mahmurlemur

I made a VIP badge for a fellow tester who likes replying every message in our Discord server and he wanted me to write something on the back. I did. I spent hours on it working on every letter in detail. 

Photos taken by Moniker of D.

Writing about what I make makes me feel better because I tend to forget how much I work. 

I didn't like my job so I was looking for online jobs to earn extra money if an occasion of leaving my job occurred. I had sculpture commissions now and then but I was sure that I wouldn't be able to make a living via selling my sculptures. A friend of my husband suggested that I should be a translator at Gengo. Luckily they were recruiting at that time. I applied, passed the test to become an English - Turkish translator and another one to become a Pro translator. Then Lionbridge acquired Gengo and they started sending us e-mails about their projects and I applied for the ad rater job. Again, I passed the test for ad rating and became an ad rater at Lionbridge. I guess because I was already a translator they didn't ask for a language certification. After working as an ad rater for a year or so, Lionbridge started having game testing projects. I attended one of them and I really enjoyed it. They were very rare at first but then they acquired Game Tester platform. They asked us to sign up and told us that game tests were going to be held on the platform from now on. I was very happy about it because it would be nice to have every information on a platform and I thought tests would be regular since they decided to invest in on a platform. I set up my account, attended tests now and then and joined their Discord. They have a feedback guidance that instructs you how to get better at giving feedback. I really liked testing games and giving feedback because I'm judgmental in nature :D I wanted to get better at testing games and giving feedback so I studied their documentation and tried to write feedbacks like that. The feedback in the documentation was very long and detailed. After reading that I was sure I won't be able to write like that but tried to make my feedback better anyway. Then, I became a VIP tester in a couple of months! I even have a fancy certificate that I can print and hang on my wall! So I quit my job and started working on game tests for while without doing anything else. Then I remembered that my goal was to work on sculptures. So I found a way to combine the two and made myself a VIP badge to show off :D

It's basically because I have ADHD.

The End.

Here is the longer version:

I get excited about a movie or a game and decide to make a sculpture of the main character. I immediately start without planning because I'm who I am. Without a plan or a sketch or measurements etc. after a while I have a rough sculpture and I realize the arms are too long or the neck is too short. So, I break it and remake some of the parts. Also, there is this feeling that I have to make it perfect because I know I'm going to post pictures of it and I want to be proud of it. I also tend to see all the imperfections because this is how you get better at art. You see the things that aren't good enough and you make them better, in the end you get better. With all these combined, months pass and I still can't finish it. Then, I decide to have a break because working on the same sculpture for months is frustrating. I start another sculpture that would be done quickly to make myself feel better. After that one finishes, I remember a project that I thought of before and never started. Why not do it now? Isn't it perfect timing? I finish that one too. After all that, it's time to get back to the first one and all I can think of is it's been months and I haven't finished it yet. I forget all about the things I've done in the meantime. So, I decided to write a blog about the things I did once in while to appreciate myself.

In this story, the main character is Travis. Travis is the robot behind Game Tester. He is our boss and he pays us taters when we work on a game test. We prefer to get paid by taters by the way because it's our main food source.

Travis is almost complete. Just some details are left and then I'm going to paint it. I'm so close!

Hey guys,
As you know I'm a self taught polymer clay sculptor and watercolor painter. I have a youtube channel called MahmurLemur that I publish polymer clay tutorials, watercolor speedpainting videos and tips&tricks videos about sculpting.
To be honest I have love and hate relationship with Youtube. I love publishing videos cause I know it will help my art to be recognized but I also hate it cause it is really hard to get known on Youtube or another social media platform and I believe my hard work doesn't get what it is worth. It is like trying to talk about the thing that is important to you in a really crowded and noisy environment where everybody else is shouting. In that environment you see a lot of people that is one tenths talented as you are but ten times more famous then you are and you feel like nobody hears you. You feel like you are doing something wrong, you feel like these platforms aren't for you. You feel exhausted and want to stop doing what you like because you think you will never get the appreciation. I feel this way once in a couple of months and I stop sculpting, I stop publishing videos, posting on social media. After a while I miss it and I start sculpting again. I make something I like. I want to share it. Then the cycle starts again. This is the psychological cycle I live in. This is why there are three months of breaks in some of my videos. If you don't publish for three months on youtube people forget you and if you start publishing again, you start all over.
Nowadays I decided to publish videos on 1st and 15th of every month. Two weeks is the time for me to make a video tutorial without getting stressed. From now on, I will kill the jealous needy woman inside me who always whines and doesn't appreciate the attention she got. I will be a real artist who just wants to be better at what she is doing. My only aim is going to be to improve myself and I am going to look other people's art just to get impressed, not to feel down on myself. Promise! Promise to myself! :)

It is time to appreciate and thank who watched this video which got 46K views on Youtube. Thank you for all who also watched my other videos, made great comments and appreciated what I've done so far!

Hey there!
As you know I publish polymer clay tutorials on Youtube. Maybe I can't publish videos as frequently as I want to but I watch videos on Youtube all the time. Recently I'm in love with restoration videos. I first came across a restoration of a classic oil painting that belongs to a famous painter whom I can't remember now. Then I saw the restoration of rusty, greasy, old antiques and I watch them all the time now :) It is fascinating to see that even such old and rusty items can be reused.

