My pony clocks seem to be rather popular, so I thought it would be fun to show everyone how I go about making them :) Of course, all of this varies depending on the pony (or any clock, for that matter) and it takes time, patience, lots of paint, and occasionally a bit of swearing about things ^^;;;
Things I use:
1 clock
1 semi-sharp object (I use a little scrapper I have)
1 Pencil
Paint (I use acrylic)
Clear coat spray
The top picture is the final product, but the rest are the steps I take to do it. So, here we go!
Step One: This is the clock I use.
Step Two: Using the sharp tool I have, I carefully pop out the glass. There’s three holes you can pop the glass out at. You don’t have to use all three, sometimes it comes out in one shot, and sometimes it doesn’t at all and I have to putz around with it a bit. This can be frustrating for a number of reasons. I’ve gotten the blade stuck in the hole before, or haven’t popped out the glass enough so I have to push it back in and try to pop it out again.
Step Three: Next, get the face of the clock out of it. BE ABSOLUTELY CAREFUL when pulling out the hands. I’ve gone through so many clocks because sometimes, I pull too hard, and the thing needed to move the hands when the clock is on comes right out with the second hand. If this happens, the clock is completely unusable. I’ve tried putting it back in, but then the second hand just sort of slides down too much then doesn’t move up at all.
Also, in the past, I’ve tried adding things to the hands of the clock. That works… sometimes. If it’s something kinda big, like a keyblade, the hands tend to catch on each other and stop moving. You can paint them, that’s fine, just not in the holes where you put them inside the clock because then the paint dries on them and its hard for them to move. You can also put small things on them (I’ve put a tiny Mario at the end of the minute hand, for example, but nothing else)
The clock face is double-taped inside of it. If you can keep most (or all) of the tape inside the clock when pulling the face out, that’s a good way to get the face back in when you’re done. If not, it’s no big deal, it’s really sticky so it usually works anyway. Another thing you can do (which I have done before) is to pull the face out, trace the circle on another sheet of paper (construction paper or something a bit thick like that), mark the numbers, and do the clock on that instead of the clock face itself. The reason this is a good idea is because the clock face itself is kind of hard to paint on, because it’s really smooth, so you have to use a couple of coats of paint on it. For this particular clock, I used the original clock face.
Step Four: This is an Applejack clock, so I paint the entire thing orange. If it’s a light colored paint, you can actually paint over the numbers (once) and they’ll still show up. So, at least one coat of paint can just be painted over the entire face (unless if it’s like, black or something, then you paint around the numbers). I recommend using a second coat to make it darker, but do NOT paint over the numbers a second time, paint around them. There’s also small circles too, so you can always paint around the numbers but not the circles if you don’t want it to be a numerically numbered clock. Now you can paint the numbers black if you want to darken then, or any color for that matter, but with this one I left them as it to make a sort of water color effect of sorts.
If you’re using construction paper, that’s a good way to do your own style of numbers, or even use different symbols or whatnot. For example, I’ve made Winnie the Pooh clocks and used character faces for numbers :)
Step Five: Sketch the image you want.
Step Six: Start painting! And, again, multiple coats are your friend if you’re using the original clock face.
Step Seven: A more detailed picture of the face being painted to show the progress of it all :)
Step Eight: And now here’s what I think is the most difficult part of all. You see that the clock is originally blue, now it’s time to make it orange for Applejack. If it’s a dark color you need to change it to, that’s fairly easy, but if it’s a light color you will absolutely want to give it multiple coats of paint. Once one coat dries, add another. For this part I don’t use a paint brush, but my own finger, because it spreads it across the clock much better. With this clock, around the top area, I have it painted brown (for Applejack’s hat), which I did use a paintbrush for since it was such a small area. This part takes a lot of patience, because you have to wait for the clock to dry before adding more paint or any designs you want, so that can take a while. As you can see, I added the red part for the apples.
Step Nine: Added the leaves to the apples. Once everything is dry and you’re satisfied with how it looks, use the clear coat spray to spray the clock. A couple of things first. Make sure to tape the small box inside the clock where the hands will be, because if you get spray on it… yeah -_- Also, make sure the spray is dry on the clock before touching it at all. I’ve lifted it up and the spray would drip, or I’ve sprayed it when the paint wasn’t quite dry and it would smear. Once it’s dry, remove the tape, and move on to the final step.
Step Ten: First, put the face back inside the clock. Next, put the hands back in. Now, when you put the glass in, be careful that it doesn’t scrap across any of the paint. The spray protects it, yes, but I’ve discovered that the edges on the glass are a bit sharp and have taken out chips of paint with them. So push the glass back in carefully, and ta da! Applejack is done :)
And that’s how I go about making clocks. Some are more complicated than others (more pictures of THOSE later, as some actually have writing on the edge of the clock ^^) There’s different styles I use depending on the pony (or ponies), but this is a bit of a basic step by step process. I hope you enjoyed reading through it, and remember, check out my shop over at Sewn Together Reflections (http://www.etsy.com/shop/snowtigra?ref=si_shop) for clocks and other fun items :)
