My first homemade model!

[Isidro]

Oh, great suggestion! I would not do a Bitis nasicornis but instead a Bitis gabonica or Bitis parviocula would be very great additions

[JimoAi]

What type of marker did you use to colour the slender sunfish? Is it waterproof?

[Isidro]

No, is not waterproof I think. It's just a silver pen that my mother have. I don't know the brand and model and can't check it now.

And for Adam, the Agami heron is already done!



Hey heron, you gotta be our dinner! said the ocelot.


Our? said the harpy. It will be mine! Look for your prey in another place of the jungle!
Oh yes? said the ocelot. Do you want my teeth and claws in your neck?
You're menacing me? said the harpy. Don't be ridiculous! My claws are the strongest in the whole Amazonia and I could crush your skull with absolutely no effort. Get outta here and let me enjoy MY heron!
Aham! said a third voice. This heron is my friend. If you attack it you're attacking me. Do you want to deal with me?


Oh, no, Sir, please excuse us, we're leaving now!

[Lanthanotus]

Just got aware of this thread...really great work there, you're birds look fabulous
I guess you use wires for their feet?

[Isidro]

Yes, bird legs are wire (toes are from paste, except central toe that is a prolongation of the wire).

[Advicot]

The Agami heron is just FANTASTIC!! 

[Isidro]

I had no time for making one of the species suggester by you, but meanwhile I did an easier, smaller one. I did the shape totally from memory and as a result, the dorsal fin is too oblique backwards, it should be more truncate. But it's enough fine for me anyway. As you know I love butterflyfishes. A zoo expert friend told me that the Saddle butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium) is his favourite species of the genus, but I didn't wanted to do it because caudal fin is transparent. And I don't have any transparent material for sculpts. But viewing that WePam paste remains a bit translucid once dry, I wanted to try. Well, the result is not satisfactory, and the material is still more white than transparent. But we can forgive this smaill detail. Also, WePAM is much worst for sculpting very small figures than the SuperSculpey that I  was used to. It's very sticky so the paste sticks to your fingers and this lead to constant deformation on the very thin parts like fins while modelling. And you must keep it constantly wet for allow textures such as fin rays. But finally managed to get an enough decent model, tough I think the result is not as good as the butterflyfishes made with SuperSculpey.

And here is it, the Saddle Butterflyfish:


Now happy to swim with my swarm of butters:

[JimoAi]

I had no time for making one of the species suggester by you, but meanwhile I did an easier, smaller one. I did the shape totally from memory and as a result, the dorsal fin is too oblique backwards, it should be more truncate. But it's enough fine for me anyway. As you know I love butterflyfishes. A zoo expert friend told me that the Saddle butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium) is his favourite species of the genus, but I didn't wanted to do it because caudal fin is transparent. And I don't have any transparent material for sculpts. But viewing that WePam paste remains a bit translucid once dry, I wanted to try. Well, the result is not satisfactory, and the material is still more white than transparent. But we can forgive this smaill detail. Also, WePAM is much worst for sculpting very small figures than the SuperSculpey that I  was used to. It's very sticky so the paste sticks to your fingers and this lead to constant deformation on the very thin parts like fins while modelling. And you must keep it constantly wet for allow textures such as fin rays. But finally managed to get an enough decent model, tough I think the result is not as good as the butterflyfishes made with SuperSculpey.

And here is it, the Saddle Butterflyfish:


Now happy to swim with my swarm of butters:

Saddle butterflyfish are probs my favourite too and Colorata made one but it's 1:6 scale

[JimoAi]

I had no time for making one of the species suggester by you, but meanwhile I did an easier, smaller one. I did the shape totally from memory and as a result, the dorsal fin is too oblique backwards, it should be more truncate. But it's enough fine for me anyway. As you know I love butterflyfishes. A zoo expert friend told me that the Saddle butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium) is his favourite species of the genus, but I didn't wanted to do it because caudal fin is transparent. And I don't have any transparent material for sculpts. But viewing that WePam paste remains a bit translucid once dry, I wanted to try. Well, the result is not satisfactory, and the material is still more white than transparent. But we can forgive this smaill detail. Also, WePAM is much worst for sculpting very small figures than the SuperSculpey that I  was used to. It's very sticky so the paste sticks to your fingers and this lead to constant deformation on the very thin parts like fins while modelling. And you must keep it constantly wet for allow textures such as fin rays. But finally managed to get an enough decent model, tough I think the result is not as good as the butterflyfishes made with SuperSculpey.

And here is it, the Saddle Butterflyfish:


Now happy to swim with my swarm of butters:

Saddle butterflyfish are probs my favourite too and Colorata made one but it's 1:6 scale. I do think you could be sculpted it a bit bigger as they are the largest butterflyfish species but hey, it works as a young one

[Isidro]

I didn't knew is the largest butterflyfish, I did all mine roughly equal in size. My new saddle butter measures 18 mm lenght. Colorata did it much better of course, but I can't have a butterflyfish of the size of a grouper

[JimoAi]

I didn't knew is the largest butterflyfish, I did all mine roughly equal in size. My new saddle butter measures 18 mm lenght. Colorata did it much better of course, but I can't have a butterflyfish of the size of a grouper

What grouper? The saddle butterflyfish gets to 30cm long

[Isidro]

Yes, and the Colorata figure you mentioned is 1:6 so it would be 5 cm long, roughly the same than my opah for example! So it's grouper-sized

[Isidro]

Finally knowing the size that it can reach, plus some other factors such as I was displeased by the shape of the posterior end of dorsal fin, and
having now air-drying paste... I enlarged the saddle butterflyfish, that now measures 21,5 mm lenght from snout to caudal fin (23 mm if we count the dorsal fin thread), being slightly larger than my other butters. Also, being larger means that the details and paintjob can be done with more precision. The head is untouched, same than in the previous figure, and I added paste over the rest of the body. In fact, the previous one was a juvenile specimen, with higher head-body ratio, and now it grown to adult!



