Thumb rat basics

I checked what I had written about rats and thumb rats into this blog, and was surprised that the newest post with the tag "rats" was from 2017. This is weird, because I always feel like I have posted my rat stuff everywhere even if the blog's main subject was not rats. Well. Now I feel like I need a serious update on these things... So, in case I haven't done this already, here comes a basic info bunch about thumb rats. 

Lukki, Skorppu and Punkki having some cake.

What are thumb rats? Thumb rats, also called (nicknamed) "thumbies" or leg beans, are small rat figurines I make from silk clay and foam clay, which are a type of airdry clay that you can't compare with the polymer or earth type clays. Both silk clay and foam clay come in a wide row of colors and all can be mixed. There are also different variations like neon, metallic or glitter. These clays dry very lightweight and are durable in the sense that you can't accidentally break them if your work falls to the floor or something. 

Thumb rats are indeed small, the length from nose to butt is usually somewhat 3-5 cm long. This can vary due to the rat's position, gender (males are bigger than females!), but also the sculpture's age and batch. My habits and tricks change over time, although the basic technique has remained mostly the same since the first thumbies happened. 

Carrat (was made Nov/Dec 2014) and Boltolf (was made Aug 2021).

The scale is not exactly 1:9 alias traditional, but a bit bigger, maybe 1:6 is closer (depends from what era the rat is from). Despite that I have long since accepted them as a part of my traditional scale modelverse, and so my dolls are their caretakers. In case you have any Schleich cats, thumbies are often nearly similar in size, if even a bit smaller. 

Brief history. The first "true" thumb rats got made in late 2014, when I was internshipping in a small craft store and got to test these clays. I first didn't think of using the colors as is, because as a modelhorsier and realism dork I always thought I will just paint everything eventually. That changed when I realised how I can just use and mix the colors there were available in the clays, and I liked how clean especially the eyes looked when I put them into place. I couldn't make them look so sharp and round if I had to paint them. 

The first thumbies on the store table. That small orange blob is a weird, overgrown mouse.

I made the first thumb rats in the store, and eventually brought them home, of course. Here I glossed their eyes with some glossy varnish, and got to name and photograph every one, and wrote their infos up in a text file in the computer. I list up everything I do and call this "registering", because that is what it basically is - listing everything into a file and writing up the creating dates, materials, odd mentionable things, and so on. I also photograph every single rat individually, give it a nickname and then archive the photos in each rat's own photo folder. This is how I know that I have made way more than 1000 rats in almost a decade. 

Three brothers Fooler, Boy and Parre.

Originally all thumb rat parts were clay, but in 2019 I decided to try if I can make and attach leather tails to them. Some trial and error was needed, but eventually I developed a technique which allowed both genders to have leather tails which didn't give them issues.  The biggest problem has been finding proper colors and thicknesses, as I try to avoid painting the leather (I only have acrylics and haven't bothered with leather dyeing so far) and cannot thin some types of leather. 

Tails being trimmed and glued on.

A big pile of thumb rats have eventually moved out of my hands, mostly in hobby trades. I also have brainwashed some friends to making their own, and even if so simple in style, everyone's personal handtrack is visible from their rats. 

Two thumb rats by Kave. I own them. 

I am not the only or first one to make little clay rats like this. In fact, for a long time I struggled when I tried to figure out how to cook up an unique style which wasn't just copying everyone else, but eventually gave up because I learned you have very limited options for stylizing and simplifying clay rats. And when I've seen so many by different people, I can say mine are clearly mine... 

Keimo.

Thumb rats have originally been a form of relaxing to me, and that came accidentally during that internshipping time. I have wanted to avoid stress with these since, and thus I refuse to turn them into anything complex, which also means detailed. It will not be a thumb rat if it gets worked too much - I do model horse customizing for that... So I can sculpt maybe dozens and dozens of thumb rats within one single day, depending from my mood. Sometimes they don't want to be made. Usually the batches are large; the biggest so far had 230 rats in total. 

In and Pup.

Species. Rats are rats, right? Wrong! Most thumb rats are your common brown rat, alias Rattus norvegicus, which also is what fancy rats are. There will be an occasional ship rat (Rattus rattus) in the mix... After that things go wild. I have since developed oddities like spider rats, bug rats, cake rats, spaghetti rats, demon rats and alien rats. And there is more. 

Sinister, a rat with feathery wings; I could call them pegasus rats?

Rauna, a spaghetti rat.

Varieties, alias "breeds". Rat breeds don't exist, but varieties do. Most common may be the basic standard rat with normal ears, but thumbies also come in rex, hairless, dumbo, rarely even manx. I haven't made any dwarf thumb rats yet, as I can't figure out how to prove they aren't just young normal rats. 

Oneida and Päikkäri.

Because thumb rats are made of clay, that of course means they can come in colors and coats (and species...) which are not possible with real rats. The candy colors are a group of their own and I've tried to write down their genetics for a long time. That is mostly the bright primary colors and their mixes and everything weird, like if an earthy rat had green skin and yellow eyes. Or if you have a bright red rat with neutral skin color and black eyes. It's still a candy rat. 

Jäälikäs.

I also have written up and illustrated a lot of unreal white markings and other, well, markings. Naming them has been fun. Yet there are also some odd genes which could be compared to horse greys or roans, or real rat husky. Those could require painting. 

Allan.

For coat types, there are for example metallic, soft rex, granite (glitter) and seapolish. Some of these are only possible with foam clay, which I find dumb, but also mixing the two types of clay can cause interesting results (hence seapolish). 

Berryblob.

Thumb rats in miniature settings. I make cages for these, as well as food, food bowls, toys, snacks, hammocks, etc. The cages are made from real rodent mesh which is probably meant to be used in gardens; it's similar to the mesh I see people using when they make real rat cages for themselves, but just a lot smaller, naturally. I attach the mesh pieces together by sewing with flower wire of the 0.4 mm thickness. The bottom boxes of them are clay. The unrealistic thing in thumb rat cages is that often I make them to have for example three separate apartments in one cage, and these apartments can be smaller than what is required.

Food bowls and a rather new cave design (technique).

While thumbies are mainly meant to be pets for my rider dolls, the rats will have also their own, separate world and culture within the existing "normal" modelverse. I find this amusing and intriguing - they are kind of minimally anthropomorphized at times, without going to the same level as where my dolls are, since those are true anthros. 

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So these are the tiny rats you WILL see in my model horse hobby blogs and photos here and there. They aren't going anywhere, and since my blogs are mine, I don't care if I sometimes mumble too much about them. 

From left: Meg, Kipukeppi (orange and white), Idealist (creamy with brown mane), Imukuppi (front), Marmau, Buddy, Valas, Hullunhuuma (stretched dumbo), Clammy (front) and Sinko.

And... If people want me to make thumb rats for them, that's okay. But please do not ask me to make pet portraits. I will take those seriously and it is not what thumb rat making should be about. Yet, I will not rehome any of these singly - they will go in same sex pairs or more, just like real rats do.