how to do real Sculpture from Clay

In the former lession Adam asked us to bring in pictures of animals, that we can take as a pattern to our work and do the job after its shpe. I picked a sea-turtle, which appealed me with its long flappers and qubic head.
For the first hear you may think that it was an easy job, like a snake...:D untill you started off.
The first thing I decided to do was to give the main outline of the shell and the joints.
whuff, what a struggle to stick them to the body, as Adam shwed me I have to scratch the body a litle bit and then work the material together.
Inspite of all this , I got really happy by the end I could attach the flappers and the head.
Clay has one feature that is awful, it gets dry fast and when you dont work at a decent speed your work ends up falling into parts... My turtle waits now to be made a hollow into it and then let's see what the master tells us to do with it...:)

aaand here we gom the masterpiece is READY!

After the work and efforts of the following weeks and lessions, the mask is ready and slipps easily on am face;) surprise-surprise;)
THe color I picked is yellow as a basis and there is green, red and black pattern on it, I didn't pick too many colors, so that it stays simple and doesn't confuse the beholder with an oversophisticated design. By the usage of the water based paint I had to be careful not to put too much on its frahgile surface to aviod loss of material, shape and form. In a worldy approach not to destroy the african face:)
One of the most important and dangerous step I would consoder the removal from the gypsum, so that it doesn't turns under the form and remains behins:S this fortunetelly I could avoide and now looking forward concluding the next work of mine.