booksandcorsets
Sr Member
So I'm on the hunt for the perfect material for my sculpting. A lot of these have very specific uses, but I'm still lacking the perfect one. I came VERY close recently, only to discover the formula for that specific clay had changed.
I'd love for people to post their impressions of the types of clay they have used (and what they are best used for). Here's my thoughts and the materials I've used so far. ALL my impressions are hands-on sculpting; no machining here (Jarman, you tried to use Chavant to mill once, right? With very mixed results?)
WED:
For me, this was a terrible material. I work slowly and often am looking for very sharp, very fine details. It was great for speed sculpting, if I had to finish something that day, but for the large scale heads/sculpts I've been doing lately, it wasn't capturing the detail correctly.
CHAVANT NSP SOFT:
This clay is an oil-based clay that does not dry out. This was the very first clay I tried using. At first I loved it--it was easy to mold quickly into rough shape. When it came time to work on the details, that's when it shows its weaknesses. Now I use it for small, simple shapes that I want to finish in a day or two (such as the skull on the end of Meredith's sword).
CHAVANT NSP MEDIUM:
This clay is an oil-based clay that does not dry out. My second go-to clay, I really like this one. It's hard enough that I need a hairdryer on hand to slap it on to a mold, but it does require an armature. It also has the minuses of plastiline clay: it sticks to your hands and tools. I also had difficulties with a few techniques; keeping Chavant in a melted form was really really tough.
CHAVANT NSP HARD:
Another oil-based clay. It's great for small items, but I didn't really enjoy working with this. Hard enough to capture detail, it could stand on its own and I even stuck a cast into the freezer and sanded it once. However, it stuck to my hands/tools and was a pain to smooth out (even with alcohol).
APOXIE SCULPT:
A 2-part clay that hardens, this is fantastic for add-ons or items that you don't want to create a mold for. And you can drill/sand it once it hardens (3 hour cure time). For small items, it's great. For large head sculpts that you want to fiddle with, terrible.
KLEAN KLAY:
Now discontinued, I wasn't a big fan of this; it was too soft for my purposes. However it had a good feel on the hands. A comparable material to Chavant Soft.
MONSTER MAKERS CLAY:
This is actually the main reason I'm starting this thread. I was gifted a 5 lb block of this clay (which is half wax/half clay mix) and simply fell in love. You could heat it until it was melted, pour it on your sculpture, move it around to rough shape, and when it cooled completely down, it would be as hard as wax and you couldn't even budge the surface without heating it up slightly with a hairdryer/blowtorch. And it wouldn't stick to my tools or my hands. Just perfect. I immediately bought another block. When I got the second block, it was as soft as Chavant Soft. It still had all the other qualities (didn't stick to my hands, could be heated up, etc), but the formula had changed dramatically enough, from harder than Chavant Hard to as soft as the weakest.
So. I toss this out in the ring: What clay do you use/have used? What do you prefer? I am THIS CLOSE to saying "screw clay!" and buying all the wax on the market and finding out how I deal with that. I'm looking for a super hard clay that I can shape when warm and literally carve/mold with my hands ONLY when heated up a bit. Thoughts?
I'd love for people to post their impressions of the types of clay they have used (and what they are best used for). Here's my thoughts and the materials I've used so far. ALL my impressions are hands-on sculpting; no machining here (Jarman, you tried to use Chavant to mill once, right? With very mixed results?)
WED:
For me, this was a terrible material. I work slowly and often am looking for very sharp, very fine details. It was great for speed sculpting, if I had to finish something that day, but for the large scale heads/sculpts I've been doing lately, it wasn't capturing the detail correctly.
CHAVANT NSP SOFT:
This clay is an oil-based clay that does not dry out. This was the very first clay I tried using. At first I loved it--it was easy to mold quickly into rough shape. When it came time to work on the details, that's when it shows its weaknesses. Now I use it for small, simple shapes that I want to finish in a day or two (such as the skull on the end of Meredith's sword).
CHAVANT NSP MEDIUM:
This clay is an oil-based clay that does not dry out. My second go-to clay, I really like this one. It's hard enough that I need a hairdryer on hand to slap it on to a mold, but it does require an armature. It also has the minuses of plastiline clay: it sticks to your hands and tools. I also had difficulties with a few techniques; keeping Chavant in a melted form was really really tough.
CHAVANT NSP HARD:
Another oil-based clay. It's great for small items, but I didn't really enjoy working with this. Hard enough to capture detail, it could stand on its own and I even stuck a cast into the freezer and sanded it once. However, it stuck to my hands/tools and was a pain to smooth out (even with alcohol).
APOXIE SCULPT:
A 2-part clay that hardens, this is fantastic for add-ons or items that you don't want to create a mold for. And you can drill/sand it once it hardens (3 hour cure time). For small items, it's great. For large head sculpts that you want to fiddle with, terrible.
KLEAN KLAY:
Now discontinued, I wasn't a big fan of this; it was too soft for my purposes. However it had a good feel on the hands. A comparable material to Chavant Soft.
MONSTER MAKERS CLAY:
This is actually the main reason I'm starting this thread. I was gifted a 5 lb block of this clay (which is half wax/half clay mix) and simply fell in love. You could heat it until it was melted, pour it on your sculpture, move it around to rough shape, and when it cooled completely down, it would be as hard as wax and you couldn't even budge the surface without heating it up slightly with a hairdryer/blowtorch. And it wouldn't stick to my tools or my hands. Just perfect. I immediately bought another block. When I got the second block, it was as soft as Chavant Soft. It still had all the other qualities (didn't stick to my hands, could be heated up, etc), but the formula had changed dramatically enough, from harder than Chavant Hard to as soft as the weakest.
So. I toss this out in the ring: What clay do you use/have used? What do you prefer? I am THIS CLOSE to saying "screw clay!" and buying all the wax on the market and finding out how I deal with that. I'm looking for a super hard clay that I can shape when warm and literally carve/mold with my hands ONLY when heated up a bit. Thoughts?