Scrumpy the Pony Part Four

So by now, what had originally been intended to be a simple little project had turned into a nightmare build. Pretty much everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, and there was more to come....

While picking off the paint I started to discover soft spots where the paper mache was collapsing underneath the clay. The only way to deal with this was to push the clay in as far as possible and fill the in resulting hole with clay or tinfoil then clay depending on the size of the hole.

Huge hole on hip filled with tinfoil and clay.

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Holes underneath chest and at top of rear leg filled with clay.

Huge hole on rear filled with tinfoil and clay.

After leaving everything to dry I found that he had more soft spots on his back legs. One was saved by pulling out most of the paper and stuffing tinfoil and a hefty piece of wire into it. Sadly, the other one was too far gone and he had to have a completely new back leg.

Scrumpy's new leg! And new friend! By now I'd had enough and decided to start a new sculpture, note the wire frame and tinfoil!

I don't know why I had so much trouble with the paper mache, other people seem to have great success using it. I think maybe the high humidity here in Devon and Cornwall has something to do with it. Whatever the reason, it doesn't seem to be the best construction method for me.