Larger Than the Natural Life Ant Sculpture

I present you this replica queen ant made of modeling clay. This is similar to the common garden ant of Europe. Once dried it could be painted with acrylic paint, even varnished, or left to its natural color.

The ant model could easily be used as decoration once painted, or as a paper weight. Personally I intend to use mine in the feeding room attached to my ants nest, with sweet nectar on top of the clay ant so that I can admire the little darlings move up the legs to fetch it !

TOOLS

• 100 g Air dry modelling clay (white used here, but any colour will work)
• Sparkling wine cages (4-5)
• Wire cutters
• Pliers
• Clay sculpting tools
• 60 cm twine
• Water
• Reference photo of an ant

The first stage is to create the framework of an ant's body.

LEGS

Remove the bottom ring from 2 wine cages so all you have remaining are 4 legs and 1 ring.

Cut 2 legs off one of the rings, discard and attach the remaining part of the ring with its 2 legs to the whole ring with 4 legs.

Turn upside down.

Now it's time to shape the legs. Use a picture for reference to bend each leg into the necessary segments.

Trial and error: at any stage of the wire bending phase, you can bend the wire in different directions, back and forth, until you get it right.

ABDOMEN

Take a whole bottom ring off a wine cage, stretch it out, then curve it around to form the outline of the abdomen. Excess wire is weaved through the leg cage and attached to the frame.

The legs will have moved, but don't worry, they can be readjusted into position.

Take the twine and make a knot at the bottom of the abdomen cage. Wrap around the abdomen cage to form a more solid structure that the clay can attach to.

Now comes the fun part.

Taking small balls of clay, add them to the abdomen cage until you reach your desired size. Always refer to your reference photo when shaping the ant with clay.

Take a small ball of clay to form the thorax. At this stage you may need to offset slightly the legs, away from the body, now that you've introduced the clay.

Don't be afraid to squeeze the inner body frame to create a narrower body, as you may find once you add the clay, the body is too wide compared to an actual ant.

TIP: Work on 1 body part at a time. Once you feel that the shape of that body part is correct and compares well to your reference photo, move onto the next part.

Keep adding and removing clay as and when needed, using the sculpting tools to smooth out the clay, especially where there are junctions (e.g. legs to the main body).

Once you are happy with the shape of the thorax and abdomen and the legs are in position, make small clay sticks to envelope the legs.

TIP: If the clay is drying too quickly and starts to flake, dab on some water and add a fresh bit of clay to it.

The abdomen and thorax of an ant aren't attached directly, they have what is called a petiole, with some ants even having an additional post-petiole. To recreate this effect add a small amount of clay in between the abdomen and thorax. It cannot be as thin as what you see on an ant as it would compromise the overall structure.

The final body part to create is the head.

Take a small ball of clay and flatten it slightly, with both sides creating a concave shape, larger on one side than the other (the side linking to the rest of the body of the ant).

Two tiny balls, flattened once again, will form the eyes. As usual do not hesitate to add water with the shaping tools in order for any newly added clay to stick to the ant.

The mandibles are formed by taking 2 small sticks of clay, shaped to a semi-circle form and attached to the mouth area of the head.

The antennae are made from flat wires from the wine cages with a small layer of clay around them. Do leave part of the wire without clay so that it can be inserted back into the head as a final step.

Finally, use the shaping tools and a bit of water to smooth any newly added part to the rest of the model ant.

You're done !

See how I managed to scare my very own pet ants when they saw our Godzilla clay ant ! So much fun !!