Materials Head fills!

heh, i did a fill head. I sculpted the head as a hole out of ss, froze it...cut the headcap out...froze it again, then scooped sculpey out with a spoon ^^. After baking came dremeling and then sanding. As for la doll clay...i don't know if there's a way for you to scoop the head out later. I guess if you were really careful. YOu could always just carve it out after its dry. I've never worked with the stuff so i'm not very sure

 

i used a paper clay for my doll head, for the inside i balled up some super sculpy, wrapped it in plastic wrap and taped it so the paper clay wouldn't stick, and when i cut the headcap off it was pretty easy to dig out ^__^

 

I've just started an MSD sized head and I built it around a hollow indoor golfball. It's a perfect size and I got a pack of ten of them for something like $2. ... Now I just have to make nine more heads... I'm going to keep looking for a good kind of ball for an SD sized head... nothing pops into my mind as being a convenient size just now...

 

A styrofoam ball, some crumpled al-foil, or a sock filled with sand..?

 

what about some non drying kiddy modelling material like playdough or plasticine?

 

I'd use styrofoam...
Using clay like ss or plastercine sounds dangerous to me- it could accidently come in contact with the sir dry clay(actually, that happened to me on a practice head.) I would want to get sand in the clay either.

 

I'm not sure about when to remove it with ss. With air dry clay i removed after the outside was fairly hardened but while the inside was still a bit squishy. You can remove it with pliers but be sure that when you make your aluminum ball you don't ball it up too hard or it'll be a real hassle to get it out. Good luck!!!

 

This is all pure speculation since I've never actually sculpted a head but I'm guessing that if you bundle it up too tightly you could always stick scissor blades up into the head and chop the foil into smaller pieces...being careful of course

 

I wrap the foil with masking tape before I start sculpting over it. I take it out with pliers after I bake. I haven't really tried otherwise, but I think the tape makes it easier to get out(the foil folds don't get stuck in the clay).

 

After. I use plier and work slowly its actually rather easy, I got a whole torso full of foil out rather smoothly only working through two small leg holes ^^

 

BUMP! Anyone know what can be used to fill a head that can also be baked? I'll be using Super Sculpey. :3 Will the tin foil be okay? (Obviously it can be baked. xD But I've heard of it sticking to the sculpey. Should I spray it with something to prevent this?)

And is there anything that will maybe dicinigrate in the oven?

 

I used paper clay and simply used a ball of paper and taped it together. Once the head dried, i ran the tools around the edges of where the paper was located (tape kept it from sticking to the clay - it allowed the clay to slide off easily :3 ) and then I used pliers to pull it out xD tweezers would work just as well.

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Something that's bakeable, I've gotten this from other sites and threads. You can use newspaper I believe - it'll turn to ash in the heat or something. I can't quite remember. Other people use tin foil, but burning can be an issue with that. Another method is to use paper, then in boiling water, partially cook the clay, remove paper (easily done with it all pulpy) and finnish baking - i can pull up the links to threads / sites for you if you want PawPaw.

 

That would be absolutely wonderful 8D Please don't go to too much trouble, though!! ^^;

 

For how long did you freeze the SS for; over night, or just a few hours?

Also, did the clay sweat while it was thawing as you cut it?

I've frozen my clay for a few hours, and it was sweating like mad while I was working on it and I was worried it was damaging the integraty of the clay (because all the moisture was leaving the clay).

 

Plastic Easter Eggs work so good... It's kinda hard to pull them out, you have to make sure you cut the head-cap wide enough for the egg to come out, and then it still wants to stick inside (but that could be because Das takes forever to dry so it was still damp inside when I was pulling out the egg) but I just took a set of pliers and yanked the thing out and it worked great.

 

I used LaDoll clay and I used styrofoam covered in tape. First I did it without the tape and found that it's a complete pain in the butt to get it all out, but with the tape you can just pry it away from the clay once it's dry.

 

DO NOT TRY TO USE TIN FOIL! i ruined a head that way... The tinfoil didnt want to come out, and it eventually cracked the head when i went to remove it. I suppose it might be okay if you wrapped it in plastic, but its not ideal.
Likewise: DO NOT TRY TO BAKE STYROFOAM... use it only with paper clays. Otherwise you can kill yourself when you go to bake it. (not really, but it is toxic).
I used a larger wooden ball in my head, baked it, then cut it out. That worked quite well, just make sure the ball is not too large.... otherwise you could ruin the head when you remove it from a baked product. Try to get a smaller one, and work on removing excess sculpy with an exacto knife or dremel.

