questions about clay

[gallon]

Hello everybody.
I been thinking about making some clay gargoyles sorta sculptures, and sell to rich black-metal kids :). Or as club interior details, as a method to get the extra cash you always need.

Well, my plan is to make the sculptures pretty big and with helluwa lot of details, and texture. I checked what clay the LOTR-crew used for making the balrog (plastilina) and did some more research on that clay. Problem is it does not harden.

So what I need is a strong clay, easy to work with, that hardens (best if is air-dry, but those tend to be fragile), and you can texturize and paint on... Any tips?? And help with the materials. I know there's some people who uses clay in their work. Give me some tips and help on what material to work with, please :)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I cant answer your question really. But here's what I use.

http://w1.485.telia.com/~u48508900/modelclay.jpg
I make quick reference models out of the soft model clay (kid clay, doesn't harden). In this case some armour for a the Joan D'arc project I haven't really started on.
The right stuff is epoxy putty that the citadel (Games workshop warhammer fantasy/40k) designers use. It hardens under a hot lamp (not too hot cuz then it'll melt or bend).


Here's an obscure link (japanese) with some anime figure sculpt WIPs. He seems to be using some sort of two component cement stuff.
http://www.safins.ne.jp/~men/gk/scr/scratch.html
More info here:
http://www.safins.ne.jp/~men/gk/scr2/op.html
You can babelfish translate those

[bat]

Sculpey! Sculpey! Sculpey!

http://www.sculpey.com

Not air-dry, but very easy to work with. That Games Workshop greenstuff is hard to work with and basically best for filling in the cracks on their miniatures.

bat

[gallon]

Thanks for the tips! I noticed there's a lot of different kind of sculpey....
For my purpose, what kind suits me best?

Thanks for the help, both prom and bat :)

[Elwell]

Super Sculpey (the pink stuff) bakes up much harder than the others.

If you're planning on working big you'll want to come up with some way of making stuff so that it's hollow.

[Johannes]

Hi there

I have tried lotsa stuff too, plastelina and also that weird "paperclay" that airhardens (some german brand, dont remember the name, because it were sucky).

But i Like supersculpey and in a pinch, baktun.

It seems that supersculpey is what all pros use. Some pointers though -
1try to keep the claylayer not to thick - about a centimeter (a little less then half an inch) is good. It bakes best then -

2 to help baking, U can stuff the thing with aluminum foil, or even better - make a sturdy skeleteon of wire (no special pre-heated expensive wire as with "real" clay is needed here, we dont need temperatures over 130 degrees celsius), then wrap foil for thickness on the skeleton. helps U keep the cost of the expensive sculpey down too. :D

3 Supersculpey can be softened and smothed with regular cooking oil :D


Baktun - cheaper than sculpey, airdrying can be baked in regular oven, is "thinned" and solved with regular water.

For really big projects, I would use chickenwire and plaster (the one with strips - like they use to make "plasterbandages" with is great, a little expensive, though). maybe cement and plaster, even :D

Of course theres alway "real" clay, whicj is good priced, but of course, it needs special oven to be baked in, and also its hard to make it so it dont get cracks. See to it U get the regular stuff, not the one with lots od "schammotte" (obvious misspelling O_o) (that stuff burns ugly, specklike and grind youre hands to a bloody pulp!).
But I have some sculptures I never baked, and they seems to hang on good (10 years, that is).

[egerie]

well Johannes seems to have said it all :)
I would recommend using plaser for BIG sculptures. You can make your own plaster bandages with an old cotton bedsheet in thin small strips with a COLD mix of very liquid plaster. Only your mom will be pissed, not your wallet :) That's how I did 90% of my latest human lifesize sculpt. (all of that on top of sturdy skeleton + chickenwire + real clothes :D )

[bupaje]

You may find these useful regarding Sculpey. I just started dabbling and have limited myself to some 'home made clay' using cornstarch and glue but I recently tried some small samplers of Sculpey and its on my wish list. :)


http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/tutorials/sculpture1/sculpture.htm

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/tutorials/sculpture2/sculpture.htm

[gallon]

thanx for all the feedback. Really great of you guys and (maybe) girls (a bit hard to know :)).
Lucky me I just helped out moving furnitures in a school getting everything setup for the new year, and managed to get some of that plaster-bandages for free ;).