So I prepared a restoration video for you. This time I restore one of my sculptures that I made a couple of years ago. It is kind of a parody and I really enjoyed making it. I hope you enjoy watching.

Youtube has a new feature now. You can publish a scheduled video as premiere and you can chat with your viewer as you watch the video. So please create a reminder and let's watch it together!

Materials You Need:

• Scissors
• Instant glue
• Pliers

Of course our fingers are the best tool, but they don't help when you try to make a detailed sculpture. Even so, you don't have to spend all your earnings for sculpting. First I'll talk about the basic materials that you'll need then I have some specific suggestions if you're sure that it's a long term hobby for you.

1. Cutting Knife:


You should really have this enormously sharp knife. It's around 2$. If you have a razor blade knife at home, it also does the job. But this knife is sharper and stronger than any other blade knifes that costs the same. I use it all the time, cutting myself accidentally on a regular basis :)
It comes with five spare knives that you can renew after it gets old so it lasts a long time.

2. Sculpting Tools:

Here is another must. I started with this 20 pieces basic set. (around 5$) The last three you see on the picture is another set of ball tools. (around 2$) The "x"s show the tools that I use the most.



They all have a hard life, they got old, dirty. Some of them become crooked. Sometimes the wood and the metal part got separated and I had to glue them. If we can make sculptures, we can also fix our tools, right?
Then I started using metal dentist tools. (around 20$) I was a gift from my boyfriend (I appropriated them actually :P) Metal tools are stronger than these wood ones but it takes sometime to get used to. The dentist tools are sharper and harder so you should work gentle to avoid leaving sharp marks on the clay. If you think it's a longterm hobby for you, you can start these fancy dentist tools.

3. Acrylic Paints and Brushes:

It is going to hurt your budget to buy all the colors of polymer clay so you need acrylic paints. It also hurts if you buy all the colors of acrylic paint. Starting with the main colors is the best option. I started with no name paints. After a while I started using Winsor and Newton Galeria acrylic paaints. I bought white, black, red, blue and yellow. If there is a color you need that you can't reach mixing the main colors you can also add it to your paint collection. For example after sculpting for a couple of years I understood that I use skin colors a lot and it is really hard to mix it. So I bought a basic skin color.
As you see on the following picture I couldn't reach the purple I wanted so I bought it. That time I know nothing about color theory. I mixed cold and warm colors and my purple got muddy. If you make a research about color theory and buy all the cold and warm main colors you can make your own mixes.


About the brushes, just start with two brushes, one for small details, one for large areas. After you continue sculpting you'll understand what you need. I don't like spending too much on the brushes. I forget to clean them or forget them in the water so they get ruined. If you're a neat person, I recommend you to buy Princeton Catalyst Polytip Bristle Brushes. They are the most recommended acrylic brushes.

4. Polymer Clay:

I first bought main colors of Fimo polymer clay. (56 gr package around 3$) I tried to mix them but I didn't like the colored clays on any brand. The clay is really hard in the package and at first crumbles a lot. You have to condition them for a while. Then it becomes so soft and sticky, it paints your fingers. It's really hard to work with it for me. Fimo Proffesional is better though considering these features I use  Super Sculpey Beige and Firm. Beige and Firm both have great consistency but after baking they are more fragile than the colored clays. So if my sculptures has fragile parts I use Fimo Proffessional.


5. Oven:

You can use the oven you have at home. Not the microwave. Some people don't want to use the oven that they bake food so they have a separate oven for polymer clay. Some people use candles to bake small parts. So it depends on what you want.

According to lab tests, Super Sculpey isn't toxic. Nothing bad happens if you even swallow the clay. Baking it in the oven that you bake food is totally safe, you shouldn't bake the food and the clay together though :D If you burn the clay you should just wipe the oven and you're good to go.

The materials listed below aren't a must, you can consider buying them according to your budget.

6. Pasta Machine:

If you're gonna cry like me while mixing or conditioning the clay, please buy this machine. The price range is 15$-100$. You can buy the cheapest one that I've used for a long time. It's really low quality though, it got crooked a while later. Then I bought Atlas pasta machine (around 50$), it is quite good.

7. Wire and Aluminum Foil:

I usually make a wire armature, then cover it with aluminum and clay. It prevents clay wastage and makes the sculpture stronger. If you're gonna start making big figures you need wire and aluminum foil. Any wire does the job and you can steal the foil from the kitchen :)

8. Pliers:

It helps blending the wire. I think you have one at home :)

9. Paint boxes or something to mix the paint on:

I had these paint containers. Even if they have caps the paint dries after a while. So I don't recommend them. Then I bought small glass jars. It didn't work for me either. Nowadays I mix the paints on a cheap plate. It's easier to clean it.


Now that we've got all we need, it's time to start conditioning the clay, waiting for the baking time, forgetting the sculpture in the oven and burning it, accidentally dropping the sculpture to the floor and breaking it :)

Cover the armature with aluminum foil. Then cover it with polymer clay and sculpt. Be sure that polymer clay is thick enough to shape.

There is a short animation that I watch once in a while. It's so cute, I'm gonna die! Every time I watch it, I'm jumping in my seat saying, "I want to make animations like this too!" unfortunately I couldn't get past rigging.

Made by Tumblehead (if you visit their website, you can see the cuteness level of their work is the same every time), written by Mads Juuls, directed by Magnus Igland Moller and Peter Smith, and most importantly kissed and sniffed by me.