"Tine" style fairy

Tine Kamerbeek's ballerina

While at NIADA I saw sculpts done by some very talented artists, including Tine Kamerbeek.  I had not seen her work before, but am now a fan.  I love her elongated faces.  I especially like her miniatures.... tiny, chubby, children. She often does ballerinas like the one pictured.

I decided I like to try a similar sculpt, I wanted to practice sculpting the exaggerated features on a fairy.  I'm going to try a miniature 3 1/2" fairy.  The face will have long tear drop eyes, chubby cheeks, and elf ears....a compact little body with over sized feet.

 I made an armature of 16 gauge copper wire and wrapped it with 22 gauge copper wire.  To give the piece some weight I added lead fishing weights to the shoes.  I bought an assortment at Walmart.  I used a cone shaped weight for the ankle area and a rounded ball piece for the toe.  The lead is very soft and can be shaped with a pliers. The cone shaped weights have a hole through the center and the wire armature fits into the top.  I then wrapped the wire with white floral tape.  I sealed the lead with Kilz spray paint.

I used a mix of La Doll and Premier air dry clay to make this fairy. This is a tiny sculpt so I used small paint brushes to refine the features, take a look.  Now she'll need an outfit!