#sculpture tutorial

One of the magical properties of Monster Clay is that it melts at about 170 and then hardens as it cools.

I scrapped off the main block and pressed together till I had a ‘ball’ curls of the clay. I tossed these in a microwave/oven safe container. In this case, I ended up buying a ceramic meant for melting chocolate because I knew it would be safe and it had a good pour spout.

This was my small test batch, but you can fill it up more. I stuck it in the microwave oven at half power for about 45-60 seconds. I gave it stir with an skewer old spatula I was ready to sacrifice to the clay and popped it back in for about 15 more seconds or until it’s completely melted. It will look a bit like a nice hot chocolate!

Be very careful though, this is hot clay and you don’t want to let it splash!

Once it was melted, I poured it into a silicone tray meant for making chocolate truffles or candies. You want silicone to be able to pop it out easily later!

Let it have a good cool. You can shove it in the freezer if you need, nothing will be hurt by the freeze/thaw in this group, but I just let it sit and cool for a while. Once it feels cool (careful of warm middles), pop it out for a nice brick!

Type: Plasticine

Plasticine is probably the most popular of the never dry clay for two reasons:

It’s very safe for children. If you used clay on elementary or middle school this was probably it.

Stop motion animations such as ‘Wallace and Gromit’.

Plasticine, while a brand, has several knock offs and can come in many colors- though the most common is a chocolatey brown. It’s basically calcium, oil, and petroleum jelly- aka Vaseline.

Handling:

Pro: Since it’s always very easy to manipulate, it’s great for things like stop motion.

Con: Plasticine is very prone to finger prints and tool marks.

Tip: Wetting your fingers can help the work ability!

Use water, acetone (may dry out the clay) or oil (may overly soften the clay) to smooth. 

Strength:

Con: Because it never dries, it’s easy to ding if not very aware. It’s strength is basically non existent.

Environment:

Con: Plasticine is very prone to dust and pet hair! Keep it covered when not at work on the piece.

Type: Wax

Like many things bees give us, wax is an amazing substance. It can be molded from it’s pure form all the way to combinations of wax and oil or such. Wax hardens when not warm and melts as it’s heated. When fully heated, wax becomes a liquid and be poured or cast.

If you’re going to work with wax, you’ll likely want a wax pen/hot wax tool. This is a heated metal stylus that allows for working of the hard wax.

Handling:

Pro: Wax lets you work on a more carving type process when it’s hard, sculpting when it’s soft, or casting when it’s wet.

Con: Getting it and keeping it in a state you like work it in can be hard.

Tip: Both the microwave and your freezer will be your friend. If you’re using a microwave to melt it be very care! Hot wax can burn.

Use an alcohol torch/lamp or even a hairdryer to heat the surface for smoothing.

Strength:

Con: Wax can be very brittle even when hard and may snap easily.

Environment:

Con: As anyone who’s ever owned a candle knows. Wax very prone to dust and such and when liquid even more so! Keep it covered when not at work on the piece.

Type: Monster Clay

100% honest Monster Clay is my new true love. Monster clay is a bit like if Plasticine and Wax had a baby clay- it’s some oil and some wax. When it is room temp or colder it is hardened. As it heats it softens and, if heated to about 170, can be used to cast.

This is a brand name clay and you can find it’s maker at this site.

As I note, I’m using the medium firmness.

Handling:

Pro: Monster clay lets you work on a more carving type process when it’s hard, sculpting when it’s soft, or casting when it’s wet.

Tip: Both the microwave and your freezer will be your friend. If you’re using a microwave to melt it be very care! Hot clay can burn.

Use an alcohol torch/lamp or even a hairdryer to heat the surface for smoothing.

You can melt and make easier to use, small blocks if you’re sculpting massive work.

Strength:

Con: Can’t take a large amount of abuse. Use armatures as needed. 

Environment:

Tip: When melting Monster Clay down for reuse, strain it through a cloth mesh like cheese cloth to get out some of the contaminated bits of dust or casting material.

If you’re planing to cast Monster Clay, and need to make a two part mold, use water clay to form your walls!

The piece at the start was done in  Monster Clay.

