Wanted to try my hand at a tutorial, so when asking, one request was adding bits and textures to polymer clay sculpts. I use nearly all of these techniques for detailing my sculptures while doing slight variations on each to get different desired effects depending on what I'm working on. For larger pieces, you just use larger chunks of clay and larger tools.
An important thing to remember is that because it's additive sculpting, you can add and remove as much clay as you please to get something to work. If you're not quite getting the result you want when adding something, try just using more clay than you think you need and trimming off the excess once something's secured! Happy scuplting :)
A quick tip today because if you’re working with polymer clays this will save your soul and your hands. Get a pasta press.
You can pick these up at most craft stores. They aren’t cheap- mine was about $25, but any box store has that constant 40% off coupon so use that!
A pasta press is useful for mixing clays or applying pressed stencils or such. I’m using mine for mixing and it seriously makes the process 90% easier.
The clay needs to go in semi flat so I cute mine and stick it together into strips. Then you just turn the handle and go!
I’m using mine on the second to largest setting so it’s decently thick. Since I’m mixing that’s alright.
I can keep this in the rough mix and just roll it and use it like that if I’d like.
It looks amusingly toothpaste like. If I want, just a hand full of quick passes though the machine can also mix it completely. After it comes out each time I mush it quickly with one hand and shove it back in.
The press can mix it anywhere in between the two stages depending on how many times you run it through and how much you handle it. Seriously though this saves your hands strain and that’s important! Keep those hands health and ready to do the fun parts of the sculpting instead!
Over the next month or so I’ll be covering some of the different types of clay out there that you can work with for sculpting. Some of them I’m more familiar with and will cover more in depth in single posts. Others I may group together.
Today:
Sculpey and the Like
Types:
Sculpey is a brand of oven baked clay that comes in a few different types for the purposes of different finishes
If people are sculpting something that’s going to be painted or cast, most stick to Super Sculpey or Super Sculpey Firm as they’re the strongest. Super Sculpey has a rather different texture than most Sculpey and it is almost wax like in some ways. It comes in a peachy color that is a little transparent. The Super Sculpey Firm comes in grey. If you’ve seen me working with a peach colored clay (like on the mermaid) I’m using Super Sculpey.
(*Photos of Super Sculpey in black and white help show details better)
If you aren’t intending to finish the whole surface, you might use Sculpey III or Premo. These two lines come in many, many different colors. The colors mix well with each other to make any color you want. It is usually recommended to not mix across lines, but I haven’t had personal issues with mixing Sculpey III and Premo. I WOULD NOT mix either of those with the Super Sculpey lines.
There are a few other lines that usually fall with Sculpey III area. These types can be transparent or even slighty flexible.
More below the cut!
Working With Sculpey:
Sculpey comes in a very stiff block. For the Super Sculpey line it comes in a long, rectangular box. Sculpey III and Premo come in plastic wrapped rectangles. I cut mine into manageable pieces with my Exacto. I used to rip off pieces, but this leaves a mess in the package and can make it harder to store or to get exact parts.
All types of Sculpey loosen up with heat so if it’s too stiff work it for a bit. Some types and even colors work easier than others. The fresh it is usually the easier it is to work. If you’ve got a low body heat like me, try sticking it between the bend of your knee or elbow while you work on another piece.
Sculpey falls very thoroughly into the craft clay category and so is really easy to work on with all tools. This is why I would recommend Sculpey as a good starting clay as long as long as you have access to an oven or toaster oven.
Sculpey will remain softened until it’s baked*. Because it’s oven bake you get to very clearly choose when a piece is done- be it hours or weeks later.
Handling:
Pro: Sculpey takes detail really easily. This makes it a good material to get detail in like wrinkles, cloth texture, or the etc. You can press cloth or a stamp onto it to achieve such textures.
Con: Because Sculpey is always soft, it’s easy to make a mistake and ruin something you had done.
Since Sculpey softens with heat, finger prints are common.
Tip: Put it in the freezer to harden it up. Only keep it in there for a bit 5-10 minuets though or else it will sweat!
You can harden and smooth Sculpey by wiping it with acetone (aka nail polish remover or brush cleaner). I use a paint brush for this.
You can bake Sculpey in parts. This is best with Super Sculpey as it’s the strongest. If you’re worriedd about the burned look multiple bakes can cause, cover the already backed parts with tinfoil or bake in pieces and then join.
Strength:
Pro: Sculpey- especially Super Sculpey- is a strong finished material and can handle some light power tools.
Con: While not fragile, Sculpey III and Premo are not as strong. None of the brands are great at withstanding snapping forces.
