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Here’s how I made my Bulbasaur planter! It’s so refreshing to do a simple piece once in a while. Without a wire armature it is much easier to fix mistakes! Of course, you are greatly limited in what you can do because the clay has to support its own weight. But it worked fine here because I didn’t have anything too crazy.

    1.       Unlike most of my sculptures that start with a billion references and pictures and plans, this one started with a plant! I saw it in a greenhouse and thought it would be perfect (it’s a Haworthia cymbiformis, if you were wondering). So instead of sizing the sculpture to a drawn-out ‘blueprint’ like usual, I used the plant as a reference for how big his bulb should be. There were still plenty Bulbasaur pictures up on my computer, of course, but I didn’t draw anything out beforehand. The head has an aluminum foil core to reduce weight (and use less clay).

    2.       Blocked out the body and got the general size where I wanted it. I also retooled the ears a bit because I was still figuring out where I would attach the head. Because I needed to hollow it out eventually, I didn’t know how far back to make his neck so I wanted to be able to add or subtract to the back of his head and move the ears accordingly.

    3.       Added the legs and got the general shape about where I wanted it. His body is made entirely of clay, which made it really malleable and easy to fix mistakes! However, you wouldn’t want it this thick – the center would take forever get to temperature, which risks burning the thinner or edge pieces.

    4.       I didn’t like how his back sloped so I straightened it out a bit, then got to work detailing his head. I finalized how it would attach to the body and firmly attached the ears. Because it was overall a very simple piece, I decided to add more details to the eyes, namely, hollow them out and make them 3D. While most of Bulbasaur is Sculpey Medium, the eye inserts were completely Sculpey firm because it best holds its shape and doesn’t squish as much when attaching. I still ended up adding them in three pieces; a thin layer for the back, then the two white areas on top. I know you can buy ‘liquid sculpey’ for just this purpose (Bake & Bond, I think it’s called) but I didn’t have any on hand, and they stuck just fine without.

    5.       Head is securely attached, eyes are detailed, claws on, and I drew small outlines as to where his darker spots would be. These weren’t really necessary and probably made it harder to paint and stay just in the lines. It’s good to know when you should detail and when you should leave things out. I am still learning it seems!

    6.       Space for the plant has been hollowed out with a loop tool! The trickiest part was to keep it from misshaping as the walls got thinner and thinner, but it was very easy to work back in place. I explained in the original comments but I think it’s worth mentioning here: I completely hollowed out the bottom so I can place Bulbasaur on top of a regular sized pot, allowing the water to drain and the plant’s roots to grow into a suitable sized container. Baking, sanding, priming, painting, and sealing are not shown… and honestly they are not very exciting anyways.

    7.       The root issue is readily apparent in the last picture! I don’t think all those roots would have fit if Bulbasaur had a bottom. So I would have either had to choose a much smaller plant, which wouldn’t look as good, or have a very unhappy plant. So I carefully threaded them through, dug a hole in a large pot, and set the roots and Bulbasaur down. I patted the soil down around them, packed in some more soil to the top, and that was it! Bulbasaur is complete!

I hope this was useful to somebody out there! Thanks for reading!

Description

Here’s how I made my Bulbasaur planter! It’s so refreshing to do a simple piece once in a while. Without a wire armature it is much easier to fix mistakes! Of course, you are greatly limited in what you can do because the clay has to support its own weight. But it worked fine here because I didn’t have anything too crazy.

    1.       Unlike most of my sculptures that start with a billion references and pictures and plans, this one started with a plant! I saw it in a greenhouse and thought it would be perfect (it’s a Haworthia cymbiformis, if you were wondering). So instead of sizing the sculpture to a drawn-out ‘blueprint’ like usual, I used the plant as a reference for how big his bulb should be. There were still plenty Bulbasaur pictures up on my computer, of course, but I didn’t draw anything out beforehand. The head has an aluminum foil core to reduce weight (and use less clay).

    2.       Blocked out the body and got the general size where I wanted it. I also retooled the ears a bit because I was still figuring out where I would attach the head. Because I needed to hollow it out eventually, I didn’t know how far back to make his neck so I wanted to be able to add or subtract to the back of his head and move the ears accordingly.

    3.       Added the legs and got the general shape about where I wanted it. His body is made entirely of clay, which made it really malleable and easy to fix mistakes! However, you wouldn’t want it this thick – the center would take forever get to temperature, which risks burning the thinner or edge pieces.

    4.       I didn’t like how his back sloped so I straightened it out a bit, then got to work detailing his head. I finalized how it would attach to the body and firmly attached the ears. Because it was overall a very simple piece, I decided to add more details to the eyes, namely, hollow them out and make them 3D. While most of Bulbasaur is Sculpey Medium, the eye inserts were completely Sculpey firm because it best holds its shape and doesn’t squish as much when attaching. I still ended up adding them in three pieces; a thin layer for the back, then the two white areas on top. I know you can buy ‘liquid sculpey’ for just this purpose (Bake & Bond, I think it’s called) but I didn’t have any on hand, and they stuck just fine without.

    5.       Head is securely attached, eyes are detailed, claws on, and I drew small outlines as to where his darker spots would be. These weren’t really necessary and probably made it harder to paint and stay just in the lines. It’s good to know when you should detail and when you should leave things out. I am still learning it seems!

    6.       Space for the plant has been hollowed out with a loop tool! The trickiest part was to keep it from misshaping as the walls got thinner and thinner, but it was very easy to work back in place. I explained in the original comments but I think it’s worth mentioning here: I completely hollowed out the bottom so I can place Bulbasaur on top of a regular sized pot, allowing the water to drain and the plant’s roots to grow into a suitable sized container. Baking, sanding, priming, painting, and sealing are not shown… and honestly they are not very exciting anyways.

    7.       The root issue is readily apparent in the last picture! I don’t think all those roots would have fit if Bulbasaur had a bottom. So I would have either had to choose a much smaller plant, which wouldn’t look as good, or have a very unhappy plant. So I carefully threaded them through, dug a hole in a large pot, and set the roots and Bulbasaur down. I patted the soil down around them, packed in some more soil to the top, and that was it! Bulbasaur is complete!

I hope this was useful to somebody out there! Thanks for reading!