Clay and Wire Poison Dart Frog

I've been reading about poison dart frogs a lot lately, and decided to try to make one for myself.  They are very small creatures, so I tried to go for life size (about an inch long).

I made the frog out of white Sculpey clay and some phone wire I had around the house (left over from the Batman costume).  Since poison dart frogs usually have very complicated and ornate coloring, I decided to paint the frog rather than make it out of multiple colors of Sculpey.  The wire was necessary because the tiny front legs of the frog refused to stay up when made out of clay, so I replaced them with wire to make sure my frog didn't collapse.  In the end I didn't make any of the toes for the frog, but they quite likely would have just broken off anyways.

To paint the frog, I first went with a solid yellow base coat.  I did this three times in order to get a very bright, rich yellow color, and also because the wire legs were fairly resistant to being painted.

Once the yellow was on, I added the black.  This particular type of frog is actually black with yellow stripes, but if you paint black first, the yellow will be a hundred times more difficult to get right.

Now that the frog was painted, I added a clear coat of varnish to give it that shiny, wet, amphibian look.  All done!

See all the frogs here!


For this project I used Sculpey clay and Games Workshop paints: