I'm taking my sculpting even further and really getting into some detail.
This little guy is around 4" tall and took me about a week (off and on) to sculpt out of polymer clay. This is the same stuff I use to sculpt the originals for my beeswax candles.
I finished it off with some acrylic paints and there you go.
There's all kinds of polymer clay out there, but I generally stick to two types: Sculpey and Sculpey firm. The snails body and the grass and rocks is made from the original Sculpey (generally called Beige Sculpey because of the color; not a very imaginative bunch, I'll admit), and then I use the Firm for stuff that's really detailed, like the shell. Yeah. Every single line on that shell was sculpted in by me. It sucked.
***Adult/Biology Warning***
Also, throwing it out there, I try to go as detailed as I possibly can. That means I spent a little time studying these things. That said, if you look to the bottom right of the shell you'll see a couple of holes. Snails actually have those! The top hole is the nose, essentially. The bottom hole is the... poopy hole. Brings new meaning to "smells like crap."