Chiseled jawline

Or sculpted by some means, at least. Here's my progress so far on customizing the jawless Kenner raptor.

Starting with a length of aluminum wire, bent into an armature for the lower jaw.

I sculpted the rough shape of the jaw onto the wire with polymer clay and baked it. The dark brown clay used here is just filler, it'll get covered with other colours. The sculpting tools I'm using are some of the same I went into more detail about in posts about making Skye.

A fitting session.

Next I added the inside of the mouth, using liquid polymer clay as "glue" between baked and raw clay. Unlike with Skye, I didn't bake the teeth first, and attached them to the gums while both were raw. Serene's teeth are going to be a bit blockier than Skye's, to match the style of his upper teeth, so I didn't need the tweezers and swearwords this time.

Another fitting. At this point I was still considering making the lower jaw able to move. The figure does have an articulated mouth, in how the Kenner raptors' action feature works: when you squeeze the figure's legs together, it lunges its head forward and opens its mouth. As the articulation is actually on the top jaw, losing the bottom jaw doesn't affect it, and like with all the other figures of this type I've acquired, the action feature still works!

I eventually decided not to attempt my first ever moveable joint with this figure, I'll try again with another where I have more control over how the head is constructed instead of having to work around existing mechanics. I cut the wires sticking out of the jaw after making this decision, as they were more in the way than helpful in that case.

Next I made some adjustments to the upper jaw as well, starting with a lip implant. The Kenner raptors don't really have lips, which works surprisingly well for them considering the raptors they're based on specifically do have lipped mouths, but in this case the lower jaw is going to have lips, so the upper should match.

The material is epoxy putty. Polymer clay needs to be baked, so I couldn't use that directly on the figure. As I mentioned when working on Swiftdive and Treeclimber, this material is a bit hazardous, so make sure to take proper precautions if you want to use it as well. Polymer clay is safer, and for a safer non-bakeable sculpting medium, air-dry clay could work, too. Epoxy putty is more durable when cured, though, as far as I know, and attaches well to various surfaces, so I prefer it. Just saying, though, the only place in Finland I could find this stuff at was an online store for taxidermy supplies, no craft store a little kid or a parent for a little kid might shop at carries it.

With the lower jaw still out of the way, I painted the insides of the upper lip and did touch-ups to the scuffed paint on the teeth, palate, and also on the eyes since I had the right colours out. I also painted black the plastic bits showing inside the throat, so hopefully they won't be very visible anymore on the finished figure.

Then onto more sculpting. Dare and Meripihka have joined in as jaw reference, and moral support.

I attached a short bit of wire in the middle, bent downwards a little. This will go in the figure's hollow neck to anchor the jaw better while attaching it. I also added off-white and light mint green clay for skin, and textured it with a sewing pin and a paperclip that has the plastic coating pulled off the metal a bit to make a circular stamp. No lips yet, as I wanted to try it on the figure first after baking.

I added lips, and baked again. I didn't forget the tongue, but I did forget up until this point that I already had two spares left over from making Swiftdive and Treeclimber, so I didn't need to make a new one now.

Time to start assembling this contraption.

First with glue, which I left to dry overnight after checking that the jaw is supported and staying in the right position during the drying.

Then some epoxy putty. This pass is mostly to attach the jaw in place more firmly.

On the second pass I continued to add material to connect the jaw to the neck, and finished the putty sculpting. I left the mouth a bit open to show off the teeth, as that's how I would have displayed him anyway if I'd made the lower jaw moveable. The action feature just opens the mouth wider.

He's still missing his tongue and needs paint and maybe some other tweaks, but he can go :V again and that's a big improvement.