I searched the PC:Finished area and couldn't find a tute on this, so my apologies if there is one. >.<
So I know the idea is pretty cut and dry, but when I first started looking at them on here and Etsy and DA, I was SO overwhelmed and intimidated. I thought "Pft. Can't do that yet." Well. YES YOU CAN. It's SO much easier than you may assume. Just kinda time consuming.
You'll need:2 shades of clay
Stick of some sort for poking (you can use a toothpick, pen tip, etc.)
Color pastels or mica powders (optional)
Blade
Headpin (optional, if you don't want it to have a hoop, then you don't need it)
Extruder (optional)
So first, you want to take your two colors and decide what you want each to be: either the base of the tentacle, or the sucker. The color for the base, make it into a thick log with slight pointed ends. The color for the suckers, roll it into a thin snake. The extruder would come in WAY handy for this, but mine hasn't come in yet, so I do it by hand.
On your thin snake, slice little pieces off of it. Try to keep them in the same thickness area. Roll the slices into tiny balls. Yes, it's a LOT of rolling.
Take your poking tool (toothpick or pen or whatever, I'm using one of those crappy tools that comes with the $10 box of Sculpey from WalMart) and poke an indent into the tiny balls. Attach them to your base tentacle. This part? Entirely up to you on how to do it. I indent the ball, pick it up with the poker from the indent, and push it onto the tentacle. It could also work if you put a slight bit of TLS on the tentacle where you want the sucker to go and work in small sections. Space them out as you prefer and fill your tentacle.
Roll/form your tentacle into the shape/spiral you want. **You can opt to do this BEFORE putting the suckers on. If that's the case, just do this before the last step.**
Place your headpin (if you so choose).
If you want to add some pastel or powder, do that now. Or you could've done it before putting on the suckers. It would've probably been a lot cleaner if I did it pre-suckers. Crap. Ah, well. It looks great either way.
Bake accordingly and let cool. Or before you bake, you can make some other random things with the scrap clay you may or may not have. Like earrings. I made earrings.
After it's cooled, glue your headpin (or don't, it's up to you) and wrap it into an eyelet. Glaze if you so choose, or sand, etc. Just finish it the way you want.
I originally made it to attach to a bookmark, but I like it so much that I think it's going to end up being a necklace instead. >.<
Hope this was easy to follow and someone gets something out of it!
ETA:
Photo of the tentacle as a bookmark! Just roll some scrap clay into a thin strip. Trim it to how you want. Put a hole in the top. Bake accordingly. Using a chain (I used a bunch of jump rings) attach the tentacle to the scrap clay strip. Enjoy!
