Well, I now definitely don't recommend this project to anyone ... it's a hassle and difficult. I found that based on the size of his face, I could only use miniature semps. I think photos can be very deceptive. Anything over an inch was just too large caused his facial features to overlap each other and not be distinguishable. So in the corners of his eyes and the vertical of his nose I used one that matures to no more than 1/4", and it kind of piles up upon itself, so hopefully that will give him some height on his nose. The ones for nostrils seemed matured in my pots at almost an inch, a little less, and I also used those in three places in his mouth. Two of the ones in his mouth matured in pots at just a little over an inch.
Planting was difficult. I was forced to use potting soil, otherwise it all fell out from the front or back of his head because I had to lay him on his head (as in the photo) to plant. Once the face is rooted, I may try to take out some of the potting soil and mix in gritty sand.
But I did figure out one thing. I had tried making some toad houses. That was the first time I had covered mix on the outside of the form. I couldn't judge how thick the mix was (should have used a stick or something to check, but didn't), and most of the mix was only about one-half inch instead of an inch. Every one of those cracked when I removed the form. To test and try to save one, I added more mix on top of the first layer. It now seems very strong, and doesn't appear that it will crack now or fall apart.
So that brought me to thinking that it is possible that one could use this method of forming the pot with facial holes in step one of the hypertufa making, and then upon removing it from the form, one could add protruding mouth, eyes and nose with hypertufu mix, using the holes made, if you get the idea. But I'm just not an artist like that. I'd probably have to find someone who could do it for me. Never know, may be a future project.
