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Sculpting a new fiddle

Well, it is that time again where we need to get back to sculpting the fiddle. I started working on the fiddle and it was coming along ok but I just felt that I was going to have to put a lot of time into it to get it the way I want it to look.

I’m very comfortable sculpting things from life, like the human body and animals, but inanimate objects always present themselves as a challenge. The key to sculpting things like a fiddle is to make sure that the shape is symmetrical on all sides. Instead of spending a lot of time trying to get just the basic shape down, I decided to take the pumpkin carving template approach to my design.

The first step was to search the internet for a picture of a fiddle that I could use as my template. Once I located a picture I saved it to my computer and resized the image to the size that i need for my sculpture

Hopefully the third try is the charm for this lesson. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	The first step is to roll out a sheet of clay with my pasta machine. The picture shows the template I found on the web, my last pass at a fiddle (very rough at this stage but was starting to take shape) and my sheet of polymer clay.
	The next step is a lot like carving pumpkins from templates. Lay the template on the sheet of polymer clay and with a sharp tool punch holes to outline the design of the fiddle.Little shameless plug of my pumpkin carving template site from the link above
	The picture is a little blurry but basically this is what the design of the fiddle looks like once we punch holes from the template into the clay. Keep in mind that I am only focusing on the body of the fiddle at this stage.
	The lesson learned from my last attempt at a fiddle is that you need to halves to create the body correctly. Basically you will have a bottom and top and some type of spacer in between the two pieces (to get the thickness of the fiddle down right). This will make a little more sense in a future lesson. So I repeat the previous steps and create a second fiddle.
	Here are the pics of my two fiddles punched out in the clay
	Using a sharp tool I cut out my fiddles.
	The dotted lines have been cut and now it is time to remove the excess clay.
	My two fiddle halves are now ready to go in the oven at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. I’ll let them cool for at least and hour or two before I move onto the next step. I want to bake the fiddles at this stage so that is can easily work on the future steps.

Next lesson - Bulking the Fiddle

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