Blue Betta Fish Sculpture From Clay

I have always liked betta fish, especially the blue ones. We owned a couple when I was a kid, and someday I plan on owning another one when I have the space for it. This particular sculpture came from liking bettas and being given a broken glass sculpture.

This glass sculpture was originally a hummingbird perched on top of a flower over a mirror base. The base has a light in it that can be switched off and on. My aunt gave it to me thinking that I might be able to do something with it. I put the glass hummingbird on a string and hung it in the window to catch the light, but I had no idea what to do with the base. I had almost gotten rid of it several times, but then the idea for this sculpture came to me. So, the Blue Betta sculpture.

1. Sculpture base (you can use whatever you have or make your own)
2. Water for blending clay seams
3. Cold porcelain clay in blue *you can use polymer clay for this project if your base is able to be baked in the oven*
4. Clay tools: Roller, various stylus tools, silicone shapers, knife, needle tool
5. Wire for attaching the sculpt to the base (mine is just formerly used copper wire)
6. Wire cutters
7. Glue (for temporary holds while blending the clay pieces together)
8. Acrylic paint in various colors: Metallics: Sapphire blue, Metallic turquoise**, then Black, Red
9. Gloss Varnish and Pearlizer medium (optional)
10. Items that can be used to prop clay fins while they are drying (not pictured - I used old corks)

** You could also use mica powders instead of metallic paints

Clay is not going to stick well to glass, so I had to make sure that the sculpture would stay put on the flower sculpture. To do this, I cut a length of old copper wire with the wire cutters. I gave myself around 6 to 7 inches of wire to work with, knowing that I could cut off any excess. It is better to have excess wire than too little! I tightly wrapped the wire around the piece of glass that stuck out from the sculpture above the flower. Making sure it was tight and well-secured, I could then trim off any excess wire.

*How your wire is positioned with determine the position of the fish. This wire will run through the main body of the betta fish, so turn it however you want the fish to be turned.

Next, I took some of my blue cold porcelain clay and molded it over the wire that I had just added to the glass sculpture. Basically a flattened log shape is the basic shape of the fish, with the head portion being a bit wider than the body portion. It should be a smooth, gradually widening, not drastic. Fish don't have many contours. I used a silicone shaper to smooth out the clay over the wire, making sure to cover the wire well.

*Later you may notice that I didn't quite get one side covered as well, but since there would be fins and paint to hide it I didn't worry about it.

As I said, it is kinda a flattened log. The back of the fish will come to more of a point (I pinched it carefully with my fingers) and the bottom side will be more rounded. To shape the head, it will gradually become a point at the mouth of the fish, and it has a bit of a turned up nose. I used my silicone shaper for most of this work, using a very tiny, rounded tip. Draw in the gill or jaw section of the fish with this tool.

Now for texture! I have not found anything that I like better for fish texture than the rough, diamond hatched pattern on the handles of many small metal tools. This is a nail tool that I have in my clay box. You can see the hatched pattern all up and down the handle. Carefully I roll this over the still-wet clay of the body of the fish to make scale patterns. Don't press too hard! You will distort the form of the fish.

After that I made a few adjustments on the underside of the fish's jaw to give it a bit more definition.

Time to make the gills.

Take a very small piece of flattened clay and place it on the fish's jaw line. You will smooth out the front side (toward the fish's mouth) and leave the backside unattached so it is sticking out like a fish's gills do. Do this on both sides. Hint: the end of the gill fin that is sticking out should be right above the line you drew earlier to mark the edge of the jaw.

For the eyes, take a tiny, infinitesimal amount of clay and roll it into a teeny tiny ball. To do this, I like to roll out a very thin snake and then just cut off a tiny bit from the end to roll into the ball. Place this tiny ball where the fish's eyes should be. Do this for both sides. Then take a stylus tool (make sure it small enough) and poke it right in the middle of the newly added clay ball. This will make the outer lid of the eye. We will add the actual eye later.

Bettas (and most fish) have pronounced upper lips. Roll a very thin piece of clay and cut a tiny section of it off. Take this section and place it on the very tip of the fish's mouth. You may have to use tweezers to help you position it. Smooth only the edges with the silicone shaper. This will leave a large upper lip with good definition.

I realize that the little holes above the mouth are probably not nostrils, but I cannot find anything to tell me what they are and I can definitely see them on bettas, so I put them in the sculpture. I simply poked holes with my needle tool right above the lip we just added.

For the eyes, take a tiny ball of clay once again and simply place it in the hole you made earlier in the lid. Simple.

