K here goes couldn't get access to a camera like I wanted but I'll give it a try anyway.
1. Get a good sized rod of the color or clear you want to be the base of the starfish and fuse it on one (or both for a shorter rod of color) side(s) with clear for a handle/handles
2. Make 5 or more equal (or as close as you can get) gathers of the rod with tapered ends so they look kinda like rounded off diamonds connected at the long ends.
3. Heat half of each gather and flatten half of each leg. You can do this individually or all at once.
4. Pull the leftmost or rightmost leg off the series of legs and attach it to the series to make roughly a v shape with the one you detached it to
5. A) Attach a punty to the tip of the leg which is now on the end of the series and pull the v of legs off so that one is off to the side. B) Now pull off another leg by attaching it to the other side of the v you pulled off to make a \|/ shape
6. Pull the last two apart and attach them to the bottom to make a 5 pointed star just make sure all the legs are flat on the same side what you want being the bottom. Now that you have a basic starfish shape you can elongate each leg and curve it to give them some character I recommend doing this at the same time you add the top color in the next step.
* If you like what you have and don't want to add anything else or just want to keep it simple you can stop after just elongating and curving and skip step #7
7. Decorate the top with random sized dots and melt them in about halfway then flip it over and put a few dots of a different color on the bottom these will be suckers so I put a few on each are an maybe a couple around the center. Heat each of these dots on the bottom and press them with a small tungsten pick or something of the like to make them into a sucker shape. sometimes I even decorate the bottom of the legs with frit before putting the suckers on
8. Finally, decide which leg you want to be on the top and make the very end of it into a loop or attach it to a bead if thats what you like to do. If you want to just have a sculptural starfish just dont make a loop and make it slightly bigger lol. Fire polish anything you need to and throw it in the kiln. If you make them small enough you can just put them on a hot plate or in some fiber or vermiculite.
**For some really fun sculptural fun make eight legs or eight legs and two tentacles(legs with ovaled ends and suckers only on one flattened end of the oval part) and attach a head for an octopus of sqiud respectively. Do this before decorating and/or elongating. Then fuse it to some seaweed(green ribbon cane made wavy), mount it to something after kilning, or just bend the legs to where they make it stand alone.
Whew! There goes hope it all makes sense tell me if you have any questions. Post pics of what you guys end up making plz. I'll try and get pitures to add to this soon.
Sincerely,
Austin Hensley
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