My friend’s birthday was coming up and I wanted to make him something special. I knew he loved dinosaurs, so I decided to make one, but I did not have much time. Because of the time limit, I went for a simple and CHONKY style, that I had used before.
The first step was to find the right size. So I rolled a ball of clay into the rough size I wanted for the body, then added the tail. When I was happy with the size, I then inserted five small pieces of armature wire where I would place the legs and the neck. After this step, I put the body into the oven for its first bake. I then made two equal-sized balls of clay and rolled them into tubes. I then cut these tubes to form four cylinders that on one side were round and the other was flat. After cutting, I pushed the flat end of the cylinders into the armature wire to form the legs. I used the same cylinder shape to form the neck.
I formed a square-like shape using my fingers to pinch and pull to form the head. The way I made the horn was I cut an oval in half then placed the flat end on the head and used a tool to blend the two pieces. I also inserted the back of the head into the wire sticking out of the neck and blended that together.
I poked the eyes and nostrils with a sharp tool. The big horns are made similarly to the small horn. I can not remember if I used wire in the big horns. I baked the dino again after this step.
I made the frill of the triceratops by flattening clay with a pasta roller and cutting off excess clay with a sharp straight edge tool. Using a small round cookie cutter-like thing I cut the button of the frill to fit around the neck. I then used a long flexible blade to narrow the frill as it got to the bottom, and a wiggly blade to make the top edge all FANCY.
I painted the dino using acrylic paint. Using a toothpick helps fill the inside of the eyes and nostrils. The shine is from a spray finisher. DO NOT use regular spray paint because it will make the clay sticky.
This is how I make dinosaurs in this chubby style. This is only my second time making a dinosaur in this fashion, but I believe you can make most other dinosaurs in almost the same steps with minor changes.
