#dododido

One thing that I’ve learned is that you really need to warm up the clay (either by kneading it by hand or with a pasta machine) before you work with it.That really helped me a lot. The clay is much easier to smooth out that way and easier to work with. I was used to working with paperclay which doesn’t need to be kneaded so when I started using Sculpey I didn’t really take enough time to warm up the clay.

Another (quite unrelated) tip is to use strong wire for the armature. A sturdy and strong armature is much easier to work with than a bendy armature.

It is a good idea to use aluminium foil to bulk up your armature. You’ll save A LOT of clay this way.

Put the clay in a plastic bag or ziplock bag when you’re not using it. Your clay will stay better that way. Sculpey is an oil based clay and will dry out over time, putting it in a bag will slow down this process.

Clay is much easier to smooth out with your fingers! Tools use a lot more “force”. It is hard for me to explain this but you’ll know what I mean if you try pushing your finger and a tool into your clay using the same pressure. There are some places your fingers can’t reach of course so here you can use your tools, but it is something to keep in mind :)