Studio Journal

I am a few weeks into my attempts to create realistic looking wildlife. I am now using these incredably realistic looking leaves. They come in a bushel. I took them apart and glued them in such a way that they look natural. The next step was to attach them to a branch.

So I began sculpting small branches out of metal. Here are a couple before the plaster is added. At first I tried applying plaster directly to the metal but it slid right through. I was getting impatient waiting for it to thicken. I then began filling the metal mesh with clay so i could immediately apply layers of plaster.

Here it is after several layers of plaster were almost hard. I then smooshed bark on the surface. for a realistic sort of texture.

Here is what I have so far. I've made about 20 so far. I plan to uses all the leaves I have, so I expect to make about 70 of these. I wont paint them until way later so I can easily rehydrate the plaster and work with it. The next step is to attach these small branches to larger ones. That will bring up more issues because I am having trouble making casts of trees. I have a few ideas, and I'm confident I'll work it through.