Polymer clay painting miniseries

I started yesterday a miniseries on painting with polymer clay. I am using journals to begin with.

We did get a bit distracted on making the back of one journal nicely antiqued, which will become a steampunk journal cover, but next time we'll get back to the painting one.

The creation of the background sky and water skinner blend is a bit difficult, but I show all the steps.

When is it not required to condition polymer clay?

If for regular projects, conditioning polymer clay is an absolute must - that is, if you want pieces that are at the same time hardy and flexible and don't break or crumble at the slightest stress, there are cases in which conditioning your clay is not required - actually, it's not even desired.

Whenever you want to make crystal points, use Pardo translucent right out of the box. Cut your long "crystal" wands then do a few oblique cuts at the ends to create the "point".
The other case, if you want to make druzy-type small "crystals, you can use any hardened translucent. Simply chop it finely, bake it on a piece of paper then use liquid clay to get it to stick on a base. Of course, bake again.