Toothless Sculpture

I love "How to Train Your Dragon". Toothless is one of my favorite dragons, and I was super excited to have the chance to make my own Toothless to add to my collection of dragons.

Here is what I used to make my Toothless

Polymer Clay - Can be found at pretty much any craft store

wire - used to keep the structure of the pieces together - you could also use toothpicks

Paint - used to color some of the clay

Small cutting tool - There are specific tools you can get to work with clay. I personally used an exacto knife

1. I started by deciding how I wanted my Toothless positioned. I decided to do a sitting position

2. Form the torso of Toothless. - Keep in mind how you want the body to look. You don't want a Toothless with a fat neck or a skinny body.

Note: Starting with the body gives you a good foundation for the rest of the sculpture. All the additional pieces will be attached to this piece

After I was happy with the look of the body I moved onto making the head.

1. I started by making the shape of Toothless's head. Remember Toothless has a very wide shaped head. It should not look anything close to a human head when finished

2. Create divots where the eyes will go. - This will make room for the additional clay that is added for the eyes

The eyes were a process in itself. since eyes are very small it was difficult to work with

1. Color some of the clay yellow. - I did not buy yellow clay so I used some of the white clay I had and mixed it with some yellow paint. This is a messy process, but will get you the color you need without having to paint afterward

2. Add the yellow of the eye. - Toothless has cat-like eyes which means the majority of his eye is his yellow iris. Start by creating small spheres with the clay and add them to the head. Make sure they will fit inside the divots that were made for the eyes.

3. Add the pupil. - Create another smaller sphere for the pupil of the eye and add it to the yellow of the eye. Press onto the eye until the black pupil is pretty flat. You can also add some white clay to the sides of the pupil to give the eyes a little more dimension and life

The arms and legs are pretty self explanatory.

I started with the legs. Since Toothless is in the sitting position the legs were made to match.

Arms were made of small coils and then attached to the front of the body.

The trick to the arms and legs were adding the claws to add the claws I started by making divots in the arms and legs at the place where I wanted to add the claws.

Then I made super thin coils from the white clay and carefully set the in the clay coils. Since the pieces were so tiny this was a very difficult process.

Now if you notice in the movie Toothless does not just have ears but other dragon like facial features. To capture all of those I used small pieces of clay and tried to form them as accurately as possible

NOTE: There are a lot of little pieces on his face. I did not add all of them but I added enough to give the general visual idea. As long as the faces look similar they do not have to be exact.

At the end I added the best parts of the dragon. The tail and the wings

1. I started with the tail creating the basic shape first before I added the finishing touch of the single tail fin. I had to go double check with the pictures to make sure I got it on the right side.

2. Add the tail using some support from the wire.

3. To make the wings I started with the basic shape of the wings. Again the wings were not made to be proportionally accurate but to give a cute resemblance

4. After I had the basic shape I added a little detail and then added them to my scupture

Once I had the completed sculpture I hardened the clay by baking it in the oven

1. Bake the clay at 275 F until hardened. - I probably baked mine for about 35 minutes to make sure it was hardened. Be sure to check it periodically though so it doesn't burn.

My now complete Toothless is being displayed in the living room proving how awesome dragons can be. I hope you enjoyed this instructable and will make your very own Toothless.