Whale Shark Clay Sculpture

i made a cute whale shark because i love sharks and clay is fun.

for this craft i used Crayola air dry clay, water, mod podge, acrylic paint, and posca markers.

use a reference photo and plan out what your sculpture is gonna look like.

Use a lump of clay and mold it into the shape of your body, or the yellow highlighted part. use water to make the clay easier to mold and make sure it's thick enough so it doesn't crumble. You can use your fingers or clay sculpting tools to smooth it out, i just used my fingers.

now, create the dorsal fins, pectoral fins, and the tail (or the red highlighted parts). Make sure they aren't too thin so they don't break. Same process as before but this time you need to attach them. To attach the fins, create a muddy mixture of water and clay, which is called slip. use your nail or a clay tool or knife to draw tiny lines in the body and the fins where they will meet. then, put the slip over these surfaces and connect them. this will act as your glue. Use water to smooth out where the are connected and leave it somewhere to dry (this could take up to a few weeks)

The sculpture doesn't have to be completely dry to finish it (if it broke, don't worry, because you can wet it again and repeat step 3). The finish helps the paint not crack because air dry clay takes forever to dry (though you could use oven-bake clay. if you do, skip this step). To finish it, take your mod podge (or any other gloss/glue brand) and paint it over the entire sculture). then, wait for it to dry.

After the finish dries, you can paint it. first, use a murky blue (or mix blue and black) and paint the first layer of paint. after that dries, you can use either white paint or a paint marker, which is what i did, to make the spots.

paint over it with mod podge and your done