Magatama

I really love the shape of magatama beads, but finding them in an outlet I can buy from is nigh impossible, so I put some nice polyclay together and created one of my own.

Sparkly blue Sculpey3, with translucent Sculpey3.

I was a bit surprised when the translucent clay conditioned so easily and quickly, to a point where it was a bit sticky and troublesome, so once the clays were mixed a bit, and this guy was cut out, I let it sit overnight to harden a little bit. Made it a little easier for my polyblade to cut through, but I had to roll the snake as I cut to avoid smooshing it.

Once it was baked, and cooled, I sanded it with four grits of sandpaper; I didn't think so really smooth it out better before I baked, so I used some paintstripping sandpaper to really even it out. After that I went down grits from coarse to ultra fine; with the ultra fine I sanded under stream of water. It was so smooth but still needed a bit of shine, so I finished it with a layer of varnish