Sphinx

This was actually my second attempt. The first one I tried sculpting the whole thing. As it turns out, I'm not that good. :-P The face was terrible; so I scrapped it & began fretting over what I could turn into a sphinx head. Then one fateful day at the World Market feeding my Happy Hippo habit, I found an Egyptian X-mas ornament (not to mention on clearance). 

First things first, the nose had to go. Chipped that off with a screwdriver & hammer. Then I crumpled some aluminum foil to make the basic shape of the body.
 

And then built it up some with Sculpey oven bake clay...


And some more...

Next, I pressed the clay with sandpaper to give a texture:

Added spackle to the bottom portion, then took the sandpaper to it to clean it up & roughen the surface. I also put some spackle into the grooves on the head to make it look a little more worn down.


Then I'm etched in little hints of (almost cartoonish) lines for bricks.

To make sand dunes, I added 'piles' of hot glue to the board. After it was cooled, I went back over it using the hot tip of the gun to smooth out the sides.


I primed the whole thing white, then went and did a light, random spray of brown to give it some subtle variation under the paint.


Then I painted it with a color that I mixed in attempt to match the color of the sand I had.

I applied a few darker washes & then sponged on a lighter tan on the smoother areas. I also dry brushed the lighter color on some of the harder edges to bring them out a little more.


I applied sand to the base board & into some of the cracks & crevices on the body

There you have it! One sphinx.