Thanks everyone!!
I've never written a tut before... was supposed to do one for Glassline, but I never did manage to do it. I guess I'm lazy, it seemed too much like "work" to write the article.
Here is a quicky tut for a basic pig.
1.) Make a round or donut shaped bead for the body. (if it's a little wonky, that's ok, even better sometimes!)
2.) Depending on the size of the body, melt a blob in proportion to the body for the head.
If your bead is perfectly round and balanced, you can put the head wherever you want. If it's a little wonky, place the molten head blob on the smaller/thinner side of the bead. The fatter/thicker side will be his rump and helps to counterbalance the weight of the head.
3.) Melt the head/blob into a nice ball and then flatten to the body.
4.) Holding the mandrel with the head pointing down, melt smaller blobs for legs/feet. Attach four around the bottom of the bead. I usually add the front feet first, using the head as my guideline for where to place the legs. Then I use the front legs to line up the back ones.
5.) Melt in the leg blobs so they are attached well (if you need to add more glass for longer/thicker legs, go ahead and add more... then melt in again)
6.) I let the legs set up a bit, then heat just the bottoms of the legs/feet and use a knife or some other tool to flatten the bottoms and make them level. I do the front feet together and then the back feet. (If your bead was round/even to begin with, then it is probably off balance now due to the weight of the head. In this case, I make the front legs a bit longer than the back legs so it will stand straight)
7.) Heat his rump and use a stringer to draw on his tail.
8.) If you want him to smile, heat the flattened face and use a little chisel tool to crease in the smile. I usually have to spot heat and crease several times to get the whole smile done, but if your torch is hotter, you may be able to do it all at once.
9.) Melt a thick stringer blob for the nose and place it above the smile.
10) Use thin black stringer to dot on the eyes.
11) Heat and flatten the eyes to make sure they are attached well.
12) Heat and flatten (just a bit) the nose blob, then reheat just the tip of the nose and use tweezers to make the nostril holes.
13) Heat blobs of thick stringer for the ears and attach to the top sides of his head.
14) Melt them in so they are attached well.
15) Use pliers/tweezers/masher to pinch the ears.
16) Use flat tool of some sort to flatten the edges of the pinched ears into pointed piggy ears.
Remember to keep the whole thing heated at all times!!!