Birth of a Big-headed Man Pendant Necklace

Here we are...the beginning...an egg, if you will. My little clay BHM egg.
It's pretty simple to start. I simply make indentations where I want the eyes and mouth to be and pinch up some clay for a nose. Very rudimentary.











Next, I start creating a little more definition in the shape of the skull, browlines, cheekbones and chin.








Here's my favorite part, shaping the nose. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I always start with it. It really helps things form in my mind. It is the center from which I create my big-headed man. So I define the nostrils and the philtrum (that's the vertical groove on the surface of the upper lip) and blend the nose with the eye sockets.







The next step is blending and detailing and going over what I've already done, the cheeks, the nose, the eye sockets. This is where I tend to work too much, but the piece changes in so many ways just from the handling of it, so when I'm working on the nose, for example, sometimes it smooshes the cheekbones and I need to go back over to make sure everything is still looking good together.



The back of the piece is just as important as the front. This is part of what makes these guys such great worry stones. Feeling every curve, defining a jaw line, the base of the skull and the overall shape of the head.



We can really see the piece taking shape, developing a personality. The jawline, chin, cheekbones, nose and eye sockets are pretty well finished. Now it's just a matter of maintaining their shape as I work on the final phases.











So what's missing? We need a mouth, eh? Let's slice one open on this guy.




Define some lips for him and work on the overall blending and refining of the piece.



If I'm not going sparkly with Swarovski flat crystals, glass seed beads work great for the eyes. They come in so many colors and have such a beautiful sheen. I've chosen a lovely blue jeans shade for this little man.

Give the eyes more depth by adding eyelids and more detail.



Next step is to put the hole through the head since this is a pendant which we want to put on a necklace and add little details, like eyebrow hairs and lower lids, indentations and wrinkles, just making sure it has an overall smoothness. This is the part I love about Super Sculpey. It's like the clay "settles" and you get this really fleshy, definite smoothness that you don't always get with a lesser quality clay.





















These pics show pretty much the only tool I use when sculpting my pendants, but I also use a tiny rubber straight edge for details like the eyebrows or wherever I need to cut in some deeper, tiny lines.

Now our guy is ready for firing. Okay, so I throw him in the oven, but it sounds cooler if you say you fired a piece, which is essentially what you're doing, you just don't need as much heat for polymer clay. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic of this guy after cooking. If you've never seen it before, depending on how long you cook it, the clay color will begin to darken to a rosy pinkish brown. So pretend I've got that pic in here. It would basically look the same, just pinker and less shiny. At this stage, it's ready for painting.

I won't bore you with the painting process, but it's another 10 to 15 layers of different color paint that I think I'll cover in another article. I chose greens and golds for this particular piece.

So, do some wavy hand motions to signify the passage of time and we'll move to finishing off the piece. After the painting process is complete, I make a lovely, oh-so-soft, deerskin leather necklace in a chocolatey brown, finished off with sterling silver hardware and add the pendant.






















And then I name them and give them some personality traits.

This guy has such a poop-eating grin on his face, like he knows something really juicy, but he's not telling. I think I'll name him Jack. Jack's good at keeping secrets.

And, that's it. He is thusly born and sent out into the world. Good luck, Jack!