Aurora from Child of Light. The first time I tried using wires for support.
Gris
Before I figured out how to use wire in my figures (and other useful
tricks), I had a few, shall we say, learning experiences, where figures
didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.
Ittle Dew, made without wires, with some compromises
Okami. This was my impetus to start using wires. The legs buckled during firing.
Dixie Kong, using wires
My second try at Arlo with Pikmin, using wires for support
Here's a video where I discuss the making of these figures, and experimenting with wire framing.
The Yarn Yoshi amiibo figures are wonderful and cute, but if you have a mind to complete the set, good luck finding a Poochy amiibo for a decent price. They regularly go for over $100 on eBay.
Thankfully, I have another way of obtaining a Poochy amiibo: making it myself. I'm not a knitter, but I do work with clay.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is a lot of fun. Rather than making boring old Wario and Waluigi amiibo for my collection, I decided to make the Rabbids incarnation of these characters.
The visual style is perfect for clay at this scale, and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I half expected Bwario's mustache to break or fall off, but (knock on wood) so far the worst that's happened despite a decent amount of handling to shuffle around my shelf is he's fallen off his base and I had to re-glue him back on (this time with super glue rather than hot glue).
I was home sick with my kids the day we did this, so they also made their own figures. We made a video to show them off:
My next clay amiibo project was a pair of figures. I was playing through Hollow Knight and really enjoying it, so I decided to make a figure of the titular hero. I also got an idea for a clever twist on Duck Hunt: Duck hunts YOU while the dog giggles.
I still wasn't using any wires inside of my figures, so firing things without having them fall apart in the oven was a challenge, especially if I wanted things to stick out like Hollow Knight's cape and sword. Here's how I fired them in the oven:
Once they had cooled and hardened, I used hot glue to put them together.
The duck and dog were similarly fired in pieces that could support themselves while being melted together in the oven.
I think they turned out awesome.
Shoshana also wanted to make a Duck and Dog figure, using a different pose.
Like Arlo, I like Pikmin, and I wanted to get a Pikmin amiibo. But the Pikmin amiibo wasn't available at the store. I would have had to pay exorbitant prices on eBay, and the thing is, the amiibo itself isn't very interesting. I mean, surely they could have thought of something better for the Pikmin to be on than a broken cinder block.
Well, surely I could think of something better. And I did.