Mmh, super-sculpey.... now here's one more question;
If I make a nice solid form out of wire (I'll probably use some kind of net and plaster-bandages) it's gonna be a bit rough. If I then add sculpey as a layer ontop of everything (the plaster etc) to be able to texture it , like maybe skin or scalelike texture... can I put the whole thing into the oven and bake it ? Or will that mess up everything??

I know that's a pretty weird question, but as you guys are so helpful and seem to know a lot about this...I just hope someone got the answer :)

[bupaje]

Are you asking about baking the plaster and bandages with Sculpey? If so I don't think that would work without burning down the house. ;)

The only things I have tried so far are baking individual pieces of sculpey and putting them in unbaked Scupley and rebaking -small pieces that mess up if I tried to do the whole thing like teeth, fingers etc.... using aluminum foil and the art store also had some sort of mesh like screen that was very good as this can be baked inside as well and wire of course.

On thing I also tried -and remember this is a noob- was use some styrofoam balls and such, carved into rough shape of say head, used wire mesh on it and then carefully removed foam (I was trying for some hollow head and bodies to make a sort of robot/puppet for animation... another incomplete project) but the wire and aluminum foil and maybe the mesh as well are likely better. I guess you could always use the plaster and such seperately and combine them after everything is baked as a composite of sorts....

[Johannes]

Him again
Glad to help :D

Hmmm, plasterbandages and sculpey... I dunno, try it out in SMALL scale before U definetly go at it. Trouble may be to get the sculpey to stick to plaster. Please post the results here4 later :D

U should be able to get the same result with wireskeleton + chickenwire + aluminum foil (maybe even the sturdier foil one time containers that chinese food comes in, eeeh, at least in Sweden it does). If U "crackle" the foil it fills up good and its sturdy too.
I dont really see the need to use both plaster and sculpey.
Remember - plaster gets very heavy too. :/

And another benefit with aluminum foil inside the sculpture is that its baked from two sides at the same time. from hot oven on the outside, and from hot aluminum from the inside. :)

Ohh, be carefull of that foam stuff - my guess is it build upto a lot of poisonuis gases in the oven! Maybe even burning poisonous gas!!! That stuff may even melt anf float out inside the oven!!! Mum wont be too happy then... O_o

Good luck :)

[jester]

I usually work with either super sculpey or with FIMO, which has a very similar feel (except that it comes in different colors) and never had any problems when baking in wooden toothpicks. The baking temperature is so low and the baking time so short that this isn't really a problem.

Jester

[Cat]

Very useful info :thumbsup:

All my questions have been answered aswell :)

[bupaje]

Originally posted by Johannes
Ohh, be carefull of that foam stuff - my guess is it build upto a lot of poisonuis gases in the oven! Maybe even burning poisonous gas!!! That stuff may even melt anf float out inside the oven!!! Mum wont be too happy then... O_o

Good luck :)

Oops hope I didn't give the impression that you could leave it inside... I just used it as foam is easy to carve to shape and cheap so I found it useful to make a form to bend the wire mesh around when I made some hollow pieces, but you definetly need to take it out to bake. :) I did try leaving it in the mesh and then disolving it using acetone but that was an unsuccesful, and fume filled failed experiment. ;)

[Johannes]

No, bupaje, I didnt get that impression, but I only felt it needed be cleared. :D

It could be hard to get all the foam out, if it was an advanced form, leading to, hehe, a fume filled experience.

[bupaje]

Could also be a murder mystery when the investigator comes in, finds the body and a small clay man with smoke curling from his lips (or clay buttocks) -"was it an accident?" he asks himself..... ;)

[BadMange]

There's a big thread on sculpting at Spiraloid HERE (http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/viewtopic.php?TopicID=134). I got a lot of good info from that discussion before starting my sculpture for a class this quarter. Lots of good links in that thread, too.

-Bad Mange