Cat-caught tongues

The cat is actually innocent of all she is accused of here, such false advertizing.

Anyway, I made tongues for the model kit raptors out of polymer clay.

About to go in the oven, seasoned with a few extra blades of grass in case I want to add some to the bases. I made a spare for each raptor so I can pick the best ones. Then I'll have two disembodied tongues to decide what to do with, but sculpting Skye already left me with a stash of feathers, fingers, claws, irises, and corneas, not to mention two inside pieces of a raptor's mouth complete with teeth attached, so apparently storing bodyparts is not a new thing for me now.

Swiftdive and Treeclimber spent the day drying the second coat of paint on their tails. I left the clay to cool in the oven after it had baked, to continue with that the next day.

In the meantime I also painted some fake rocks. With each batch of epoxy putty I'd mixed while working on the raptors' seams, there was usually a bit left over. I'd just make the extra putty into little pebbles and left those to cure, too, and I've got quite a few in different sizes to choose from.

I picked most of the smallest ones, and gave them a bit of paint in different shades of grey and greyish green, deliberately not very neatly so hopefully they look more like something you'd find in nature. I may not end up using all of them, but at least some will get glued on the bases eventually.

Drying the glue on their brand new tongues! I placed them a bit less head up than usual so the tongues don't perhaps fall inside their hollow bodies before the glue has dried enough to keep them from sliding. I spread glue under where the tongue will go with a toothpick and then carefully placed and adjusted the tongue with tweezers. Swiftdive's was a little too wide, it turns out - I took measurements, but I think her lower jaw is a tiny bit narrower than Treeclimber's, or her lower teeth curve inward a bit - and it was the narrowest one I'd made, but I think I managed to wiggle it into place. If not, I could have made a new one since I still have clay, but I'm happy with how it looks.

After the glue had dried I carefully added a bit more under the tip of Swiftdive's tongue since it took longer to adjust hers and some of the glue could have already started drying, just to be sure it stays in place. Then I gave their tails another coat of paint, this time their final base colour before the stripes.

Now that they can blep, I guess it's starting to be time to make them able to stand, too.