Defiance Lawkeeper's Badge Ornament

Difficulty: Medium              ★★★☆☆

You will need:

• the template printed out
• air dry sculpting medium (model magic, air dry Fimo, etc.)
• acrylic paint in gunmetal/black and metallic silver
• paintbrushes (and something to put the paint on)
• scissors and/or a craft knife (with cutting mat)
• a sculpting tool with a sharp edge
• a rolling pin
• ribbon or string
• parchment paper
• a small screw in eye hook (optional)
• Mod Podge or your choice finishing coat (optional)

Start off by printing out the badge template which can be found here.

Carefully cut out the template.

Roll out some of your sculpting medium onto a piece of parchment paper to prevent the clay from sticking. Try and roll out an even thickness of about 1/4".

Place your cut out template onto your rolled out sculpting medium. Using a sharp edged sculpting tool, begin to remove the excess clay around the star points as well as cutting away the excess clay around the edge of the circle. Take your time with this. You might want to use the edge of your sculpting tool to push any warped clay back into the template's shape. 

Remove the template from the clay once finished.

Roll some of your sculpting medium into a thin worm. Begin to carefully lay the string of clay around the edge of the badge. After the thin string of clay is placed, gently pat the string down to flatten it slightly.

Using the template as reference, begin to emboss the letters into the badge with your sharp sculpting tool. (this step is optional)

If you want the star design to be super accurate, cut out the star design from the template and place it onto your clay badge to then create tiny guidelines with your sculpting tool. Remove the template once finished.

Roll some more small worms of clay and begin to place them onto the badge surface following the template/guidelines. Use your sculpting tool to create sharper edges to the raised star design.

Create small balls of clay and place them onto the 6 points of the star. Use your sculpting tool to roughly shape the balls into a hexagon.

Let your badge dry completely before moving on.

Once your clay badge has dried, paint the entire badge in a dark gunmetal/grey/black colour. Don't forget to paint the sides as well as the back of the badge. You may need to do multiple coats to get an opaque colour. Let the dark paint colour dry completely before moving on.

Take some of your silver paint onto your brush and stamp the brush onto a paper towel before dry brushing the colour onto the badge. Gradually build the silver colour up to create a nice dimensional look with the silver on all of the highest points and the dark colour still creating shadows around the star design and in the letters.

Let the paint dry before moving on.

If you want you can now coat the ornament with Mod Podge or your choice of finishing coat.

If you want you can screw a small eye hook into the top of the badge for hanging (or just attach the ribbon through one of the holes around the star).

Cut a length of ribbon or string, thread it through the eye hook/hole in the ornament, then tie the ends using an overhand knot to create a loop for hanging.

Now you have your finished Lawkeeper's badge ornament!