question(s) about chavant

[n-Drew]

hi there

i have a question about chavant nsp (medium) i have seen the "making of leo" vid with casey love, and i was a little bit wondering why his model are/were so "hard". i have the same stuff and its not that hard. its like as he has painted/sprayed a "make-hard-surface" thingie on it.

and my other question is is it possible to paint on chavant? casey did it but im not sure if its so easy coz its not that hard. and i think he made an "undercoat" but i dont know how or what kind of thingie he has used.

greetz
n-drew

[stoneindian]

I think in the making of Leon he used chavant (Hard). that's what I use and when it cools it is pretty hard. also, I think at some point in the video he has made a plastic casting of the clay sculpture, that is what he painted. I have painted chavant, just to play around with it and see what would happen, but their is really no point because it is still an undring clay.

Best Marty

[n-Drew]

ah, cool thx, but he has used chavant nsp medium :) he showed the package at the beginning :)

john brown uses chavant nsp hard....

ah, but he showed at the beginning an older model, and its still chavant, but a little bit harder, not a cast one, and i think its medium....he said its his fav stuff

[n-Drew]

ok i have watched the vid again and its definitively chavant nsp medium and the painted object, too. he said he used "layered primer ????" or something like that to paint on the clay [dunno, my english isnt that good :)]

must be an undercoat


yep, it is "primer" found different stuffs. its an undercoat for painting/airbrushing

[stoneindian]

I just finnished wathching the making of leon again. the people that edited the video I think clipped out some stuff. near the end of the video around the time he startes painting the sculpt, casey is no longer narrating. that is deffinantly a casting of the sculpt. look how he is handeling it. no way would he do that with chavant Medium, he would crush all his detail. also, you have to reallise that the video is not to give you a 100% tutorial on sculpting. that video is part of a 3 video set used to teach character animation in Maya. I you want a full tutorial check out John Brown's dvd's form the Gnomon school. He has 5 awsome dvd's 1 building an armature, 1 sculpting a head, 1 sculptung a full figure, and the last two show how to cast them. the video for cg/tool kit is very very good, but it does leave some important stuff out.

Best,
Marty

[n-Drew]

yeah, thx for info, i know the john brown vids. but he said at the beginning "it s chavant" to the orcish half one, that was the point why i was wondering, coz its very hard, and i thought u can do that with a primer (ending)...

and yes, they cut off the vid and this suxx... i emailed casey but no response (surprise :p)...

[dreamsorcerer]

I haven't seen the video that you're talking about but I thought this may be of some help to you about using chavant clay. Since Chavant is oil based clay then you can of course heat it up to soften it up: microwave, radiator, hair dryer and of course melting it with a naked flame. When scultping a rough surface, you can use an alcohol burner to soften and smooth the areas which brings some real nice effects. Also, since you wouldn't want the clay to stay 'soggy' you'd use a 'freeze spray' which of course, drops the temperature so the clay goes hard again. The clay would produce a a white coating only whilst spraying this stuff on only coz it's freezing the surface, then you can continue working on it. You could buy this freeze spray from a hardware store.

[red baron]

If you want a harder clay get the chavant hard. The clay is made to always stay plyable, freeze spray or not the clay will become room temp. I have been using chavant for some time now and the firmness of the clay used should be based on what you are making and your comfort level of for the feel of the clay. You are able to paint on the clay i have done it. It is pointless if you want it to stay long term. Since the clay will always be soft it can always be bumped and nicked and mess up the entire thing. I have used the gnomon videos also to leard how to make a casting of my pieces. If you want to paint them i suggest learning the process and doing it. it is a lot of work but it is a good process to leard and it can be a lot of fun.

[dreamsorcerer]

The point I was trying to make about using freeze spray was to stop the clay from melting after using an alcohol burner (naked flame.) Whatever the hardness of clay, it would still melt.

[n-Drew]

cool, some other ideas and clues. yeah, i have seen the using of icespray in john brwon vid, southern said if u do it often, hot/cold, the clay becomes harder. dunno.

i have a small "exercise" chavant nsp hard "thingie" and i tried it yesterday. i have to say its very cool, much harder then medium and more fun to use it imho.

i want to avoid to cast, coz it didnt look funny in john brown vid , coz its too much work imho. i think would buy sculpey and bake it, less work. but sculpey is expensive and i dont like "soft" clay.


red baron

did u mean that u have "painted" on chavant nsp hard? does it work ? did u use a primer ? what kind of colors ? (airbrush, acrylic)

greetz
n-drew

[n-Drew]

ok guys, new infos

i havent "chavant hard" i got "autostyle regular" its a a little bit harder then the hard version :) and its perfect (its cheaper than medium or hard). the best clay i ever had.
and i asked the firm if i can paint chavant and they said "yes, its possible" if u use a "primer". (they wrote something with krylon).

if i get more infos i´ll post it. stay tuned :)

greetz
n-drew

[n-Drew]

hi there

i found something very very interesting. http://www.chavant.com/files/clay_docs/

and yes, its possible to paint on chavant ^^