I say Gryphon and you say Griffin

Back again with a Step by Step blog for you all today. :)

I am working hard on building my inventory up for the Dragon Con Art Show in September. Last Dragon Con cleaned me out so I will have a whole bunch of new pieces this year. 

So here is one of my gallery pieces, a Gryphon (Griffin) and I am super excited about it because this is the first one of these I have made on this scale(over 3 inches) before.  

As always, I started with the general shape I wanted, used glass beads for the eyes and began to sculpt small details into the face and torso. I wanted this Gryphon to look sort of like a parakeet so I kept his beak short.

Also I wanted my gryphon to have feline-like back legs and bird-like front legs. So I made his little clawed feet and began to build then up with hair. Giving him a puffy chest.

Time to add some color to our guy. I normally start with colored polymer clay but since I wasn't sure what color I wanted when I started, I had to use white. It didn't take me long to figure out his color scheme though. Since he was already very parakeet-esque I went with blue and white.

Now to add some ears, because a gryphon without ears is just a bird with a lion butt. LOL  

(Fun Fact: Back when the crest or suit of arms was just an animal head, the gryphon would often be mistaken for a bird or eagle head so it was then always depicted with ears to clear up any confusion.)

Now usually I am diligent about photographing my steps but with this piece I got super excited and neglected to take pictures of my process of making the wings for this guy. No worries, my phoenix I did last year is happy to help with an explanation collage. :)

Traditionally gryphons only have one set of wings but our guy needs to be special so he gets two! I couldn't decide which position I wanted , open or folded, so I went with both. That is one of the great things about fantasy creatures, you can make them look however you want, your imagination is the limit. :)  

I like my gryphons to be very cat-like aswell so this little one is going to get a nice fluffy tail to finish him off.

He is all sculpted, now we can paint small details to our sculpture.

Our Little Gryphon is ready for his Art Show debut.
This sculpture will be available in September at the Dragon Con Art Show.  

Hope you enjoyed my step by step blog.
Check out my social media sites for more of my artwork. :) 

Thanks for reading!

~Caralyn