Last Christmas thousands of you entered the Royal Mail’s competition to win a model of you and your family immortalised in clay by Aardman model makers!

Winners were drawn in January and after a few months' hard graft in the model making workshop, we can now reveal the final pieces! Let us introduce you to Colin and Sue Darnell with their grandchildren, Will and Megan!

Scroll down to find out how they were made...



In Safe Hands
Each model was designed and hand-sculpted over several days by Chris ‘Enty’ Entwistle, Aardman’s head model maker (pictured below). Enty has worked at Aardman for 15 years across numerous projects from commercials and short films, to feature films including Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Creating a Character
Using photographs provided by the winners as a reference, Enty looked for certain characteristics in each person and emphasised them for the final piece – much like a caricature. Below is a comparison between the family's photos and their clay counterparts!





Choosing the Right Materials
The final models were created from Super Sculpey, a unique polymer clay which stays supple until it is baked. This allowed Enty to sculpt the models down to the finest detail and create a convincing likeness.

Fascinating fact: all of the beads used for the eyes have at one time been used in a Wallace production! This turned out to be the hardest bit of the building process because Wallace’s eyes are blue, whereas some of the winners have different colour eyes!

Adding a Touch of Aardman
To keep the sculpt looking as authentic as a “classic” Aardman model made out of modelling clay, Enty made sure to leave-in any thumb prints created during the sculpting process instead of smoothing them out. This technique is called “thumby funny” by the model makers at Aardman!

After curing in the oven, the models were then painted and props attached, ready to be posted on to their owners!

Pictured below: Enty and the final models. View Enty in his natural habitat by taking a virtual tour of his model making workshop on the Aardman website!


(click to enlarge!)

nice to see the models , and how they were made , ive never used super sculpey, just normal sculpey but i only use it now & again these days as it tends to crack after baking and you cant do naything about! it. i mostly use other hard modelling material of actually fabric from clothes these days. maybe i should try super sculpey

that is amazing! they're so detailed too!

super sculpey is great because it does lose it's shape like normal sculpey does sometimes!