Technique Question: Mold making on wet clay?

[GrimmOmen]

Hey everyone, sorry for the n00b questions, but:

1) I was watching "Making Monsters" on the travel channel and I was surprised to see that they were casting molds on wet clay - is that a common practice? Man if you screw those up you're really screwed!

2) I also noticed that the sculptures seemed to be solid clay. I've been told that using a filler material to bulk out your form was a good practice because you don't burn through as much clay. What are the benefits of using one method over the other?

Thanks in advance for any shedding of light on the topic!

-Grimm

 

[Mostly Fantasy]

I've molded over both oil and water based clays- water based isn't a problem as long as there's no standing water. An armature helps to reduce clay volume, also to make the sculpt lighter for moving/molding. The problem can be if you have to trim the armature, you have to dig through the sculpt to trim/cut the armature back.

 

[fettster]

I'd say that 80% of my sculpts are done in solid wet clay.

It's so cheap and quick that a pipe armature is all you need. Plus I don't have to worry about hitting the armature if I want to go deep on details.

Moulding is fine as long as you know what your doing.