Red Reef Lobster

I thought it would be fun to create an animal that climbs out of the water to have a curious look above the water surface. Maybe because we have shrimp in our aquarium, I came up with the idea to make a lobster out of it. After a bit of searching on the internet I came across a picture of a red reef lobster (enoplometopus occidentalis) and decided to give it a try. I couldn't find any pictures of realistic polymer clay lobsters, just cartoon style. That's probably because of all the legs and feelers you have to make 😏 At one point it looked like a lady at the hairdresser, with all kinds of foil in her hair, in this case to bake all the loose feelers in the right position. And of course that wasn't complicated enough. I could have used aquarium decoration stones for the bottom cover, but I wanted to make everything completely from Fimo. So I made a lot of 'stones' by chopping black Fimo smaller and smaller with a thin knife. And only a lobster in the water is so bare, so I added some shells and I thought he should crawl out of the seaweed. To make the bottom of the lobster a bit 'fleshy' I made it with translucent red and the armor is made with metallic red and mother-of-pearl white. The eyes are made of mother-of-pearl black, to make the eyes just a little more lively than just black. Everything is first sealed with a layer of lacquer, to prevent the formation of air bubbles in the epoxy. The lacquer layer has turned slightly white on the bottom, but otherwise it is a very successful project. Someone has already told me they would like to have it 😊

The preserving jar is made of glass, all parts are completely made of Fimo (polymer clay) and it is cast in epoxy resin. The whole has a diameter of 8.3 cm and a height of 6.3 cm.