Type: Paper Clay

If you’ve ever done sculpture in elementary or middle school, there’s a good chance it was done with paper clay. Play clay is exactly what it sounds like- clay made out of paper fiber. There are several different brands you can buy at any craft store, or you can even make your own if you feel adventurous.

Working with Paper Clay:

Paper clay, when not home made, comes in soft, pliable brick in a air tight sealed bag. If the bag has any holes, suspicious dents, or seems puff, choose a different bag or you might end up with a bad bag.

Because it is an air dry clay, it will dry out when exposed to air. Wrap any piece you intend to come back to up tightly in plastic and even then be prepared to come back to dry clay. On the good side this lets you have a solid surface to work on, but it does shorten your time to make changes.

The texture can vary greatly from brand to brand, but as a whole you can expect a very fibrous feel. It also can feel oddly dry to handle.

Handling:

Con: The fibrous nature of the clay makes it hard to get a truly smooth surface or fine details.  This is best for roughing things out or as a base layer under something that will have more finishing with another clay.

Tip: Water can help re-wet the surface to a point- though be careful not to let it turn to mush.

Strength:

Con: Due to it’s fibrous nature, paper clay is always going to be on the weak side. It’s best not to expect too much out of this clay strength wise so handle it carefully!

Environment:

Tip: Wrap any seal of the bag you store the clay in with duct tape and tape it down to the bag for added air tight storage.

Type: La Doll Premier

La Doll Premier Clay brands itself as a ‘stone clay’. Like paper clay, comes in soft, pliable brick in a air tight sealed bag. It has a bright white color when dry and when sanded with a fine grit can resemble green ware porcelain.

Working with La Doll Premier:

La Doll has a very silky texture- one that I personally find quite pleasing to work with. It’s texture is also very smooth in that sense, especially with a little sanding work in the final stages. I’ve only used the La Doll Premier, but it can be combined with La Doll’s Satin.

Because of it’s soft nature, La Doll works easily with any type of tool and so is another good starter clay. You can get a set of cheap plastic tools and have all you need.

Handling:

Pro: Light weight.

While it doesn’t take detail as well as Sculpey, it takes it much better than paper clay. Once dry you can easily add more layers or details and smooth it back into the dry clay with ease.

It can be worked on with tools after it’s dry.

Con: It can sometimes be too silky and not want to stick to other materials or surfaces- including dry clay of it’s own type if it’s too wet.

Tip: Water can help re-wet the surface to a point- though be careful not to let it turn to mush.

When blending fresh and dry clay, wetting the old clay a little helps not form layers. A rougher surface is also better for joining layers.

You can bake La Doll clay in a very low oven (say 175 F) for up to a few hours to help dry it out faster. This can lead to cracking though.

Strength:

Pro: While less strong than some of the other options, La Doll is very strong for an air dry clay. It can take sanding, drilling, cutting, etc once it’s dry. I like to actually carve at it with an Exacto on my base layers.

Con: La Doll is prone to cracking while drying if dealing with a thick layer.

Tip: Use an armature or padding to help it stay in place or bulk out areas to use less clay and avoid thick layers.

Environment:

Pro: Easy to clean up the work space.

Con: Because it is an air dry clay, it will dry out when exposed to air. Wrap any piece you intend to come back to up tightly in plastic and even then be prepared to come back to dry clay.

Tip: Wrap any seal of the bag you store the clay in with duct tape and tape it down to the bag for added air tight storage.

Type: Boneware/Claystone/Stone/Pottery

These clays are the ‘fine art’ clays of the air dry world. They often mimic or are of the same family as clays that require an oven finishing. They come in a number of different types, textures, and colors. As a generalization, boneware is smooth. Claystone/stone can range from grainy to down right gravely. My experience with these types of clays are rather low due to them not meeting my needs. A few items of note though:

Handling:

Pro: Thees clays are good with working with in a more bulk means.

Con: Each type of clay is going to be rather different than each other, so do some reading and know what you like.

Strength:

Con: Usually these types of clay are on the fragile side. They’re prone to cracking and shrinking while they dry and don’t handle tool work well. 

Environment:

Pro: These clays are easier to keep wet than the others listed here.

Con: Because it is an air dry clay, it will dry out when exposed to air. Wrap any piece you intend to come back to up and be prepared to come back to dry clay.

