KOBOLD WHISKERS + EARS

I used a mix of glow in the dark and translucent Cosclay to make durable whiskers for my Kobold! It is pretty easy, you just roll out tiny snakes and make sure the ends are tapered to look like a whisker. But here are some tips that may help!

I use the blade of my hand first to get an even snake:

then a finger to roll it out more:

but a good way to really taper it is to place the snake onto the baking pan you will be using and tamp down the back so that it sticks to the pan.

Then gently roll the tapered end back and forth to create a sharper point, the stuck down end will help the whisker stay straight instead of rolling up because it is too long/thin or making an uneven bulbed end:

Bake them for about 10-12 min and let them cool in the pan. Be sure to test the whisker by pulling on it before gluing, sometimes they aren't baked enough ( or too long?) and are brittle.

I trimmed the whisker ends and dipped them in super glue then set them into the 1.5mm hole i drilled into the whisker holes in the sculpt.

I dusted the base of each whisker with chalk pastel to make it a little more realistic!

If you break off a glued in whisker, don't worry! Clip off the whisker at the base, drill a hole into the clipped base and glue in a new one. 

KOBOLD EARS:

So I used a combo of the Moffmang and Flappy bits techniques to get the ears to work. I did a few versions but the felt piece makes the ear distinct from the rest of the head/neck flexible TPU flappy fabric. I also mounted a spring in between the horn and cheek, this area was sculpted for this purpose and boy am i glad it actually worked! 

Felt and TPU fabric can combine to make  pretty cute ear! You can also heat shape the cast plastic ear base if you want the ears to curve a different way, have fun with it! 

You can also see the notch i cut into the top of the ear felt to make the ear curve a bit once the edges are glue shut.

Here is the felt before i glued it all together. Alcohol markers are great for making the linework!

I used high temp hot glue for this. 

You can see the holes i made with the drill to figure out the right height and size for the spring to glue into so that the ears look right. I bought a variety pack of springs from Home Depot and tried a few out.

(I ended up mounting the ear on the lower hole....)

Use epoxy clay/apoxie clay to hide the crime! I plugged the mistake holes and used it to blend the spring in nicer and reinforce the glue hold. The epoxy was tinted purple with so-strong resin tint from Smooth-On while mixing the two parts. Later, I painted it with acrylics to blend it even more.

Hide the crime part 2: Cosclay whiskers can distract from the sorta ugly spring behind the ear! Nobody has to know, shhh....