 

I will amend soshi's statement about tinfoil. I use tinfoil over newspaper. Removing was easy. But don't try to do it while the clay is still warm (applying pressure to warm SS will cause cracks). You pbb also want to build up the walls before removing the tinfoil. Thin wall + armature removal is just plain bad idea. I don't know what happened with soshi's tinfoil armature...but it does look like a lot of people have problems with it...

 

I used a plastic grocery bag bundled up and wrapped with masking tape for the rough for mine and then a golf ball held in place with a bit of sculpy when I wanted to refine the head's shape ... I'm using a paper clay. Both were pretty easy to remove

 

Yeah... I noticed that with the head I've been working on (my first one). I'm using Super Sculpey, and I froze it to prepare for cutting the top off and scooping out the insides. But when I pulled it out of the freezer, I realized that I really wanted to make some more changes first. It started sweating really badly. I wasn't sure if it was losing moisture, or just condensation from the room (it's been really humid in my area lately). I left it to freeze overnight last time, but it's going through the final pre-scooping freeze now. Next time I think I'm going to try to find something to fill it with though, so I won't have to scoop it all out.

 

It does dry the clay up slightly so you need to be careful how many times you freeze sculpy. The clay does sweat slightly, thats completely normal and you can freeze it according to how hard you want it. I usually only freese my parts for an hour at a time.

 

I echo Soshi - I have started a head filled with tinfoil and even though I wrapped it in a supposed smoother layer of tinfoil over a crumped ball-full, I can tell before I have got to the baking stage that I will be having problems and currently deciding whether to recoup my supersculpy and start again with a different head fill or trying to wing it ... the head has been on hold for a month now >_<'

 

H'OMIGOSH!!!! That's such a good idea!
That was you wouldn't have to deal with the head caving in while you work on it! I must try that!

 

I use Premier clay which I believe is made by the same company as LaDoll and I think has similar properties. I roll out the clay and wet and scrape slightly with a toothbrush , then put it strait onto shaped styrofoam. After most of the modeling is done and I cut off the cap, the styrofoam can easily be scraped out (you can use a small file or rasp to get it all out). I think a lot of Japanese artists do this. Styrofoam should be simple to get out of an air dry clay.

 

i know this is gonna sound weird, but the only thing i found that i could make a ball out of, in my house was... toilet paper !!!! i made a ball out of toilet paper, covered it with... erm... i don't know the english word for it... it's a transparent film thing used to wrap sandwiches for example... I wrapped the ball with that and it worked fine... and was very easy to take out too !

 

How long should paper clay dry before cutting the head cap and trying to scrape out the styrofoam?

 

I usually wait until I've sculpted most of the details and it looks right (everything balanced, ears on and such) then it should be very dry near the styrofoam. What kind of clay and styrofoam are you using?

 

Dollist, your dolls are just amazing! I've been using Super Sculpey to make 1/12 inch figures, but I just got the book by Ryo Yoshida and ordered Premier and LaDoll clays to use. I haven't figured out what kind of styrofoam to use yet. I was reading a non-bjd book by a German dollmaker and she said the styrofoam in Europe is a denser version than what we can get in craft stores here in the U.S. But since it is scooped out, does it really matter?

 

Oh that is the book to have, in my opinion! I don't use the same styrofoam, however(it seems a bit harder to get out). I use that really crumbly stuff in the silk flower section of the craft dept. This is very easy to scrape out plus you can gently squish it to the shape you want (for the ball joints, if I need the styrofoam ball smaller I roll it around between my palms while adding a little pressure).

And I'm glad you like my dolls! Thanks!

Ah, by the way, I used to make 1/12th scale dolls, too!

 

Dollist - do you mean the green squishy stuff that they stick down in vases?

 

No, the white stuff that's kind of shiny. It also comes in the kits to make a solar system. Like the egg shapes (these make good head cores). You can get them at wal-mart in sheets, squares, spheres and eggs. I think it's less dense and it flakes apart really easy (makes a huge mess when you scrape it out-have a vacuum handy ).

 

I used tin-foil.
-Jessie

 

I used a styrofoam ball which left a nice smooth interior. It was also easy to cut thru and remove.
Good luck!

 

Thanks, I'll have to try it.