Now released into my butterflyfish school. Perspective can make it appear same-sized than the others but is actually slightly larger.


And now... for @BlueKrono the first species he suggested! I've done the body yesterday in the morning, and the bill, wings, toes and paintjob this morning. That's a thing that I can do with air drying paste but not with baking paste because union between two parts of body would deformate the done sculpt! So I'm happy with these new pastes
Body and wings done with Fimo Air, bill and toes with WePAM, and legs with wire




Comparison with my only other ibis, the Takara Tomy A.R.T.S. Japanese crested ibis. They're same sized, tough Scarlet appears bigger due to the spread wings, stretched neck and standing legs! The Japanese one is so compact that a friend of mine joked about it calling it a goose


And now the Amazonic Team (excluding Agami heron, Harpy eagle and Ocelot as they already appeared not long ago!)

[BlueKrono]

Very nice! Those wings look great.

[Isidro]

The second in the Advicot suggestion list... the fiddler ray, my favourite ray species!




Here with the closest cousin from my collection, Schleich bowmouth guitarfish:

[JimoAi]

The second in the Advicot suggestion list... the fiddler ray, my favourite ray species!




Here with the closest cousin from my collection, Schleich bowmouth guitarfish:

The best one so far

[Isidro]

I wanted a challenge, something that I can do with air drying paste but would be more difficult with baking paste: try to do "even smaller". Being passionate about insects since my early childhood, it's unfair to have a model collection where basically all models are not insects. But this is logic: I don't want to have models whose scale is too strikingly different compared with my other models, and with insects very few are enough big for made them in a matching scale. But here is it...

The death's hawk moth, Acherontia atropos. The biggest and heaviest hawk moth of Europe (where is present only in warm months, migrating to Africa for the winter). It measures about 12 mm wingspan, making it roughly in 1:10 scale.

It's a very curious figure. Body is made with WePam, wings with a CollectA's tag, legs with wire, with a base of glue for secure them, and antennae are made of... my nails


I also wanted to do a realistic underside of the wings, something that many toy makers often don't consider when making butterflies and moths.


Here with a ruler (in centimeters) for see the size.


Also a free ride in Safari's wild boar can let us to appreciate the size. But I'm not sure of what thinks the boar about that.


These are all my insects for now. Logically I only can make big species.

[Isidro]

And now, the next one in BlueKrono's list: the epaulette shark, the incredibly beautiful shark with surrealistic big ocelli in the flanks, that is able to walk in firm land. I saw my first one at SeaWorld San Diego and even was able to touch it (in a touch-pool). It was unforgettable because I liked that species so much and was unexpected to find it in an aquarium for first time. After that I've seen the species in aquariums more often - it seems it became popular in last years!




Making and accurate mouth and nostrils has been a challenge too! The result is not absolutely perfect (difficult at these sizes!) but at least recognizable:


Now talking about size and scale. If the epaulette go to the deep waters, it's indeed too small...


But in the habitat of this species, the coral reefs, it's ideal in size:


However, if he go with the "big bad guys" of open oceans, then he grows to a big size:


And with its closest cousin within my collection (my only other Orectolobiform), the epaulette shark go gigantic

[Isidro]

Next in the Advicot suggestion list: the Owston's palm civet (Chrotogale owstoni). This and the quite similar Hemigalus derbyanus are my favourite viverrids.

Initially the shape was very wrong, but thanks to the suggestions of a kind Portuguese croc, I was able to modify and save the figure without starting from zero again.





With my only other member of the mongoose family, the Nayab genet:


Vietnamese friends:


And as a bonus, an eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius). Coral snakes are small I think, much smaller than the similar-looking kingsnakes (Lampropeltis sp.). Maybe this is the reason of zoos keeping Lampropeltis very often but never Micrurus. Anyway I wanted to do much smaller than my other snakes.
Here, the modelling paste (WePam) showed that for certain models is rather unappropiate. Thin snakes is an example. I was totally unable to do a vague squamation impression, a thing that I was able to do perfectly with SuperSculpey. Plus, the paste is brittle and dries quickly. Trying to bend the snake for make it coiled, the paste recovered the original position being unable to bend it very much, and finally almost broke in a point (that I fixed with more paste).
A very simple model, but I like it:



The underside is duller, mostly blackish and reddish (almost no yellow) and with the last tail rings entirely yellow.


Here with my other homemade snakes: Russell's viper, Fea's viper and mandarin ratsnake.


As all the mentioned snakes are Asian, here with another American pal, the Colorata's Boa constrictor from Reptiles set. Despite the very bright colours of coral snake, it gets perfectly camouflaged over the boa!

[Isidro]

Lately this thread have no replies Maybe it's because too many figures are overhelming... but anyway I need to continue making models, otherwise I would waste the paste haha
Next for @BlueKrono is the Horned guan (Oreophasis derbianus). A fully magnific yet endangered bird and my favourite cracid. I know there is already one in the market (Yowies I think) but is not convincing to me, so I decided to put it into my "to do" list, and it was choosen

This one was sculpted totally from memory, too. As I sometimes use the sculpting figures as something to distract with while my prehistoric computer waits for make internet run. It stops constantly when I make my species factsheets.



All my landfowl for now. They're so attractive, one really can make a good collection only with this subject!


Horned guan is subendemic to Chiapas, in southern Mexico. Here with other animals found in Chiapas: