Cover a flat surface with plastic sheeting. Select a lump of clay of a size that you can comfortably handle. Cup the ball with your hands and toss the clay between them in a tight, controlled manner, rotating the clay often to form it into a ball shape. Set the ball aside on the plastic sheeting. Take two smaller pieces of clay and roll them against a flat surface such as a work table until they become long cylindrical objects, like snakes, and set them aside on the plastic sheeting. These two pieces will later form the arms of your Anubis statue.
Fill your bucket with clean water and wet your sponge. Turn on your potter's wheel and depress the foot pedal. When it is at a controlled spin and a comfortable speed for your work, take your wet sponge, squeeze out the excess water and touch the tip of the sponge to the center of the wheel. Pull the sponge slowly toward the outer edge of the wheel until the entire wheel is slightly damp.
Take your large ball of clay and throw it at the center of the wheel so that it sticks to the center. Wet your hands from the bucket and place them on either side of the clay, pushing toward the center and pulling the clay upward with the heels of your hands. You should form a cylinder in this process.
Keep your hands cupped around the top of the clay, and place one thumb over the top of the cylinder and begin guiding it back down toward the center. Repeat the raising and compacting of the clay two or three times, keeping your hands moist throughout the process. This changes the cleavage of the minerals in the clay so that they lay flat and allow for easier manipulation of the clay later. Raise your clay one final time into a cylinder until it is the height you wish to make your Anubis statue.
Use flexible crafting tools such as a rubber or metal rib and a sponge to begin the basic shaping of your statue. Determine where you wish Anubis' legs, wrap, waist, shoulders and head will be positioned. Increase or decrease the circumference of your cylinder at those crucial points, leaving excess clay at each narrowed point to maintain structural integrity. When you are done, you should have a shape with a cone base that is wide at the bottom and narrows up to where the legs will be. Then the shape will become vertical again at the position of the cloth wrap he wears around his hips and that will hang down to mid-thigh. At the top of this small cylinder, the shape should taper slightly for the waist and become reverse-conical upward toward the shoulders. Finally, a small narrowing at the neck and widening for the head are necessary for later sculpting the leather-hard form. Rinse your tools often and place slip and excess clay into the water.
Place the plastic sheeting on a round wooden tray or wooden pottery bat; set the two pieces of clay for the arms on the plastic. Use clay wire to remove your Anubis from the potter's wheel by pressing the wire with both thumbs to the wheel as it runs and swiftly moving the wire beneath the clay at the very base. Use two fingers from each hand to lift the Anubis base from the wheel and onto the center of your plastic-covered tray. Spritz the plastic with water from a spray bottle and gently fold the excess plastic over the statue until covered. Tent the plastic slightly in order to allow air to circulate and bring your piece to a leather-hard condition, which takes anywhere from two to seven days depending on the dryness of the air where you store the piece. For speedier results, place the base directly on the tray or bat and wrap the plastic around the bat instead; with this technique, you must check on the statue more often, as the base of the clay form will dry faster than parts not touching the wood. Spray these areas daily in order to prevent uneven drying.
Take your leather-hard pieces out of the plastic. Place water in your bucket. Wet your fingers and sponge and take hold of the front of Anubis' head. Wet the facial area and begin gently pinching and pulling, re-wetting often to maintain elasticity. Continue to pull the face into the general shape of a jackal's head. Use sculpting tools to scrape away extra clay until you have a more defined Anubis shape from neck down. Scratch cross-hatch marks into the shoulders and the "arms" you made at the start. Wet both the arms and shoulders of the statue and stick the two together, smoothing the edges out. Shape the arms by scraping away excess clay and using a needle tool to add definition. If you wish to add extra details to the skirt wrap or indicate definition between clothes and skin, use a needle tool to lightly scrape away clay for added definition. You can also use scrafito -- a technique in which you cover the piece in slip and scratch away areas -- to make textured details. Rewrap the statue in plastic and allow the head and body to return to a leather-hard state. Check on clay often and spray where necessary.
Carve the final details in the head and body and take off the plastic. Allow your statue to dry thoroughly until it becomes greenware -- dried, unfired clay. Bisque fire the clay in a kiln for the appropriate number of hours according to the individual machine you use. Allow the piece to cool completely before glazing.
Begin painting details with glaze on your bisque-fired statue. Any areas of exposed skin below the neck should be brown, the head black and the cloth blue and white. For additional detail, you can also add white at the eyes and white or blue bands around the biceps or at the wrists. Allow to dry, and then glaze fire in the kiln for the appropriate number of hours according to the individual machine you use.
Add fine details in gold such as the eyes, jewelry and trim of Anubis' clothing. Gold glaze fires at a different temperature than most other glazes; it will need to be fired a final time according to the firing needs of the gold glaze you purchased.