How to Make a Clay Trout Sculpture Basics

Series Summary

Working with clay is one of the most satisfying and relaxing hobbies. It is also the basis of one of the most ancient fine arts, sculpture. Ceramics can be produced on a large scale, making kitchen ware or kitsch, but it takes an artist to make a sculpture. Clay sculpting is a fantastic part of ceramic art. If you would like to learn how to design and create clay sculptures for free and online, you can learn from one of our experts.

In this free video series, expert sculptor Jorge Benlloch teaches you how to sculpt a trout from clay. You will learn how to prepare a base, how to cut the clay, how to choose a model, and how to begin your sculpture. Jorge offers many tips as he demonstrates sculpting a beautiful fish from the clay. He shows you how to sculpt the eyes, fins, and contours and also how to add detail to the scales of the eagle. You also get tips on enamel, epoxy, paint, and so on.

Video Transcript

"JORGE BENLLOCH: My name is Jorge Benlloch for Expert Village. Now today, we are going to make a quite interesting thing. We are going to make, like, a trophy fish. Like those fish that the taxidermy mount. We are going to do it in clay, and it's going to be a lot of fun. This is a good present for your dad or for yourself. Anyway, these are the materials that, normally, we can use. We are going to use water-based clay, and it's going to have--to be self-drying. You don't need to use a kiln. If you have facilities to get into the kiln, it's much better, though. But anyway, the process that I am going to use is self-drying. It means that you can do it at home, and then you are going to have the piece that is going to last forever. This is red clay, water-based. This is a gray clay, water-based. I'm going to use that one. That is less messy. Then, this is Sculpey, excellent material but you need, like, your--like your oven not--yeah, like a toaster oven to make it hard. But it's expensive and we are going to need a quite big quantity of clay. This is Plasticine or plastiline that never dries. You don't need that one for today. But I present those materials because they are very important for sculpting. And this is, more or less, the tools that we are going to need--roller pin, pieces of wood and a few tools. These are very important. That's--this wire is in order to cut the clay. And let's start doing it."