I got a great quick start on this, and I thought, "For once I'll be done early and not wait until the last minute to finish it and post!"
Well...guess what. XD

Anyway, I've been busy, so this was a little rushed, but at least I got an entry done! The pictures might not be great, and there aren't many, but here we go:




I found a plain egg pattern online, but I added a little twist of my own to it:


It's an egg with a crack in it! Now, what kind of egg is this going to be? Let's find out!


Here's the eye that will be peeking out, embroidered on by hand.


Aha! It's a Nephini egg! I added flowers, beads, glass gems, and stitched some yarn vines around the egg.



The egg watches you...

I love these Sylestia art contests since they give me an excuse to try out new art ideas xD I've been wanting to try sculpting in polymer clay for a while now, and this fest presented the perfect opportunity :)

From the start, I knew I wanted to make an aeri egg plus a hatchling. However, since this is the first time working with clay, I didn't have any of the needed tools or supplies. To save money, I raided the house and my dad's toolbox for potential tools. (my messy desk with random household items as sculpting tools)


Armed with random tool and the great google & youtube, I got to work. Several sources recommended using a foil base to help the clay keep its shape and bake easier.
https://i.imgur.com/yIsXlVH.jpg egg base
https://i.imgur.com/qy0A1UE.jpg aeri frame


Unfortunately, here's where my random scavenging went wrong. The thick wire, which looked a lot like armature wire, turned out to be solder tin-lead solder :/ They really need to write that in bigger font xD

Potential disaster averted, I made another aeri frame. Besides, I had forgotten about the wings the first time round xD

I grabbed some clay from Michaels in white, light blue, sparkly blue, and purple. Since I wanted color allocations different from how the generator is set up, I colored in a image with how I wanted it to look.


The egg was made by covering the base with white clay, cutting out circles in blue, light blue, and purple using a random cap I had, and rolling those into the desired shapes.
https://i.imgur.com/I4WrIsj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bd1Ir5o.jpg


As a final touch, I painted on purple speckles. By the end, the white clay had gotten rather dirty, so I tried my best to clean this up with nail polish remover and a coating of liquid clay (not sure if that's how it was supposed to be used or not lol).


Next for the aeri base. I started with a base layer of white clay and added to that to create the bulk of the aeri's body. This part took forever because the clay I got was super soft and didn't hold its shape very well. It did, however, hold fingerprints very well >.< I spent a good deal of time and cornstarch trying to create a smooth surface.


I added the eyes and "horns" next which turned out to be a mistake since they were too easy to accidentally break while working on other parts. I ended up redoing the horns at the end and one eye as well:


Belly scales were added after that. Followed by wings. I made the details on the wings with the blunt edge of a razor blade and tiny scissors.

The hindwings were made in a similar fashion as the wings.


Same with the tail. Once I got the hang of the technique (I was looking at a lot of examples from dragonsandbeasties), it wasn't hard to apply it my aeri :) Looking at the generator images, it looks like aeris have a mane, but only between its wings. It looked rather off on my aeri, so I extended the mane to the top of the head.


Finally, I remade the head spikes and attached them :)


To clean things up, I smoothed out fingerprints as best I can and added in final details (toes on paws, nostrils, and eyebrows)

Unfortunately, the baking process was a huge hassle and I will probably need to rebake parts that fell off the first time. The egg turned out pretty well. Only a petal broke off when I applied more pressure than I should have :|

The aeri was meant to have a rod through it and sit atop the egg. However, the wire wouldn't stay in place and I couldn't figure out how to make a foil support that wouldn't dent the aeri while baking. After dropping and accidentally smooshing the face, I resorted to using a kind of sketchy sounding tip where polyester fiber stuffing is used as a support. Luckily, nothing burned and my aeri only came out with a broken spike and feather. I barely got those done before needing to leave and I haven't had a chance to get back to them yet. I'll probably fix those with liquid clay, attach the aeri and egg, then rebake when the get the chance. It's too late today though, so I'm hoping the prebake version will be good enough :)

All in all, a fun experience but way too time consuming for be to do regularly. I ended up sculpting from 7am to 4pm today, with some prep work done yesterday. I'm quite happy with the result though! (if only baking wasn't so stressful >.<)

Special thanks to Lostwords13 and Dragongem23 for answering all my questions ^^

My attempt at a griffi egg.

1st Place Winner(s)

Prizes: 2,000 Diamonds, Free Stable, [Peerless Avatar Token] x1, [Easter Event Themed Pet (3-Visible)] x2, [Philter of Trait Disruption] x6


GoldGryphon


2nd Place Winner(s)

Prizes: 1,000 Diamonds, Free Stable, [Peerless Avatar Token] x1, [Easter Event Themed Pet (2-Visible)] x2, [Philter of Trait Disruption] x4


Tigress


3rd Place Winner(s)

Prizes: 500 Diamonds, Free Stable, [Peerless Avatar Token] x1, [Easter Event Themed Pet (2-Visible)] x1, [Philter of Trait Disruption] x2


Atriella



Lostwords13



PhilosopherKing


All Participants

Prizes: Title: Eggcellent Designer, 100 Diamonds, [Peerless Avatar Token] x1, [Easter Event Themed Pet (1-Visible)] x1, [Easter Eggling Avatar Item] x2