Here's a little tutorial on how to give the appearance of bone:
Sculpt the figure you want in white clay. Can be polymer, paperclay or any other air dry.
1- First thing you do is gesso it, with the solution a little diluted with water so you don't lose detail. In this case I had a lot of "cracks" that I wanted to show. Use a soft brush so it won't give you deep brush marks. Let it dry well.
2- Once it is dry, give it a coat of watery black acrylic paint. Not too watery, so you really stain the gesso. Let it dry for a couple of minutes.
3- Get a wet sponge and rub the piece until most of the black paint is gone but not so much that it shows the white gesso again. Let it dry. Make sure you stain your under your fingernails as well, eww!
4- Once it is dry you will give it a dry brush coat with just the tiniest drop of yellow paint, dust the brush on all the bumpy areas, making sure it looks transparent and not solid yellow. If you painted it too much, get the sponge and rub gently. Let it dry, that should be really fast.
5- Give it another dry brush coat of white paint, making sure you neither cover the black or yellow, just highlight the bumps.
6- Detail with more black paint as needed, dry, varnish with Satin finish and you are done! You can do a whole body or just parts. In this case I added a magnet.
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