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The Kid Should See This

Making a Totoro diorama with clay

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Watch as different kinds of clay are mixed with acrylic paint, coffee grounds, white glue, and more to create a “clay illustration” from the movie Totoro. This Clay Attraction video makes the sculpting look easy, but it takes a lot of practice, fails, and maybe even a few edits to be so astonishingly accurate.

The video is mostly wordless, with some Korean narration; close captioning provides a translation. Chapters include tree and soil creation, stages of creating Mei, and crafting the Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro creatures. Watch all of Clay Attraction’s tricks and techniques.

sculpting mei's face
totoro sculpting
running through the secret forest tunnel

Clay Attraction is on Instagram and YouTube. Previously: Making Wallace and Gromit plasticine figures from A Grand Day Out.

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• Sculpting Freddie Mercury
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• The Secret Story of Toys: Action-figure character sculptors

Bonus: Ray Harryhausen’s Mother Goose Stories (1946)

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