Anya Stone Anya Stone

The Happy Prince

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:40:02 EST

The happy Prince is based on a story by Oscar Wilde, I wanted to re create my own interpretation of the Happy prince in 1:12th scale for a few years now because I liked the story growing up.

The story is about a Prince and when he died a statue was made in honour of him and placed high on a column above the city. The statue of the prince was so saddened by the misery and hardships that some of the people below were suffering that he would cry tears. A swallow befriended him and agreed to help the Prince by giving his sapphire eyes, red ruby and gold leaf to the poor people of the city.

Sculpture details

Statue is made from polymer clay over a wooden armature with genuine dark blue sapphire eyes and a real ruby in the hilt of the sword.

The column the statue is standing on is made from wood, weighted and given a marble effect finish.

The swallow is made from polymer clay and has glass eyes and is feathered

Overall height including column - 33cm

Height of the statue - 13.6cm

Swallow - 1.6cm

Column - 19cm

I did attempt to cover the statue in gold leaf but it was too thick and ruined the fine detail so I ended up covering a specialist metallic polish. He has a red, lead glass heart inside his chest which is pictured below.

Like all my other sculptures he is sculpted by hand but this is one of the first highly detailed human figures that I have made and is a stand alone piece although he could easily be used in a 1:12th setting.

I created his body anatomically correct so that when the clothes were added they would drape over him and fit as realistically as possible as if they were on a real person. This I felt was important to achieve the realism I was after so I sculpted the detail on his body first before sculpting the clothing on top of his body.

The sculpture took over 300 hours to finish

Although he is for sale this is a one off sculpture and I will not be making another Happy prince.

Please contact if you wish to see more photos

For sale - serious offers considered

Work in Progress (photos)

Because the face is quite small I sculpted it on a flat surface and then attached to the head at a later stage to avoid squashing the details.

The crown pictured here was one of many that I went through to decide on the final design

Muscle detail

Early stages of sculpting the hands

Update for January

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:15:26 EST

I haven't written a blog for quite some time now so I thought it is best to update you all on what has been going on with my work. Firstly my website will be undergoing a few changes in the next few days so if pages and photos suddenly start appearing or reappearing or the website seems a little all over the place it will be down to that, but it will be only temporary.

Otherwise I have been working on my own sculpture designs and comissions and I am currently preparing some slideshows of new sculptures that I have been making over the past few months, so watch this space.

Sculpting Daisy

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:07:58 EST

Daisy was a commissioned sculpture of a British Bulldog who was very dear to her owner.

I have posted some photos of the sculpture in progress including some finished shots. I hope that you will enjoy them.

The two photographs below were my main reference images, and I combined both of them into one for the sculpture. Photo #1 was used for the face and photo #2 was used for the body with Daisy's paw sculpted in a slightly raised pose.

Photo 1 Photo 2

As with most sculptures, the character of the piece starts to become apparent once the face is taking shape. From the lump of clay, the rest of the dog starts to appear.

Early stages: Pastel is painted on to the face before baking

A semi cured and unfinished Daisy

The clay that I used for Daisy was Super Sculpey III polymer clay in flesh colour. Her legs were sculpted over wire armatures and her eyes are made from Tiger Eye rounds.

Finished Daisy photos

The photos below show Daisy sitting on a 1:12th scale sofa

The Dolls' house Magazine

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:19:35 EST

My work will be featured in 150th issue of The Dolls' house magazine available from October 7th

Royal society of miniature painters, sculptors and gravers annual exhibition 2010

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:10:32 EST

Miniature Sphynx cats

A pair of my miniature sphynx cats will be on display at the annual Royal society of miniature painters, sculptors and gravers exhibition at the Mall Galleries London, between the 11^th and 23^rd of October 2010. Admission is free

The Phoenix

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:25:58 EST

Original Polymer-clay sculpture 1:12th scale

Body length – 17.5cm including tail and head crest

Width – 18.5cm including wingspan

Eyes - A grade carnelian stone/ other materials

This is one of the first of my mythological sculptures that is now finished

There are a few more mythological sculptures that I am still working on. This sculpture took about 5 months to complete and it has so many feathers I lost count, although I wrote it down somewhere probably.

Early stages

Brief history about the phoenix

The story of the phoenix (fire bird) originated from the Eastern Mediterranean (Greek mythology) although there are many countries that have their similar versions of the phoenix.

According to legend the bird was so magnificent that the Phoenicians named their country after the bird (or maybe they named the bird after their country?).

The phoenix has a lifespan of at least 500 years although some say 1.461 or even 12,954 years. At the end of each life cycle the phoenix builds a nest out of spice tree twigs, settles into the nest and with a single clap of his wings, sets it afire. The mature bird dies in the conflagration and as the flames die down a young phoenix emerges.

He is supposedly linked to the peacock family (hence my use of peacock feathers ;-)) and is closely related to the sun and is the size of a large eagle type bird.

Descriptions of Phoenix plumage vary so I used my own interpretation on it.

Peacock feathers were used on the head and neck

the fiery wing and tail feathers are coque feathers

The beak is about 2.3cm long so getting a beak that long and thin without it distorting was turning out to be quite difficult until I got the hair dryer out. Once I made the beak I heated it up the just enough with short blasts of air to stiffen but not set the clay fully (polymer clay needs heat to harden) then I put the sculpture it in the oven.

The beak was painted black first and then I used gold metallic and red acrylic paints and sealed it with varnish

The talons are posable and he can grip things or sit on a perch. the claws are made from acryilic.

Thank you to all of you who have shown an interest in my phoenix

It is now sold

I was hoping to have the rest of my mythological sculptures finished by the end of 2010 but due to commissions and other commitments I am postponing work on this project of mine for the time being. I will keep you updated

Message added 15/10/10

Grey Crested Crowned Crane

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:32:42 EST

Just keeping you all up to date with a few of the sculptures I have been working on so far.

1:12 Grey crowned crane

I saw these birds in a wildlife magazine a few months back and really wanted to try making one myself.

This bird sculpture is 8.03cm high, life size ones are around 100cm - 110cm (3.3 ft tall) and interestingly enough are the only cranes that can roost in trees. They come from South Africa originally.

These birds have eyes that face forward but are visible from the side as well as head on. It wasn’t easy to get this angle in miniature scale for some reason; it took around 3 hours to get right because the eyes kept bulging at one stage, which isn’t a good look really.

The crest is made from some mallard feathers I collected from a park, just for those of you who aren't sure what a mallard looks like here's a photo

The rest of the feathers are a combination of some I dyed myself and some yellow cockatiel ones I got from a pet shop.

Pet shops are a good place to go if you want to collect exotic bird feathers; and can be washed and sterilized at home with antibacterial spray and put in an oven on low heat to dry.

Now for the legs, I don’t just use wire on them anymore like I used to. I didn’t like the way the wire looked bare so I use liquid latex to cover the wire and finish the toes off with claws.

Unfinished Crane

Claw