Amusing Dead Fish Sculpey Sculpture

Hello instructablevillias!  Todays instructable will show you how to make an amusing dead fish sculpey sculpture.  Fun for your desk, home, gift and more!  Let's get started!

Materials:

Sculpey®

White: S302 001
Black: S302 042
Emerald: S302 323
Just Orange: S302 1634
Yellow: S302 072

Sculpey® Tools (Mine came with the Sculpey® Crafty Clay Variety Pack I bought)

Toothpicks

Oven

Optional Materials:

Needle Tool
Tinfoil
Sculpey® Clay Conditioning Machine
Sculpey® Acrylic Roller
Sculpey® Clay Softener

For many of my sculpey creations I like to use an armature, for this instructable I did not.  However, should you choose to make a larger fish or want to save on some clay, you could easily use a tinfoil armature if you like.

Take your orange sculpey and shape it in the form of a fish.  For the body you are going for an egg shape then fan out to a triangle.  In the middle of the long part of the triangle push inward to get the fish tail shape.

Keep in mind your fish is upside down, poor little deceased clay fish.  To create your mouth use your toothpick and press in.   You can decided how pronounced you want the mouth to look.  I gave mine  bit of a curve so if it's right side up it actually looks a bit like its smiling.

Roll out some orange and with your toothpick you draw around the fin.  Pull up the fin and give it a gentle curl.  You will need to make two of these.

Take the fins you made and attach them to the side of your fish.  Smooth the fin to the side of your fish with your finger.

Since we have a bit of a riddiculous cartoon fish, it screamed for X for eyes.  Roll out black clay and cut out two Xes.  Place them on the side of your fishes head.

Take your toothpick and add scales making lower case n's upside down U's or small hill shapes.  Around the head make gill marks by making a backwards C.  Do this on both sides of your fish.

Later I added lines in the fins and in the tail, but it is 100% okay to do that step now.

Roll three thin coils out of green.  Make a V with two of the coils and one in the middle.

For the flower tops roll out six small white balls and flatten them.  Roll out six yellow balls half the size of the white balls and flatten those on top of the white.  Place the flower top on top of the green stem.  After the three are attached flip it over and do the same with the other tops.  Press together.  If you like you can then take a tooth pick and make true peddles.  I was going for a very cartoon look so I opted not to do this.

Take your flowers and place them in your fishes fin.

Roll out another piece of yellow clay and cut out your back fin. Finish adding your details as needed and smoothing out fingerprints.

Put your fish in a pan and in the oven and bake to the clays directions.

Take Directly from Sculpey®'s Website:

Bake at 275 °F  (130 °C) for 15 minutes per 1/4 in  (6 mm) thickness.  DO NOT MICROWAVE. Baking should be completed by an adult. DO NOT EXCEED THE ABOVE TEMPERATURE OR RECOMMENDED BAKING TIME.

My fish got the pleasure of being baked with Yoda...Yoda seems unsure if this was a good plan. 

Do make sure when you bake your fish that you have him standing like you want it to look when you are done baking it.

After you take your fish out of the oven you have a lot of uses for it.

Use it in a magic trick

Give it to a friend who can't seem to even keep a plant alive

Put it out in your home or at work as a conversational piece

You can make your fish as large or as small as you like.  If you go big I would suggest using a armature. I went with an average sized goldfish so I decided solid clay was the way to go.

Enjoy and I can't wait to see your fish!


If you feel like it check out some of my other Polymer Clay creations to date:

Sculpey Necklace

Bowser Marionette Finished

Orange Tiger Cat Sculpey Pendant

Super Mario Brothers Polymer Clay Sculpture

Super Mario Brothers Gold Coin "Snow" Globe

Super Mario Brothers With Dry Bones Dungeon "Snow" Globe

Potted Lorax & Truffula Tree: Earth Day Lesson

Mini Sculpey Jedi Master Yoda

Amusing Dead Fish Sculpey Sculpture