Are there any customs you've made you'd like to make again?

[BlackCurtains]

As you grow as an artist and learn new techniques and skills, have you ever thought about remaking an earlier custom?

My first ever swap custom was for a Halloween swap here on the Arena. I lost the pictures I had of it (which weren't very good and I didn't take enough). It was a pony trapped in a spider web, with the baby spiders coming out of it and the mother spider, who looked like a big eyeball, watching from the web. I called it The Nest.

I've thought about how I made that custom and it makes me cringe. The web had no armature! The spiders legs were done weirdly. It wasn't painted very well. Sometimes I think of giving it another shot, but that wouldn't be fair to its owner, I don't think. So maybe I can do a similar idea, but not the exact same thing.

Have you ever remade a custom? Have you thought about it?

If you have remade any, I'd love to see pics

[Pokeyonekenobie]

I haven't yet but I have some earlier customs that I sealed with Mod Podge that I think I'm going to strip and redo because the Mod Podge just doesn't look very nice and I have better access to sealants now.

[kaelynn]

I haven't as of yet but I've certainly been tempted now and then.  I made a scorpion pony several years ago for the custom pony contest on PI and I used mainly Super Sculpey.

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At the time, I didn't know as much about bulking up areas with aluminum foil and then putting clay over top of it to reduce weight and clay so it's super heavy.  Also, Super Sculpey is brittle in thin areas so the horns break off on a regular basis.  If I were to redo it, I would shape the legs more, use Cosclay to combat breakage (especially on the darn horns!) and try to make the claws and sculpting of the exoskeleton more realistic.

This dragon is another one I'd redo.  I learned so much about ball joints doing this guy and made waay too many mistakes!  Once again I'd use Cosclay to combat breakage (more broken horns) and I wouldn't use a can of spray paint to paint him silver!!  So many hours into him and I ended up having to throw him out because he was so sticky and gooey and left sticky silver paint everywhere.   

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I've considered doing him again many times but I don't know if I have the patience to make all those sections again!   

And the one I've most considered redoing is this one.  It was my second ever custom pony and I had no idea at that time how to properly blend apoxie sculpt and sand it smooth so he's pretty lumpy and bumpy and the added on sections are very obvious.  And his antlers are terrible!   

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The only thing I really like about him is the airbrushed shading which was more luck than skill!     It was made as a birthday gift for my father-in-law and since I didn't know how to securely attach horns/antlers at that point, one of the antlers broke off almost immediately and refuses to stay attached for more than a few days at a time now no matter what I do.

And now I'll stop before I completely hijack the thread!   

[BlackCurtains]

Haha, kaelynn, those first two are amazing as it is. Sorry about the dragon though. The moose looks good for a second ever!

So you are liking the Cosclay more than Super Sculpey? I looked at it on BlickArt and it sounds like Sculpey Bake 'n Bend. Which is what I use for horns and claws and things. I should get some and try it.

@Pokey - Mod Podge is the bane of my existence I have had to take customs to the sink and scrub them with a toothbrush to get the sticky Mod Podge off. I'm glad that using it is becoming less and less. I said in another thread somewhere, it's great for papercrafts and gluing puzzles together, but not much else.

[kaelynn]

Thanks!

I haven't experimented with the Cosclay a whole lot yet, but I tried the Sculpey Bake and Bend several years ago and as I recall it wasn't a whole lot more flexible than Premo clay and it was harder for me to get my hands on so I abandoned it.  I'll definitely update you as I get more experience with it.

One thing I did notice that surprised me though.  I had started on doing a Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad version) and I started by making her shorts out of Cosclay.  I ended up putting her aside for a few months unbaked and when I picked her up and looked at her last month I noticed that the Cosclay had shrunk slightly and cracked in several places.  I decided to just take the Cosclay off and do the clothing in Apoxie Sculpt instead and when I removed the Cosclay, the areas of the pony that the Cosclay had covered were slightly...swollen, for lack of a better word.  Almost like the pony plastic has soaked up some of the plasticizer from the clay and swelled.  The plastic doesn't feel any different to the touch, but I have her put off to the side to see what happens over time and I'll use a different bait to make my Harley Quinn.  No way I'm putting that much work into a pony when I don't know what the Cosclay did to the pony plastic!   

[BlackCurtains]

Oh wow. Yeah, that doesn't sound good.