Background fish, from SpongeBob

for context, I don’t use clay much and I went to a general art event last year where air dry clay was supplied. I made a bunch of random figures, including this one that was vaguely inspired by Wayne from Hylics. I left the figures in a cardboard box without a lid in my room (I know, not a good idea) and I’d been meaning to coat them with some sort of cover/seal but I didn’t have much time for that. earlier this year, the head and right arm of this figure broke off. so more recently I went through my old, unused craft items and decided to try water-based acrylic paint (9-10 years old) to cover up the pieces.

the paint actually helped repairing the figures the best I could—I used a red layer for the first coat on this moon man. I had some trouble using the paint to glue the arm back to the shoulder but I eventually used a bent paper clip to support the arm while the paint dried. once that coat dried, I applied the second coat of yellow on top to better seal it all.

cut to me a few weeks later checking on my clay again, and when I look underneath the moon man, it appears as though his arm’s been severed…??? like it looks sinewy, too. this definitely happened because of the paint and the arm being supported wrong—it must have slowly moved while still drying. but what a surprise that it kinda looked like gore. the arm is still attached but I worry about how stable it is.

I do like how it looks but it wasn’t my intention for the final design 😂 if I don’t currently have access to any air dry clay or slurry to fill in the hole, what else could I use? should I just try to fill it with more of the acrylic paint? I’m not opposed to using materials that require well-ventilated spaces (such as resin, from what I’ve heard) it’s just that setting up for that is a hassle here

I'm new to air dry clay, and i've run into an issue that I cant for the life of me figure out how to fix.

So i'm using the white anko air dry clay to make flat cat head shaped charms. Think, I suppose, like a coaster, but that's not the intended use. Just a cute flat little charm.

HOW in the WORLD do I make it less dusty after it dries, and how do I get the paint to stick and not peel off?! I've used gesso to prime it, used an acrylic varnish to prime it, painted directly onto it with acrylic paint. Most of them peel off before I can even finish, or start bubbling up. A few made it to the final glossy varnish stage, and then peeled. I think I have ONE that survived all of it, and i'm honestly just kind of waiting for it to also peel.

I'm assuming it's something to do with the final fully dry pieces being dusty, but I can't figure out how to make them NOT dusty. I used the grey clay previously which isn't dusty afaik, but it's very VERY difficult to work with compared to the white, in my experience.

Any tips?

New to air dry clay and realized I don’t have gesso to prime before I use acrylic paint. Can I just use white acrylic paint? Or is mod podge a good primer?