Silver Guinea Pig

My first creation with silver clay. It is a residual product in which silver powder is mixed with a binding agent. It is difficult to work with and dries out very quickly. Therefore, it is generally not used for very fine or detailed projects. I thought for a long time about what I wanted to make. It was real silver, it had to be something special. Then my partner made the suggestion: why not a guinea pig? That was one of the first things I made a few years ago when I started working with polymer clay. Not a complex shape but at the same time typically me, because who else would make a silver guinea pig?

The first attempt was hopeless. I knew I had to work quickly and that it was difficult material to work with, but it was simply impossible to add shape and detail without distorting it again with the lightest touch. It also dries so quickly that the processing time is really short. Fortunately, you can reuse it. So my first sad guinea pig fell victim to a mortar (😨) and was then mixed with water again. At this point any sensible person would decide that silver clay is not a suitable medium for this project. But now it had become a matter of principle, I simply had to make it work.

Plan B then. I prefer not to use moulds for Fimo, I like to make everything myself. But what if I made a guinea pig from Fimo and used it to make a casting mould so that I could use it to make the silver guinea pig? In the meantime I had also decided that if I was going to work with real silver, the eyes had to become real gemstones. I made impressions in the polymer clay with zirconia so that there is room in the silver to place the eyes. Making the casting mould went perfectly. The smallest details such as the ears and the structure of the fur were completely copied into the mould. The first two attempts to fill the mould with silver were a lot less perfect. Silver clay is very brittle when unfired, so the ears didn't come out properly. In addition, this was now partly reused silver clay, which causes air bubbles to form more quickly. These guinea pigs also disappeared under the mortar 😏.

Fortunately, attempt number 4 was quite nice, with some imperfections and holes, but with enough of the ears to make it work. I covered some of the holes and imperfections and further built up the ears. Then I added some fur texture to the body again with my needling tool. I was happy enough with this version to fire it. Still, it looks quite intense when your little guinea pig is on fire 😲.

But once fired and cooled, it felt solid and it was easy to polish and make the silver emerge. First I used white zirconias for the eyes, but that wasn't quite 'over the top' enough for this project, so I later replaced them with rubies. There you go, I finally had my deranged silver guinea pig 😁.

The guinea pig is made of silver clay that contains 99.9% silver after firing. The guinea pig is 0.5 x 0.6 x 1.3 cm (HxWxD) and weighs 1.3 grams. For the eyes I used 2mm synthetic rubies. Previously, the guinea pig had eyes made of 2 mm white synthetic zirconia.