Saw a hilarious whale plaque when abroad. Recreated it!

This plaque was hanging in a house we stayed in while visiting Brazil - my husband LOVED this ish and we wanted to steal it - but instead we just took a picture.

A year ago I got the AMAZING idea to make this plaque for my husband's birthday. (Notice I cropped the image and saved it in a word doc named Frank)

I printed this bad boy out for reference...

... and set up a work station on our kitchen island while he worked late one night.

I bought Sculpey clay that you bake, so here's a comparison of pre-baked on the left and cooling on the right.

Holding Blue for a size perspective - each whale is wider than my hand.

All whales shaped and baked! Took a few hours, but I really enjoyed shaping these and taking my time with the details.

The obligatory burn while pulling them out of the oven.

Got this wood at Michael's and first stained it because it was so light.

Painted a Gesso base on the clay for the acrylic paint to stay and painted the brown detailing on the wood.

Close up of those pretty blank whale canvases.

A before and after of each whale

I really took my time on the eyes - I wanted to make sure they all had their own personality.

Clay to gesso to finish - because making photo collages are fun.

Stain, then paint, then gold added (collage!!!!)

The almost finished plaque with work station..

Close-up of the gold shadowing.

Close-up of labels.

Oh, Frank.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!! HUNG ON THE WALL!!!!!

Looks good in our living room!

Side by side of the original plaque and the one I made - the plaque I found was much taller and thinner, so the whales I made were a little fatter to compensate for spacing purposes. I'm extremely satisfied. He LOVED it!!

Thanks for reading!