I've had a couple requests for this, so here goes.

To make a texture similar to feathers, scales or plate armor, you'll need either epoxy putty or some form of Sculpey or other clay.

Either epoxy or Sculpey will work, but they have limitations: epoxy hardens very fast, especially for work of this (small) nature; Sculpey must be heat-cured, which can cause problems with plastic (warping joints is possible). For this tutorial, I'll be assuming Sculpey is the medium of choice (with notes for epoxy in parentheses) and that you will be using the microwave boil-it curing method (boiling piece you want cured for 1-3 minutes in water).

Okay, so to start out, you'll want to soften up your Sculpey (or mix your epoxy) and pinch off a tiny piece of it. The smaller, the better. The smallest I can get seems to be about the size of a match head, and that works pretty well. So take this tiny piece and roll it into a ball.

This next part is how you determine what kind of shape you want the pattern to have. If you smoosh the little ball flat, you'll have a small, flat, round piece that is perfect for reptile scales. If flatten it and pinch one end of it, so that it forms a tear shape, you have feathers. If you flatten it and cut it into a square, you have plate armor (either flat-bottomed or pointed, depending on how you orient the pieces). You're going to make a whole lot of these.

If you're using Sculpey, you can just stick this little piece to your custom, trying not to flatten the BOTTOM of the Sculpey piece (if you are using epoxy, it would be wiser to make several shapes before it hardens and glue them on later). You will start at the bottom of your custom, making a row of circle/tear/square pieces all the way around. The second row should overlap the first, about half-way, and in between the pieces of the first row, like this:

| || || | top of second row
/ / / tips of second row
/ / / tips of first row

I recommend curing the piece often, as you may accidentally squish the pieces you've already attached.

Basically, you just continue this pattern all the way up, covering the area you want to have this texture.

This method lends itself very well to drybrushing (Zook's Drybrush Tutorial), when you get around to painting. On the custom above, I used a base white and drybrushed with brown to make it look a bit dirty. If you wanted a metallic look, you could do base silver with drybrushed black, or the reverse for a greasy, shining through on the edges look.

If you have any questions or comments, hit me (in the blackjack sense, not literally).

Nate

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