Materials anyone using the grey "firm" super sculpy? - new head wip

trying to kick myself back into working on some bjds... decided to make some sd size heads and practice molding.

Got started on one and decided to try the new grey firm super sculpy.
I really like the way it moves - but when I started to try to smooth it using fingernail polish remover... the color changed strangely from grey to purple.

Does anyone know what I should be using to smooth this stuff?? (I've been using paperclays for so long, I don't know what the right things to do with polymer clays are...)

anyway - on the pictures below, you can see the purple around the eyes, and along the side of his nose. (ignore the green - not enough light here tonight to get good pics)

would appreciate any suggestions on the best way to smooth this stuff before baking ..... or with sculpy, i wonder if I should just go ahead and mold him and cast a waste cast to clean up. Going to have to go read all the threads about molding....

really appreciate any help anyone can offer!

thanks!

 

<grin> - sorry didn't phrase that well. nope - you don't need acetone to smooth paperclay - its much healthier for both you and the environment. Water and a paintbrush is supposed to work if you want to smooth down before you sand. I don't normally smooth my sculpts anywhere near BJD standards - but i'm trying to fit within the accepted parameters here (its a nice challenge)

so i thought that i remembered discussions with polymer clay folk from long years ago - that they used the acetone to smooth down the polymer....

thank you - i'll go try the rubbing alcohol... unfortunately my fingers are broad and blunt at the end - hate it - no beautifully tapered fingers here... so i'm trying to find other tools to use to get around the eye sockets, nose and mouth before baking - to decrease the amount of clean up i'll need to do on the first cast.

(ps ---- he doesn't have a really low head - he just doesn't have his head cap on yet!)

 

thanks Kaye - absolutely love your work too - in fact, looking at your newest head was part of why I wanted to start trying again. I got sidetracked before and never got beyond testing "proof of concept" kind of molding and casting - but now we want to try to do a head for real...

when you sand - do you go beyond 400 grit sandpaper on the sculpy? I'm figuring i'm going to cut off his left ear cause i keep squashing his right ear when i work on his left one (go figure....) and bake him. then do sanding, build on the other ear, and build up the edge for the head cap and the neck and build again - (possibly repeatedly) before trying to make the mold.

Do you think there are any gotchas there that i should be paying attention to?

hey Bruny ---- thanks! I should have thought of the diluent.... I'm sure i have some around here somewhere - I wonder if it expires... it has to have been sitting out in the garage for 5 years or so..... i'll go look and see if it works for me. I think my brush is too big though.... I wonder if a small cats tongue shaped brush would work better, I went for large and soft...

thanks again guys, I really appreciate the help!

 

hey Logodae,

thank you - stopped by D&J and they had one white shaper in stock so I grabbed it and will try it tonight.... I love the complete sculptor too... got my altime favorite metal clay tools from them... sure wish I lived close so i could take advantage of the classes they offer....

hey Bruny!!! I was sure I recognized your name! I thought you were on the Dollmakers list, not this one... <grin> the dilutent was cheap, so i grabbed a new bottle. will try it tonight too... are you going to this year's Magnum Opus too? Not sure if i will have anything ready to take...

hey Mandiv... I bought some spray matt primer that I was thinking of using... but then this head ended up not being very dollfie/more realistic - so i'm not sure i want it too smooth.... but his temples and jawline most definitely need work...


<grin> hey Twigling...

ah grasshopper - tis the journey, not the destination <snork> <snurfle> ahem, urm...

I hope I actually finish one someday too ---- but what I really would love is to get one of your exquisite bodies and make my own head for it.... I just am not very good at the detail/stick to it stuff --- I love making quirky one of a kind odd little people - but will i have what it takes to do a beautiful normal body? don't know.

what i need to do is create the wizard/witch from wizard of oz (I think its from Ozma of Oz) who has an entire room of heads and swaps on the one she wants to wear today. Would need one great body and then a bunch of cool heads....

Meg and I both have some ideas for various ways to swap heads/faceplates so that would be so much fun to play with

oh well, am borrowing internet, and trying to get my toaster oven to stop blowing the fuse in the garage so I can cook this head and then go on... I miss the ease of modification of the paperclay already...

thanks for all the great input guys. lets see if I can finish this dude.

 

<snork>

well things are progressing about as to be expected.... ended up stringing a power cord across the garage to where the toaster oven is , and was able to cook him - but burnt the top of his head. (not that it matters - just frustrating!

artists I know who make the lovely ooak fairies on ebay have been recommending a strange glass circular convection oven --- which would be a great size to cook heads in. maybe i'll invest in one. since i've been doing just paperclay for so long - i forgot that my toaster oven was so small!

ah well - onward and upwards and all that. at least i have internet this morning.... just in time to head to work.

sigh.

 

hey Luv it ---- got some sculpy diluent which might be the sculpy smoothing oil and tried it on his lips --- but i'm probably just a klutz, it is the line where the lips meet that isn't smoothing for me. will just keep trying.


<grin> hey Travesty - Rodin is cool (we won't mention that i was working from pics of a Korean movie star whose face I loved...... Darkmothflame says he looks Mayan and I need to give him bigger ears)

thanks Idoru, positive strokes are ALWAYS appreciated

Hey Donn, thanks! your guys are awesome. Darkmothflame and I have been thinking about faceplate options for heads and your's is very clean and elegant..... and kind of close to what we were playing with!!! ok - now we are going to have to figure out someway to make ours a bit different.

this Goof Off is kind of daunting... let me try sanding this guy a bit and see how it goes -

by the way, Darkmothflame was walking me thru your casting tutorial which is awesome... thank you so much for sharing....

