Sculpey Questions and..... answers ? Please Archive.

[chippy]

Hello All,I thought this would be a good and helpfull topic to many.I am getting stuff togeather to have my first attempt at head sculpting.I have opted to use sculpey,as it seems popular with many modellers.I have a head full of Questions,but before I make any kind of start,I wish to know;

1.How do you make the neck so that it will fit on the original dragon/bbi whatever neck post.I have seen some heads sitting on bits of wood dowel,metal pipe and I believe even magnets have been used.Bearing in mind you have to bake this stuff,can you remove the dowel easily after you baked it ? dosn't the wood burn ? If metal pipe is a good option then what size/type ?

2.Is it best to keep opening your oven and checking to make sure you don't over bake your head,anyone offer some guide times for a head,in a standard gas oven.What happens if you over cook sculpey,how can you check its cooked enough ?

3.Can you add bits on and re-cook an allready baked head ? Or can small add ons like beards and hair be set with a hair dryer?

I know alot of the above is probably obvious to many,but I and probably a lot of others are complete novice at this.So any tips will be most welcomed...at least by me anyway.
Chippy.

[BlackOps]

I started with sculpy but switched to Ave's Apoxie Sculpt. It air hardens within 24 hours and is less fragile than sculpy.

http://www.avesstudio.com/Products/A...ie_sculpt.html


One you try it you will never go back.

Jeff G.

[chippy]

That sounds like good stuff Jeff,I wonder if it`s available here in the u.k ? I would still very much like the answers to the above questions....anybody ?

[ScanmanDan]

Hey Chippy,

Look I don't know much about this sculpting caper but I'll tell you what's worked for me.

I didn't even try and make the headsculpt fit a Dragon neck post. All I did was use a BBI body with the ball joint in the neck area removed. This left a large crater which I filled part way with Blue tack and then used Liquid nails construction adhesive ( the kind that uses water to clean up) to attach the finished head. I lose out on posing the head but at least it's attached firmly. Next time I will make the neck a bit longer than a standard Dragon headsculpt. I used a length of 5mm thin walled brass tube as an armature to sculpt the head. I think a bit bigger, say 8-10 mm would have been better. I found that by leaving about 4 inches of length on the tube I had an excellent handle and I could stand the headsculpt in a mug filled with water while it baked in the oven. I just cut the tube off flush with the bottom after I had finished sculpting and painting it. I used FIMO clay and had no problem cooking the head multiple times. What I did find was that after the head is baked additional clay doesn't stick well to the backed clay. What I'll do next time is to add clay to the brass tube to build up the back of the head and the neck then bake it. Then add the beads for eyes and sculpt the face, ears and hair. and finish baking it. On my first try I roughed in the head, baked it. then did the face and had another bake and finished up adding the ears. Trouble was getting the ears to stick was a royal pain!

Multiple baking dosen't seem to be too much of a problem and I have even just finished making a big old battleaxe using balsa wood as the handle with FIMO as the blade. The oven was set on lowest setting and after about 25 miniutes it came out fine with no damage to the balsa haft. I think this stuff is pretty forgiving and it changes colour very slightly when cured. While I can see you could over cook it I think your pretty safe to just have a go. I managed to get a bit of Sculpty today and I might have a bit of a play with that soon. Though this two part expoxy stuff looks pretty cool too.

Oooh, and make sure you get yourself some round wooded toothpicks. Round off the end with a bit of sandpaper and you have a nice little tool to sculpt with. Bottom line is have a go. I had a blast and will diffenitely have a few more shots at it. Keep us posted on how you go.

Here is one little site that had some neat pictures of facial expresions that you might like.

Facial expressions pictures

Hope this is of some help.
Dan

[chippy]

Thanks Dan,I thought there would have been a bit more response from some of the more experienced people.I have picked up some glass beads for they eyes,I have my sculpey sitting here,but before I make a start I want to be sure I can attach the head,I will almost definately be usind a dml body.It would suit me better if I can use the original neck post and keep the poseability of it.It`s a long project,even after all this I still have to master painting the heads.

[wimpie]

Maybe you guys could consider using putty by kneaditite know in the wargames world als "greenstuff". This is the stuff that most 28mm miniatures are sculpted in. I use it on my warhammer to fix dragons, chainmail and for filling gaps. The beaty of this stuff is that you don't nead to bake it. Only negative thing it sticks to every thing that you don't keep wet.

[ScanmanDan]

No problem Chippy. I'm just thinking out loud here but you might be able to fill the grove on the Dragon neck post with your favorite filler ( I like two part auto body filler) and shape the little catch into more of a peg. Once this lot was smoothed out you could then press Sculpty around the neck post and build the neck up to about say 12mm or a half inch tall. With a little luck you should be able to get the clay to seperate pretty cleanly from the neck post and then bake it to set its shape. Once baked I'd then drill the centre of the neck out for a brass rod and continue as I did before. I found that I could remove the brass rods I used to form the little clay pots on my orge figure by twisting them after the clay had been baked. In a sence you'd be making the same kind of interface that the Frontline resin heads use. You would still need to glue the head to the neck post but at least you could still pose the head.

Sorry if I'm going on and on. Thanks for making me think more about this as I think this is how I'll try my next one. Of course someone will come up with a much better solution just after I spend hours butchering my next attempt .

I can't wait to see your sculpting. BTW what sort of eyes have you found?

Dan

[chippy]

Dan,don`t worry about thinking out loud,maybe we can bounce some ideas off each other,or improve on suggestions.Of course using the stuff that does not need baking to set could be a good move,you could sculpt it straight onto the neck post perhaps ?
At the moment I intend on using some glass beads for the eyes,I got mine at needlework shop.They are 6mm,I think these will work,though most of the bead will of course be buried in the head.I found some glass 1/6th scale eyes here :
http://www.artdolls.com/catalog.cfm/Eyes/showCategory

They actually make them for twelve inch figures,but at 12 odd dollars a pair,I want to see how my sculpting goes before trying them.This would of course save alot of fiddly painting.Keep all the ideas coming in...its good to talk.