Environment:
Con: One word- dust. Sculpey is a magnet for dust, dirt, and pet hair. Be sure to clean your surface, tools, and hands thoroughly before working with anything that wont have a finished surface.
Tip: Cornstarch helps pieces of Sculpey not stick to other surfaces. You can also put it under you Sculpey as it bakes to make sure it doesn’t burn the bottom or role around. Careful though! Too much cornstarch rolled into the Sculpey material can ruin it.
Warning: Sculpey melts/eats plastic. Don’t store it in plastic, set it on plastic, or use plastic for armature or place holders for more than a brief time.
*Sculpey can harder with heat, sun, or age. It wont bake fully, but keep it out of the sun and at room temperature.
When making a sculpture the texture (or lack there of) can be vital to the finished outcome of the piece. Sometimes you want something perfectly smooth or with a faint texture. Other times you want something with a heavy texture to represent cloth or wood or any number of things. There are a lot of different ways to go about this depending on your need and the type of piece you’re doing.
Below the cut we’ll look at adding a bumpy texture to a small scale sculpture that you know will go through either casting or finishing.
There’s a lot of reasons you may end up wanting to add a bumpy texture to a sculpture. In the case of the example sculpture, I was going for adding a bit of a toad skin like texture because the creature is a tuppy- or toad puppy. Here it is before the texture.
First things was to look at a picture of toad skin. Using reference is always important! I looked at several, but here’s an example I’ve drawn over from wikipedia.
This gives an idea of what needs to be achieved and where the bumps need to go so we can plan things out better. Now most of the time I see bumps they’re put on with little balls of clay. This works really well for a cartoony look if that’s what one is going for, but it wasn’t my goal. Beyond taking ages, it also can cause issues with casting because of the gaps it leaves. So instead of clay, I used paint dots.
Paint dots are very easy to achieve with one of my favorite odd tools- dotters.
Your best bet to find these in today’s age are probably at beauty supply stores in the nail section it seems. (Tbh both of these are older than me.) Of course you can use other things- the end or tips of pencils, chopsticks, sculpting tools- but they wont be as efficient. The rounder the tip the better for it. I used both tool sizes for this process.
For paint I just used a cheap craft acrylic. Fine art acrylics would probably just as well if not better because of the thickness, but I’ve only oil paints. You want to create a small but nice dollop of paint. Resit the urge to press the tip into the paint- you want a paint dollop with some raise. Take your dotter and gently press it into the paint, leaving a nice bead on the tool. Try to keep the tool more strait up and down- not pressing in the side.
Following the pattern of the reference, I started applying dots to the tuppy. I started with the back because it was a nice large swath of area and worked down the back legs, then the front legs, and then the nose. In each area, I started with the largest of the dots and worked down to the smallest. This lets you use the smaller dots to fill in gaps without running out of room.
When applying the dots it’s important to keep a light touch- tap and pull back. Try to keep the tool perpendicular to the surface of the sculpture.
As the paint dries it will ‘deflate’ some and become flatter. This is where the tedium comes in because you’ll be doing several layers. Really though I did this between other tasks while watching a show so I found it rather calming. When you’re going over the dots, make sure the paint is completely dry or you’ll cause divots! Also don’t go over every dot each time. Sometimes I would go over every dot and others I’d just pick and choose. This helped create the random feeling of the skin and create some really nice raised dots. Every dot I went over at least twice.
Your aim is to have dots that you can visibly feel when you run your finger over the surface of the sculpture. Here you can see where I stopped dotting.
Once it’s dry, give it a good solid coating of primer (or whatever spray/skill you’re using to finish). A bit of a thick coating helps to really give it that unified skin feeling, but just the nature of the dot gets it there quite well.
Here’s the finished piece post primer!
In my case, this piece will have a little more work and then go to casting. The cast will get all the little bumps and create a really nice texture ripe for dry or wet brushing- or just look good as is!
Tips & Tuts Tuesday is a new thing I’m trying out where every week I’ll post a Tip or Tutorial as long as I have things to talk about! If you have something specific that you know is in my wheel house, feel free to suggest it. Right now there’s a lot of requests for sculpture based items so that’s where I’ll focus for a bit.
I did not expect this video was shared yesterday xD I scheduled it to December, but well maybe the Fridays is a good day to share this content, what do you think?
In this video I record all the process of how I sculpt this demon character, this is part of the video game project, my main job, on that I work on the last 3 years!
Hope you like it, and enjoy the video.
Let me know any question I will glad to answer it all of them :D
Want to know how to make an armature? I’ll show you in this real time video :)
This will be the last video for a little while because we are moving into a new place next month, so i hope to be back with new tutorials for you all in September :)
