Baby Groot Figurine

Have you seen the new Guardians of the Galaxy film? It's awesome. One of my favourite parts is when the now tiny Groot is dancing around at the begining. What a cutie. He's a funny little character that I've decided to immortalize in Sculpey.

I started by making an armature out of garden wire and card. I made a template by tracing the dimensions from a photo from the film that I'd enlarged to the size I wanted the figure to be. I made the armature using this technique I learnt at a model making course.

Then I started covering the armature in Sculpey. I decided to form the head around a ball of foil so that the Sculpey was roughly the same thickness all over. Without the foil the head would have been way thicker than the rest of the body.

Once I had the shape of the body I added the details. This mostly involved rolling tiny bits of Sculpey and attaching them to the body to look 'branchy'. I also added a bark texture using a craft knife and other modelling tools.
I wanted the model to stand up on it's own so I had to make the legs a little wider, but I don't think they look too out of proportion. Since you can't tell from the photo, the figure is about 3 inches tall.

After I'd baked the figure in the oven I painted it with acrylic paint. I started by going all over with one colour, making sure to get in all the little bits with a small brush.

I couldn't stop at just one Groot so I also made a model from the bit in the film when he's sitting in the space ship eating candy.

I think I like this one better as the proportions are more accurate and I got to show more expression.

These were so fun to make I'm tempted to make ones for all his dance moves!