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