At this point I let the sculpture dry so that I could preserve all the details I had worked on and not smash them while trying to complete the fins. After returning to the sculpture the next day, I decided that my upper lip protruded too much and I sanded it down a bit with some fine grit sandpaper.

The wow factor of bettas is their beautiful flowing fins. I am going to start with the tail since all the other fins will generally overlap it.

I roll out a large section of clay very thinly. I then place it on a piece of craft foam and use my silicone shaper to make lines and indentations all through the piece so it looks like a tail. I used a gum massager to make a few thinner, more indented lines as well. I cut the tail piece in half with my knife so I had two fins.I did this so that I could position the clay over the glass end of the sculpture and hide it under the fins.

Using the silicone shaper and some water, I blend the tail pieces into the body of the fish. Then I wanted to make the tails look like they were flowing in water, so I bent and moved them around until I got them in a shape I liked. Using old wine corks, I propped the tails into the positions I wanted and left them alone to dry. Once dry, I could remove the corks and the fins would stay in the position they dried it.

*This was my first time trying something like this and I was very pleased with the results, although it took some finagling to get the corks to prop the clay how I wanted.

The anal fin is a simple block. I did it the same as I did the tails; thin clay rolled out, marked with the silicone shaper, and then I trimmed it to the size I wanted with my clay knife. Here I used a bit of Mod Podge to serve as a temporary hold while I blended the fin onto the body (since the fish was upside down, holding it by myself and blending was a bit hard). This time I bend the anal fin to a position I liked where the glass flower could support it, and then I let it dry.

Same procedure: Roll out clay thinly, streak with lines, and then trim to size. You notice these fins on many blue bettas because they are red instead of blue. This go under the fish in front of the anal fin.

The fin that everyone knows the name of! As before, follow the same steps to make the fin. Trim it to the size you want (I will hold pieces up to the sculpt to try to decide if they are the right size). Smooth the fin into the body of the fish (you may have to re-texture some of the body of the fish after attaching the dorsal fin) and then use corks or whatever (I am using a propped-up paintbrush) to hold the dorsal fin in the desired position until it dries.

Last fins are the pectoral fins. These are sometimes referred to as "ears". Follow the procedure we have been using to make the fins. These will be kinda of an irregular polygon shape (see photos). Attach behind the gills. Only attach the base; leave them flaring out to the side.

Now that the fish looks like a fish, he needs some color. I am starting with a dark metallic blue called Sapphire blue, but you can paint it whatever color you like. I wanted blue, which is why I sculpted the fish with a blue clay.

*I show a few different paints here and the mica powders. I did not end up using all of them.

I paint the entire body of the fish with Sapphire Blue. Then I mix some of the Turquoise with the Sapphire blue and paint all over the fins (don't forget the underside!)

Taking some simple black, I thin it with some water and apply a bit to the body of the betta, mainly on the head. I use a soft dry brush to spread the paint out thinly. Once again I use the Metallic Turquoise to paint over the main body of the fish (we are building layers of color) in a thin layer.

For the fins, I dilute some of the Sapphire blue with my Duraclear Gloss varnish and paint all over the entire fins.

The head is still not as dark as I want it. So I use straight black, not diluted to paint the head, and gradually fade into the blue of the body. I also use this on the pectoral fins.

Then I take a red and paint on the ventral fins. Many blue bettas are kinda red colored on the ventral fins. I fade a little bit onto the body and head of the betta with the red as well.

Paint a bit of a black fade on the pectoral fins, just near the body.

The eyes of the betta are black. To make them look realistic, top them with the Duraclear Gloss Varnish. This gives them a great liquid look.

For the final varnish, mix a bit of Pearlizing medium with the Duraclear Gloss Varnish. You don't have to use the pearlizer, but I had it and thought it give a beautiful glitter to the sculpture. Just use a tiny dot of the pearlizer because we just want a shimmer, not a glitter. Mix with a much bigger amount of the Gloss Varnish, and then paint all the entire sculpture with the varnish. I generally do three coats on my sculptures.

Here is the finished sculpt. I think it turned out well. I will be gifting it to a friend, because although I love it, I really don't have room for it. This is my first time making a more sizeable animal sculpture (I normally do miniatures), and I think I learned a lot.

I hope you also learned a lot. One thing I have found with clay is that there is always something new to learn or master. If you find yourself in a rut, try something completely different from what you normally sculpt. You just might find a new technique that opens many more creative doors to you.

Thank you for reading this Instructable and go clay today.