Tip: Wrap and project well in damp paper towel and cover them in a plastic bag. This will keep it moist as long as you keep the towels moist.

Type: Model Magic

This list is long enough, but I wanted to give a special note to Model Magic for anyone with small children out there as it’s what I grew up using. It comes in many different colors that can be mixed together and dries quickly.

Working with Model Magic:

Model Magic is a bit like working with non-sticky marshmallow. It’s a light, fluffy, and almost spongy even when dry. Because of this plastic tools or even just fingers work great with this clay.

Pro: Great for kids.

Con: Because of it’s soft nature, it is very breakable once dry. Don’t use this for anything that you want to keep forever.

The piece at the start was done in La Doll Premier over an armature. The colored dots are Sculpey.

There are a lot of different types of primer! From hobby to construction to automotive. Because I work very small, I go with the hobby brands. Tamiya Surface Primer in grey is my personal go to.

Priming serves two purposes for sculptures. 

Create a clean, non-permeable/non-porous surface

Refine the surface

The first one is really important if you’re going to be casting your sculpture. A porous surface is one that is full of tiny holes- this makes it permeable (or penetrable) by things like water or other fluids. Silicone can seep into a porous surface which can be all sorts of a mess during mold making. Even if you’re dealing with a natively non-porous surface, like Epoxy, silicone can still react badly with the material so primers are wise! If this is all you’re aiming at it’s a quick spray and done, but priming also allows for refining a surface!

See- most primers are self leveling: this means that they fill in divots and cracks and smooths everything over! Small blemishes will become completely smooth while larger dips- intentional or not- will just be rounded out a little. This means that priming is great for scratches, finger prints, and the like. On the downside it can mush over fine details a little.

If you’re like me and living with pets/don’t cover up your sculptures when not at work, it can also help deal with all of that dust and fur that may have stuck to your sculpture! This is illustrated roughly here.

Here you can see the mermaid torso after it’s second round of priming. The first round was to deal with the dust and worse of it. After a quick sand with rougher sand paper (rougher means a lower number! I used between a 320-400 numbers sand paper in my first round of sanding) I gave it another spray. When spraying primer move the can a lot and don’t hold your can too close to your sculpture of you can get splatters, dripping, or just a pooling of the primer!

Here you can see the same round of primer after it’s been sanded off. You’ll notice that some places are still the solid grey of the primer, where as others are patchy. When you’re sanding primer, the high spots will sand down while the low spots stay the grey primer- helping you even out your work to a single level! I used predominately a 600 grit sandpaper here with a little 400. I spent a lot of time at this stage sanding- a whole day of work in fact!

Once the sanding is done, the sculpture is washed off (to get rid of sanding dust), dried, and primed again. At this point you can see all the problems left clearly.

Some areas may need refining or repair, others corrections, and then there are blemishes to fix. Be careful not to cause more blemishes at this stage! The primed surface can easily be dented with rough handling or finger nails.

Once my areas of work are identified, I can start fixing them. Now that it’s primed, I can’t use any oven bake clays- liket the base Sculpty I used. I move on to using an epoxy clay instead. This is a two part air dry epoxy that is very solid while still being able to be sanded and sculpted. Aves Apoxy or Milliput are two good brands for this type of work. I use Aves more.

I could do a whole tutorial about working with epoxy, but the long and the short of it is that you go about working on your problem areas carefully, giving it time to dry between tricky areas. Depending on the type (and age) of your epoxy it will set in 30-60 minuets but will not be fully cured for 24 hours. So be patient!

Here you can see my fixed sculpture. All the white areas are the epoxy. While I tried to make the work as smooth as possible while I was doing it, there will be issues! Luckily this is what primer is for! From here I’ll sand it again, prime it again, sand it again, prime it again. That’s right- at least two more layers of priming.

There will be about a half dozen rounds for each piece of this sculpture- a lot of work to assure the best quality of surface I can provide! The final refinement I’ll leave till all the pieces are done- assuring a good fit and less chance of damage. I’ll also keep using high grit sandpaper for a better surface! Usually I’ll stay around 1000 grit- but things that need to be glass smooth I might go up to 1600 or 2400 grit! A lot way from 320 to get the right look for each part.