 

some strange pics for the evening...







probably not a great idea to take pics at 11:30 at night....

 

hey Donn, you are so cool. Thank you! <grin> - of course with my track record in bjd casting, we'll never get the faceplates done... but Darkmothflame is working hard to keep me on task (there is a slight matter of a Basil Rathbone sculpt she wants to see as a bjd - so she has a little bit of an ulterior motive going...)

look forward to seeing your newer tutorial - have so very much to learn...

hey Logodae - I think you are right. I am going to have to work on his eyes more, but when i carve them open I always have to go back in and do repairs and adjustments - so hopefully i'll be able to correct it a bit there. I also notice his head cap is too high, so need to work on that and his jaw and corners of his mouth. <grin> --- ok, so most all of him needs some work. but i'm happy with how he is going....

thanks Runy, the funny thing is i've been thinking about Mayan and other South American Indian things - but I didn't intend to sculpt that way ---- good thing i'm not hoping to be a portrait sculptor!

ok - here are a few more pics, started to open his eyes and started working on sanding. now comes the boring painful perfecting part that i can never figure out how you folk stay focused long enough to complete. that whole short term focus thing kicks in way too soon for me.

keeping fingers crossed that i'll stick with him...












<snork> at the moment he really looks like his head has been molded ala cradle board - doesn't it? wonder how long its going to take to sand down a 1/4 " or so at least....

maybe i'll see how a wig looks before i worry about it too much....

 

hmmmm - maybe it would be better to wait till he is sanded and cast before worrying about the wig.... that hot pink ringlet one that darkmothflame was determined to put him in was just painful...

some alternatives...










yep - patience would definitely be a virtue here....

 

hey Twigling ---- thinking about it.... (cut off the corner of my finger the last time i tried to use a jewelers saw ---- still recent enough to make me cringe at the thought..... <grin>)

took a break from preparing various and sundry Thanksgiving type foodstuffs. Trying to brine a turkey breast this year (I was really really tempted (and at the same time horrified) by the Cajun Deep Fried Turkey advertised by Kentucky Fried Chicken. my children made me behave - so turkey breast, stuffing and salad are my contributions - the kids are adding in a turkey pot pie, pumpkin pie and an apple pear gallette. we probably won't starve today.....)

anyway - there is actual light in our house at the moment, so i took a little better pics of him in a wig...

 

hmmmm ---- can really see why folk build their own bodies.

did some sanding on the head, and slipped it on poor Caleb's (luts Shiwoo elf) body... and it looks a little silly - a little large, but definitely mature while Caleb is a teenager at best....

going to have to try it on golemgirl's Sabik or darkmothflame's Hound's bodies and see if that works any better. or wait till Denny sends the minimee body - I'm hoping since many of the minimee heads are more mature, maybe the body is too? (<grin> I know, dream on....)

sigh.

ah well - going to have to work to make the opening for the neck a bit larger so it sits down a little further on the neck -

but for just goofing around its not bad...

 

hey Batchix,
thanks, good idea. maybe i'll try that when i get home.....
i like this head a lot... would like to be able to use it!

 

hey guys, I'm off in the wilds of Oregon(<grin> i grew up here, so i'm allowed to diss it. have to admit, after a few supertraffic days in silicon valley, i miss the quietness of here.... and here in Roseburg they just built a super Fred Meyers ---- but it doesn't carry clay!!! otherwise its pretty awesome - bought a bunch of dremel bits and a new interesting cutting wheel system for my dremel ranch - anyone else notice how after you get the first one, they just sort of multiply?)

anyway - took along some clay just to fill in the down times while i'm helping my mom recover from hip replacement surgery.... and instead of making the delicate small female heads i intended, i came up with another manly head - so maybe i'll have to work on that new body. or splurge for that "manly" limwa one - very nice.... I don't mind sculpting the bodies, I just don't seem to have the proper detail oriented approach to the joints. sure wish I could have gone to the BJD sculpting retreat.... I wonder how much of this grey sculpy i would need to make the whole body.

 

ok - question guys!

I'm trying to get this head, and the 2nd head from my trip, all nice and smooth and ready for casting. I see places that need more clay, and other places that need to be carved or sanded away - and my clay is turning many different colors (depending on how many times that particular part of the face has been baked)

how do folk perfect their heads for casting? do you make slurries of polymer clay and liquid polymer to build up smoothness on eyelids? or do you leave them thicker than they will be at the end and then sand them down to where you want them to be?

do you pull pics into photoshop and reverse them to see if you have one side larger than the other (I have one eye mostly blind, and one eye sort of blind - so my faces all slide to the left - i have to do a lot of mirror work to straighten them out - and now i'm noticing that even after i was happy enough to bake these, i'm seeing problem with chins and sizes of cheeks etc....

how to make the eyes the same shape? I've never worried about them being exact before --- oh bother!!!

I'm really distracted by the color difference - I'm looking at the spray primers - are there any that are bad to use? I can find kylon spray primer in white, or FINE Surface Primer (don't know the brand, the rest of the writing is in Japanese) has anyone used either of these, and do they eat at the surface at all?

i'm thinking about closing up the nostrils and baking, then using a small round dremel bit to drill out equal openings...

would love to hear what other folk do to perfect their heads before casting...