Doller's Questions... Really Dumb Ones, too!

Ok, no matter what kind of clay you use, dropping it from five feet onto cement is far from recommanded! Just don't push your luck, ok?

Super sculpey is fine and fairly solid, but I heard s-sculpey mixed with regular sculpey works smoothly and is cheaper, but I've never tried it yet.

I would personally glue the hooks after but that's mostly because I don't trust my oven.

I've never heard of clay recipes but I've got a good recipe for cookies... Sorry, that was an easy joke. I don't think it's a good idea to make it yourself. The best clays out there are from chemical compounds and go figure what else. And what you can make with home ingredients is probably not hard enough. Remember you'll have to string it and the tension of those elastics is huge, you have to give your doll some bones...

I hope that can help?

 

Like Jenn said, I don't think there's anything that tough! That being said super sculpey can be pretty tough.

One of the big reasons I'm casting my doll is because one day I'll drop her I know it, and it'll be a lot less heart breaking if I can fix her up with new parts rather than have to make one up from scratch again

 

I'm not really the most reliable source about sculpey here, but here are my answers anyway. You'll probably have to wait for others to confirm if it's true

About clay recipe, I didnt try it myself, but there is this one that looks good (the whole tutorial is here). since I didnt try it, I don't know if it's "let's throw this at cement" material.

about sculpey, my doll isn't completed yet, but so far I've dropped part of her from 4-5 feet high and it didnt break. the only things that broke was the head, cause I tried to fit a neck too big for the neck hole. so I guess dropping=no breaking but walking on it=break. oh I forgot to tell it didnt chip, it was a neat splitting. only had 2 parts to glue together

I don't know what would happen if I dropped the whole doll on the ground. but it seems pretty solid. (it has to be, I am mrs clumsy after all)

Anyway, hope it helped you a bit ^.^

 

I've heard mixing super sculpey with flexy sculpy makes it really tough.

Yeah, and I tried the dropping sculpey from 5 feet thing, and...don't do it. At least not on a hard surface.

 

A good (clean :P unlike the Noah method) recipe is paperclay plus a stone clay. Like Ladoll plus Premiere. Fancy art dolls are made out of that ^_^ Try not to mix clays from different companies, cos some can be uncompatable.

When I tried the Noah method I got sawdust glue goop caked all over everythin @_@

 

You should probably wait to see if your doll needs to be sueded or not. Depending on the size and how you make the joints it may not be needed.

As for the Sculpey, try getting the head roughly the way you want it and then stick it in the freezer for awhile and then add the finer details. And depending on how comfortable you are with exacto knives and sandpaper you may just want to bake the head and carve/sand some things after it's hardened.

 

I just use plyers(sp?) to get foil out after baking.

 

I bake mine fairly often and they look fine. I would say don't over-bake (10-15 minutes work fine for me) and you should be ok.

If ever it burns a bit (I don't want to sound cruel but it happened to me), scratch the black-burned part off and put some new sculptey to replace it and it will be as good as new.

 

Should be ok, I think I probably baked my head about 3 or 4 times without any burning, I just did about 15 mins for the big bits, 10 mins for smaller additions.

 

" I read that you can make polymer clays less 'soft' by setting them on paper. Supposedly the paper soaks up extra plasticine(?) in the clay, makin it more firm.* I had notice that the paper I had copied with designs on it had huge oil marks from just an hour of the clay sitting on it."

hi,
that stain you can see is called leaching.
when working on some projects a really firm clay is needed, polymer clay artists knead and leach their clay overnight when it is too soft. it just removes some of the oils in the polymer to make it more dense. (i think polymer millifiori canes are made like this)

 

I put a wire poll in the hand or foot joint before I bake/let the clay dry(for air dry clay). Once it's baked/dried, the s-hook loops around the poll and the string. That way the s-hook can move around or you can take it out...I don't know if that is the usual way to do it...

 

I posted this in another thread awhile ago, but thought it would be useful here as well

Try placing the piece in a microwave safe glass bowl and fill it with enough water to cover the clay completely. Then microwave on high for about 45min in most cases (mine is a cheap one that can only do 15min at a time, so I restart it each time it dings for 3 times). You don't have to worry about the smaller pieces burning at all (I have had a head and some hands in at the same time with absolutely no differences in how they cured).
Just don't use this method with anything with metal in it such as foil or wire (found this out the hard way a long while back. My microwave nearly caught on fire o.O *gasp*). For items with metal additions, you can boil them on your stove, but it takes longer to cure, you have to use a double boiler, and you have to watch the water in both pans to make sure it doesn’t boil away, but it works (used this method with good results).

I really love using Sculpey now that I learned how to do this

 

Do you think that you could boil Sculpey II(or III, I dont remember which one I have) also? For some reason I got that kind instead of Super Sculpey for my birthday...

 

You can boil all types of Sculpey as far as I know. I have some Sculpey II that I have used. It does get a film of white on the surface though (it can be sanded/scraped off with a little effort ), so I recommend testing some small samples before the things you sculpt just to make sure.

Hope this helps,
~Sarah~

 

sooo... it's okay to bake aluminum foil when used as a base for doll parts? I was told that was a good base to use to keep everything hollow... I just couldn't see that being so good some how o.o;

 

Aluminum foil does work pretty well for a base, but personally I have found it very difficult to remove if you want to do a hollow piece. Make sure you don't pack it tightly or it will really be a nightmare to get out.

 

I put the hooks in afterwards, and sculpey seems to be pretty strong for me - though if it were to land on its hands, fingers may chip off- but that all depends on how big the doll is.