One of my goals is not only to be able to create my own little works of art, but to be able to recreate them, and to do it accurately.  Since I had enough clay mixed up in the colors that I did my Pig with a Heart sculpture with, I decided he would be my first experiment.

Although I think that he could have come out better, I think he was a decent first try.  He is a bit bigger (likely due to the fact that I used the original pig as a measurement point for the second foil armature), his eyes are spaced slightly differently, his feet stitches are in a different spot, and his belly detailing isn’t as clean as Pig #1’s.  I also tried a different pattern on the patch on the heart (stripes instead of spots), but definitely ended up liking the first pattern better.

Despite my failings he is cleaner in general, due to the fact that I am practicing much more of an exact-o knife technique that I discovered by accident where I scrape the blade along the area where I see an embedded hair or dust particle in order to lift it (and a bit of the clay around it) to remove it.  I haven’t had much luck with alcohol and q-tips (the dust is too deep to come off easily and requires too much scrubbing) and I have not yet tried baby wipes, though that will be my next experiment.  The exact-o knife technique does require some smoothing of the clay afterwards, but so far it has been the best way to get those pesky particles off my pieces!