polymer clay and cast resin art
Stephen and Mallory asked me to make a topper for their wedding cake. I was honored but also a little terrified. They met on starmen.net, an EarthBound fan site, which is also where I met my husband 10 years ago. This was my first attempt at sculpting realistic people. I tried to plan as carefully as I could, so I started with an armature and built up layers between bakes.
I recently found Smooth-On resin, which works very well. Since it is fairly clear, I’m able to add dye and metallic powders to make a variety of different colors. It took some experimentation, but I am very happy with the results. When sanded and coated with a glossy finish, the finished product looks like it is made of candy 
The semi transparency added a lot of depth and made them more like tiny sculptures instead of toys. I appreciated not having to paint them because the slight differences in the grain of the metallic powder, and color gave them each more personality.
Each of these creatures is from an old, much loved Super Nintendo game called EarthBound ( also known as Mother 1, 2, and 3).
Here are various Starmen:
And here are some Mr. Saturns:
I used a matte finish on the Mr. Saturns to make them softer. The whiskers are made of stainless steel beading wire that I coated in Lumina, so they’re flexible like real whiskers. The bows on top were made of Sculpey SuperFlex.
