they'll slide together on the thong). Then bake as per the clay instructions.

The next steps are optional. For some reason I decided to put down a base of bone coloured acrylic paint. I'm sure I had reasons... Anyway, to add some dirty-claw-y detail (as per the reference pic) I used a slightly damp sponge to apply some brown paint. The sponge texture leaves those nice streaky bits. If you go too heavy, you can wipe some away with another (clean) damp sponge. It all adds to the effect anyway. Leave it to dry. I don't think I added any sealant on it - I'm naughty and rarely do, but you could add a matt or gloss sealer at this point. If you do use a sealer (like the Sculpey brand, which is specifically for polyclay) then you do need to rebake.

You can then thread it onto your thong and presto! One Assassin bear-claw necklace

There are loads of tutes online on how to tie a slip-knot in leather thonging for necklaces, or you can add a clasp (which is what I did at Matt's request, though it bugs me because it keeps turning around to the front and looks a bit silly. I'm probably going to change it to the more traditional knot method).

Hope this was useful!

Description
Here's a brief little tute thing on how I made Connor's bear-claw necklace. There's a couple of steps I didn't photograph, because I never intended to make a tute on it, but it's not that difficult to fill in the gaps

You will need: polymer clay (I used premo! but any will work), paint (optional, if you want to add detail), skewer, leather thong, reference pics, and obviously an oven to bake the polyclay in

I specifically used premo in Ecru; premo is nice to work with without being overly soft. Ecru is a pretty good match to the colour of both reference pieces. I decided to go with the 3-claw necklace, which you can see in game. I made this before the game came out, but I can't remember where I got the original reference pics from. The trailer and the promo poster have 1 claw. Anyway, after you figure out what you want to go with, it's handy to have a reference picture of the real thing, and I've included the bear-claw necklace reference picture I used - ain't I nice?

After you've conditioned the clay (warm it up in your hands, knead it a bit and/or run it through a pasta machine), you want to cut yourself 3 even pieces. I just eye-balled how much I thought I needed. Roll into 3 evenly sized balls. Now, to get the rough shape of the claw you roll the ball into a tear-drop shape, and just elongate it. This will help give you a nice tapered shape, rather than a fat sausage (which is what you'd get if you just rolled out 3 sausages. Not very claw-like). Shape them up with your fingers to match the reference pics, remembering that there's a slight curve, and that the claws aren't perfectly rounded - they're slightly flattened on the sides. You will find that the soft clay will droop and won't keep the curve - that's ok! When you bake you can prop them up on some paper or something that won't melt/burn in the oven, or lay them side-down. Before you bake though, you want to make a hole so you can thread it onto the thong. You can do this once baked, but it's more difficult, so why make more work for yourself Use a skewer or something pointy to make the hole TIP: make the hole slightly larger than what you need. I've found that the clay expands a bit after baking, so the hole shrinks. You can use a rounded file to make it bigger, but it might save time to make is slightly larger (not too big though, or they'll slide together on the thong). Then bake as per the clay instructions.

The next steps are optional. For some reason I decided to put down a base of bone coloured acrylic paint. I'm sure I had reasons... Anyway, to add some dirty-claw-y detail (as per the reference pic) I used a slightly damp sponge to apply some brown paint. The sponge texture leaves those nice streaky bits. If you go too heavy, you can wipe some away with another (clean) damp sponge. It all adds to the effect anyway. Leave it to dry. I don't think I added any sealant on it - I'm naughty and rarely do, but you could add a matt or gloss sealer at this point. If you do use a sealer (like the Sculpey brand, which is specifically for polyclay) then you do need to rebake.

You can then thread it onto your thong and presto! One Assassin bear-claw necklace

There are loads of tutes online on how to tie a slip-knot in leather thonging for necklaces, or you can add a clasp (which is what I did at Matt's request, though it bugs me because it keeps turning around to the front and looks a bit silly. I'm probably going to change it to the more traditional knot method).

Hope this was useful!