Phoenix Puzzle (Polymer Clay)

No matter how many times this Phoenix puzzle breaks apart, you can always piece it back together, so it rises again!

I feel a great fascination for fantastic beings, especially for dragons, however, in addition to wanting to change the subject a bit, I was thinking about my life and that I identify myself with the phoenix, it doesn't matter how many times I stumble or things go wrong, I always seek to revive and improve from the things that have gone wrong.

If you want to do this instructable, I advise you to read it all before starting, since I started thinking that I would make a cut based on tessellations and that all the pieces would be exactly the same size, but this did not turn out as I expected and it was necessary to improvise and learn from what that was going wrong.

In addition to wishing you to enjoy this instructable, I hope you can experience everything bad that happens to you like the phoenix, always rising from the ashes (or in this case, rising from puzzle pieces).

For the feather and puzzle piece cutters:

1. The 3d modeling program you prefer
2. 3D printer
3. Filament

For the Phoenix

1. Phoenix print on a sheet (I chose one that I liked on google images)
2. Masking tape
3. Tracing paper
4. Polymer clay of various colors
5. Tools for polymer clay
6. Home oven

For the packaging

1. An empty jar
2. Adhesive paper
3. Adhesive transparent vinyl

For the feather-shaped cutter, what I did was to create a cutter in the shape of the intersection of two circles. I know it doesn't look a lot like a feather, but for the size I made the phoenix and what I needed this was perfect.

I did this 3d modeling in inventor, first drawing two circles and leaving only what was created at their intersection. Then I offset it so it had thickness and extruded it. Finally I created a slightly thicker border to make it easier to grip and when I liked the result I saved it in STL format, opened it in "cura" and printed it.

When I started this project I was thinking about tessellations ("the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps.") so my initial plan was for every piece to get cut of the same figure. I also thought of many possible shapes that I would use, until I finally decided that I wanted it to really look like the puzzle shape but for it not to have variations in its shape, but as I mentioned before to be a tessellation.

For this I started with the shape of a square and drew on one of its sides the shape I wanted it to have. I then copied this shape and rotated it 90º and 180º respectively on the different sides of the square.

Then I saved a new file in which I cut out half of the figure, thinking that at the edges I might need only certain cuts and not the whole figure.

To make the phoenix, the first thing I did was masking tape one of the copy sheets over the image I had printed.

Then I prepare some of the polymer clay colors to create a gradient.

For this I cut some of the colors in a triangle shape as you can see in the image.

I passed this preparation through rollers to begin to combine the colors. (it can also be done by hand with a rolling pin, you don't need to have the machine shown in the photos)

I did this many times, until I liked the color gradation that the clay had.

Then I moistened the feather-shaped cutter with water and began to cut the clay with it.

With my hands I improved the shape I wanted for each feather and I put each one on the paper.

For the feathers at the bottom of the wings, I used red wine colored clay and I made ovals that I put on the paper as you can see in the images.

Then I covered what was missing from the wings with feathers. Each time using a lighter polymer clay color. (For this I added a little white and yellow to the red wine clay)

With the polymer clay extruder, I made several cylinders of yellow and yellow with white. With them I decorated the wings a bit, creating random spirals and lines.

I lifted the wings up and set them aside to work the background.

I drew some guide lines to know how far I wanted to make the background.

With a rolling pin I flattened some blue polymer clay and put it on the sheet. I then cut this using the lines I had drawn as guides and finally decided that I wanted to make a spiral texture to it.

I put the wings on the blue figure. And I removed this copy sheet to the side to work on the tail feathers.

For the tail feathers, I created another color gradation with polymer clay, but this time much thinner. Then I folded it as you can see in the photos and with some polymer clay tools I made marks on it to make it look like a feather.

Then I repeated this step a couple of time for getting more feathers.

Then I put the feathers on the phoenix.

For the head I used a color gradation with polymer clay the same as the one made in the first steps, and I cut several feathers with the cutter, with these I made the basic shape of the head.

I then cut small strips of clay to use as small feathers.

I attached the head to the blue background and started working on the torso. For this I added some clay on which I was going to add feathers.

For the feathers I cut several pieces of polymer clay that I had worked with gradation colors and gave them an oval shape to later put them on the torso.

When I liked the result of the phoenix, the last thing I did was add a little white polymer clay with yellow as a small oval to create the eye and a little red wine for the iris.

When I started cutting the phoenix with the puzzle figure I realized that the process would not be so easy, I tried but some figures were deformed and I could not fit the pieces well to follow my plan to make a tessellation and it was in this step that I had to change my plans.

So I cut the figure I had printed out with half of the puzzle figure to use it in any position and cut puzzle tiles of any size and shape.

Then I put the figure in the fridge for 20 minutes so that the pieces harden a bit and I could transfer them to the baking tray without deforming them.

I transferred them to the baking sheet and baked them according to the instructions of the polymer clay supplier I used.

I took a picture of the puzzle with a black background and printed it on an adhesive sheet. I used adhesive vinyl to protect the image and then I glued it to the packaging that I will use to store my puzzle when it is disassembled.

The puzzle is ready to be assembled.

I hope you like it and have fun doing it.