Dorodango

"mud dumpling") is a Japanese art form in which earth and water are combined and moulded, then carefully polished to create a delicate shiny sphere.

In Christopher Paolini's novel series The Inheritance Cycle, protagonist Eragon witnesses Orik, the King of the Dwarves, carrying out a Dwarvish tradition of making an erôthknurl.

They used the dorodango technique to create dung spheres in order to bust the myth that one "can't polish a turd".

[3] In episode 14, "Footsteps", of the anime series Your Lie in April, the character Tsubaki Sawabe polishes a dorodango to show to the protagonist, Kousei, in a flashback sequence.

[4] In Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, Popuri gives the main character a dorodango as a gift.

Dorodangos made with a variety of clay and different techniques
A large dorodango (54 cm or 21 in diameter)
A dorodango at an early stage. In this case, the lack of gloss is due to it not yet undergoing polishing with fine dust particles.