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Re: Sculptor inquiry



Thanks Todd, your cheque is on the way.

I posted this to the list because I know there are a lot of sculptors out there lurking.
Apoxie is great choice, but it depends on how fast you are going to work. With epoxies you sort of have a ticking clock before it starts to harden, and when it hardens...its really hard. I also get freaked out by the toxicity of such clays and use them sparingly. They say Apoxie sculpt is non-toxic but I dunno. If anyone knows more about this let me know.
I use another sculpey product called Premo.
I use a white color mixed with a little bit of black to get a neutral grey. I also like the consistency of the white clay. I build it up in thin layers ( and yes, make sure you put these layers on well) and use a heat gun when I'm ready to bake it. It works well for me and I can leave it soft if I don't have the time to it finish right at that moment or I need to walk away for a few hours. If you want to soften it don't bother with the diluent they'll try and sell you, its really just vegetable oil. At certain stages in the sculpture I like to take a flat brush with a small amount of vegetable oil and brush the surface to smooth it out. Too much of this makes it sticky and frys it when you bake it with the heat gun. I have never experienced any shrinkage with this clay, and lately I've been sculpting on such a small scale ( 1:200) that shrinkage would be very evident. I've had good results sanding it as well but wear s mask! Polymer clay dust is like breathing in plastic!
I sculpted two life sized Eoraptors with something called Chavaunt P40. Its the brown automotive clay that you see in all the car commercials these day. You heat up block in a convection oven until its paste-like then brush it on and scrape it off with rake tools. You do this a bunch of time until you carve out the right shape. The longer you let it sit and cool the harder it gets. It can get rock hard with no shrinkage. When you want to soften it up again just use a heat gun on it . If you are not used to raking when you sculpt then this is not the clay for you. If you are a "thumber" and use your fingers to push the clay around, heat softened P40 will probably burn your thumbprints off. If this clay intrigues you I can recommend a DVD that talks you through it.


Good Luck!  I'd love to see your sculpt!

David Krentz




On May 18, 2008, at 3:15 PM, Zelda wrote:

I'll second the accolades for Apoxie Sculpt. A quick
Google search will bring up several places to order it
from, and it comes in several container sizes. This
will air dry, I've found that it tends to get crumbly
when applying it around half an hour after mixing, so
if you're working with something large I'd suggest
sculpting in stages. It leaves a slight residue on
your hands when first mixed, but if you wash it off
and then keep your fingers damp afterwards, there's no
mess!

If you're sculpting thin or delicate structures that
you want to hold up to casting, or if you're sculpting
on top of a 'filler' like foil, I've found epoxy
stands up to molding and casting much better than
Sculpey clay. Even SuperSculpey cracks and pulls away
from armatures if put under stress. Good luck!

Michelle Pinsdorf


--- Philip Millar <philip.millar@gmail.com> wrote:

You need some sort of epoxy putty. I use Apoxie
Sculpt (www.avesstudio.com)
and it is fabulous stuff.
Milliput ( http://www.milliput.com/home.htm ) is
another species, also good
stuff but more expensive. As Todd suggested with
SuperSculpey, use a heat
gun to control the set time. Also, waiting for the
putty to set slightly
permits greater detail that when it is at the first
mixed spongy stage.
Aluminium foil is excellent for a base to sculpt on,
easily tweaked and
relatively cheap. Crumpled foil also has a bit more
tooth or grip and the
putty (or sculpey) won't slide around so much on the
wire forms.
Good luck
Philip Millar
www.creaturetechnology.com