Horned Demon

This was my very first sculpture when getting into this hobby (absolutely the first, with no hidden pre-attempts). The reference was NorthoftheBorder sculpting Diablo — an amazing sculptor with great videos. I saw it, bought some clay, and just had a go at it.

I started with the armature and bulked it up with aluminum foil. Nothing special that I recall from it, I didn't know how to do it well but it was decent enough. Then I got to work on the body, which is ridiculous: the proportions are all wrong, the hips are way too narrow and the legs too small. It was, and still is, very ugly, and I knew it at the time. But I could see the potential, and I also knew the importance of actually finishing a project and getting through the entire process, for example my first attempts at painting. So even though it was ugly, my goal was to finish, and luckily I was strong enough to push through. Once the body was done I got to the spikes, which add to the look of the sculpt, and then the weapons. There wasn't much thought process or scenery, I was just going through the process of trying to create something.

After that I got to the painting. I watched a couple of beginner painting videos and tried some dry brushing. It immediately showed its value, the body got a really nice contrast with it. Coloring the spikes was difficult, there wasn't enough space to get the brush inside and I kept trying to rework misplaced paint. It was a great learning experience in itself, and it got me familiar with the paints. Then I created a base with air-dry clay, painted it, and called it done. I wasn't particularly proud of the result itself, but I could definitely see the potential that would come with practice.

After I finished it, I discovered that my cat loves chewing on baked polymer clay to break it. So it broke pretty soon after. That was another very important lesson to learn before putting even more effort into future sculptures.

It never made it to being a shelf piece at any point, but regardless, it is one of those early steps that just cannot and shouldn't be skipped. The learning curve increases significantly at the start of any practice, and this hobby is no different. The lessons I learned here made my sculptures much better, right from the very second attempt.