Although I failed terribly at making hooves there's still a lot to be learned, and I hope that by making a mistake I can maybe help someone else end up one step ahead than they were before.
So, to make some hooves I've seen several videos. Going by what they were generally doing I decided to use some clay molded on top of som shoes my brother didn't want anymore. The clay I chose was a natural brown clay that air dries well.
I made sure to clean the shoes beforehand, put down some wax paper to protect the floor, and set to work, carefully pressing the clay onto the shoe. I've never worked with clay before, and I found it both easy and difficult to work with. Easy because it attached itself much easier to the shoe than I was expecting, difficult because it took a lot of pressing to get it to shape the way I wanted.
As I began working my way up the shoe I ran into a problem: When I reached the meshy section of the shoe (the area that lets your foot "breathe") the clay refused to stick to it. I found a workaround by attaching more clay on the areas that attached well and eventually built my way up, squeezing and shaping to get this (the middle cloven shape I achieved using a pen cap to shape it):
I also decided to attempt some horns, because I had plenty of clay left. Throughout the entire process the clay only got harder to work with and began to crumble easily. Within 24 hours the clay cracked, crumbled, and I was left with chunks of clay and stained shoes.
Instead I decided to save my sanity, throw money at the almighty Amazon, and buy some hooves and horns (the horns of which I am quite happy with, the hooves are a fair alternative to madness.)
What would I do in the future if I decided to attempt it again?
I would definitely use a wire mesh in the future, to provide the clay something to really stick to. I would also probably shop around to see about types of clay and what might work best in the situation. Most of all, however, I would definitely get a brother with smaller feet.
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