[nolanfa]

I'm trying to keep on this blog just stuff I did myself; for awesome art from other people and interesting stories or useful stuff, check my inspiration blog; @nolanfa-fanart is my fandom-only blog (includes fandom reblogs and discussions), @nolanfa-clayworks is my clay-only one (which includes clay reblogs).

(mostly) ceramics links:

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Currently mostly doing 1) clay, 2) 2D animals and landscapes and 3) fanart (mostly marvel and dc (batfam) those days)

main tumblr tags (mostly accurate as of may 2025): clay: stuff made out of clay 2D : computer 2D, traditional drawings, 2D animation, etc. 3D: computer 3D pixelart: pixel art pictures or animations fandom: anything fandom (mostly fanart) more tags under the cut (reliability... uneven):

nosart: everything art includes:    nosfinal: my finished art pieces (no WIPs there)    nosketch: WIPs, timelapses, doodles and unfinished things    crop: crops of bigger pieces, used as teasers    fanart: well... fanart    sIf: personal stuff, kinda    volume: mostly clay sculptures, but if I do other physically-existing in 3-dimensional space things, that's where it'll go    animation: movement in a video format    animatic-y: narration in a video format    noslore: pictures with text attached

fandom: global fandom tag includes (so far):    dc    marvel    teen wolf    fic rec    fandom events (contains mostly bingo masterposts; block it if you don’t want to see those) (I also try to tag the characters with firstname lastname, or nickname lastname if their usual name is not their legal one)

specific art projects are:    mountain people series: 3D low-poly characters    beach people series: 3D low-poly characters    repeating animal pattern: 2D animal patterns    motivational animal posters    limited palette: landscapes with a limited palette    chimerae project: 2D old naturalist sketchbook-like imaginary animals salmon snakes: clay dragons, about 10 to 30 centimeters (3 to 10 inches) long

tricks: useful stuff to know chatting: discussions with other people

[nolanfa-clayworks]

about the ask about how I make the sheep's wool: okay so I did one vid (of four small sheep and one hedgehog that has the same texture as the big sheep's wool) but it's very low quality so you'll have pics too to actually see details (but I think the movement is interesting maybe? so you get both. I'll get better quality for potential other videos); the vid's at the end.

But first, the tools!

- some clay at the top - the knife is for smoothing planes and for making the wool on the big sheep (and scoring clay when necessary) - the wide wooden thing is for example for the cloven feet; - the wooden skewer is for the eyes and paws (and anything that requires dots; pointy side for very small dots and blunt side for slightly bigger ones) - the pen cap is for bigger eyes (and anything that requires empty dots) - the washcloth is for wiping my hands when I change clays and whenever I need to.

--

For the small sheep (beginning of the video) I make the body by pinching, pushing and pressing the clay till it has the right shape (if I did not get enough of it at first I'll add some too but I try to avoid it), then I let it dry a bit, ideally for a couple hours (here I didn't). Then I press the wool over it with my fingers (I keep in mind to add some behind the ears so they don't break later on).

For the big ones (or, here, a hedgehog; on the vid it's at about 9:50) I make the body, let it dry (for big sheep I even hollow them out then have to let them dry a bit more),

then put a sliver of clay on my knife or on the body (starting with the rump; on the vid you can see I messed it up and started with the head for the first wool-scale) and press it with the knife to the body,

then build up to the head till it's all covered. I don't score and slip: pressure is enough, as (I apply a fair bit of it and) the wool-scales won't bear weight and both parts are still wet enough at that point.

There you go, that's it.

[LQ] sheep + hedgehog

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

I'm also counting this as critters 5 to 10 of the 100 horseyear critters.

whole series here

[nolanfa-clayworks]

I saw someone do 100 soups for the year, and I thought I'd try to do it with small clay critters, sounds fun.

So here you go, 100 small clay critters for the year of the horse!

Here you get 1-4, hares (those are still greenware; having to show the pics of the fired and glazed ones would be much harder to manage as I'd mostly get all 100 in one or two firings, which defeats the pic-as-you-go feeling of this)

whole series here

[nolanfa]

(I edited the original post to add a link to the soup post that inspired this)

[nolanfa-clayworks]

African Wild Dog WIPs!

[nolanfa-clayworks]

lots of african wild dogs! finished! (unless I manage to find how to have them all safely darker, in which case I might fire them again)

bonus: the one sitting on its haunches got decapitated by... something? During the firing. Uneven heat, maybe. There was the shape of a star on the inside of its throat.

I repaired it with clay and glaze but it was complicated (several pieces holding on to each other: repairing one repeatedly rebroke the other one) so I couldn't do it as carefully as I'd have liked and the repair shows. Seems solid so far, though.

[nolanfa]

Did some 3D printing of my mountain people series. It was... not without challenges but I did get printed figures out of it in the end.

I am planning on making a blog post about the whole process. At some point. Later. Prooobably in the summer.

Two quick pieces of advice though: - if you make your own 3D files to print: make that shit thicker. No, thicker than that. Again. That was maybe half of my issues. - and I personally really like the fuzzy skin option (in slicing softwares). It makes the filament not be straight but move in random-ish patterns on outer surfaces, which makes it more matte and helps hide the printing lines.

Bonus pics of gratuitous creepy vibes (unintended) and cloven neat in half character (unintended too).

[nolanfa-clayworks]

Both glazes on each picture are the same. I think the difference is due to oxygen quantities in the kiln (the red and the yellow glazes containers specifically advise to leave a lot of oxygen during the firing), but that was unexpected.

Inconveniently, while I like the red and yellow better with (I assume) more oxygen (the darker red and more orange yellow), I like the grey much better with less (the bluer grey).

[nolanfa-clayworks]

Working on a couple bigger hares.

[nolanfa-clayworks]

about 20-ish cm / 7-ish inches high The way I make eyes for this series of hares was inspired by both @alleesaur's art about hares and @gallusrostromegalus's writing about encountering wild hares while walking the dog after @nyctosaurid's quote

(I recommend you check them out! both of them are very good art/writing)

[nolanfa]

groundfree felids 3/6, jaguar

wips under the cut:

sketch:

Started on the markings, refined shape:

Got bored drawing the markings. Worked on the baskground so I felt like I was still working on this; also more contrast is always better:

This was supposed to be the final version but I've been told it lacked legibility (only the head/neck/front paws changed):

this was also supposed to be the final version but I played around with textures in the meantime:

final version!

[nolanfa-clayworks]

[nolanfa]

Tried some lino! Was very fun, easy enough to start, totally recommend it! - I now understand people needing to make five thousand prints of the same pattern, I feel the same urge. - I miscalculated when doing the linolike digital arts (which were supposed to be used as base for actual linocuts): making a mostly white background is a pain in the ass.

[nolanfa-clayworks]

[nolanfa]

mountain people 9-12 / 12

[nolanfa-clayworks]

baby owl that has never been fed before in its life.

[nolanfa]

mountain people

7-9 / 12

[nolanfa-clayworks]

[nolanfa]

more mountain people! 4-6 / 12

[nolanfa-clayworks]

this one is rough on the front, so that it has three different textures: glaze, smooth clay, and rough clay.