What clay?

Wed clay (em-217) is good clay if you can buy it locally. Its cheap $25 for 25 pounds just expensive shipping. Chavant clay NSP soft is good as well. Medium takes allot of kneading to get it workable. Ive used roma clay... got a ton of it cheap at Pearl arts and crafts. If you are planning on doing allot of sculpting I was told that oil based clay is bad for your hands..... (the sulphur)
 
Thanks man and one more question, how many lbs would you advise getting to make a head? Like a face and bio...hmm I should learn how to cast shouldn't I? :( :p
 
PredElder13 said:
Thanks man and one more question, how many lbs would you advise getting to make a head? Like a face and bio...hmm I should learn how to cast shouldn't I? :( :p
Click to expand...

I mainly play around with Chavant NSP medium. There is no sulphur in it, which helps your hands and makes things easier when it comes to molding.
I've heard good things about Klean Klay, and I believe it is a bit cheaper than Chavant. A 2lb block of Chavant is usually between $7-$10. It can beat your hands up pretty good, like BigGunns said; it takes a lot of kneading to make it pliable but I picked up an old crock pot and use that to warm the clay and it works like a dream. (If you heat it too much it will become molten and you can easily burn yourself. So be careful) You can also cut it into little chunks and microwave it, but the crock pot has been working out great. This is using Chavant NSP medium though, some clays can't be melted down or heated and you can risk burning the clay or destroying the wax in it. Just a heads up.

As far as amounts go; it varies. I'm assuming you will use a Styrofoam head or some other type of armature. The closer you can get your armature to the desired shape and size, the less clay you'll need. Like in this picture, I glued a potato salad container to a mannequin. It saved me a hell of a lot of clay, but if you're not careful in planning, it can limit just where you can sculpt. (What I mean is, you can't sculpt through the plastic, so make sure it isn't going to interfere with your sculpt)
dsc00563j.jpg

To this point, I have about 10lbs worth of clay into the sculpt.
picture01nr.jpg

picture03.jpg


I'd say with an armature, you're still looking at between 10 to 20 pounds... roughly?! It really depends though. I haven't attempted a bio yet so I'm not too sure but I'd say with a good base structure probably at least 3 or 4 pounds. Like I said though, I've never tried it out. The good thing about oil clay though is that when you're finished you can reuse it over and over and over again.l It won't dry out. Klean Klay should be re-usable too. WED clay is cheap but once you finish, the dried out clay is garbage.

Molding is a whole other story. If you're making a latex mask, you'll need some UltraCal or HyrdroCal. There's lots of info on the site about that, and you can always ask more questions when you're closer to that point.

Sorry for the long winded ramble. Hopefully it helped a bit.

Good Luck.
 
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BigGunns said:
Wed clay (em-217) is good clay if you can buy it locally. Its cheap $25 for 25 pounds just expensive shipping. Chavant clay NSP soft is good as well. Medium takes allot of kneading to get it workable. Ive used roma clay... got a ton of it cheap at Pearl arts and crafts. If you are planning on doing allot of sculpting I was told that oil based clay is bad for your hands..... (the sulphur)
Click to expand...
Not all oil-based clays contain sulfur. In fact, if you're going to do any silicone molding, you'll want to stay away from clay containing sulfur, because it inhibits the cure of the silicone.

I believe Prima Plastilina is like Roma Plastilina, but it doesn't contain sulfur. As for my own sculpting, I've used Klean Klay for most of my masks, but I most recently did Tsurabisu's biohelmet using Van Aken Plastilina. I'm kind of undecided between which one is better, though I've noticed that the Van Aken stuff sort of looks like you're ripping it if you aren't using a sharp tool to sculpt it.
 
For the record...
NSP = Non Sulfurated Plasteline

I have used a lot of Klean Klay and like it, but... I've found that for my bigger sculptures the J.F. McCaughin Classic Clay has worked better for me. It's a lot like the Chavant NSP. I have used medium for my bigger sculpts and hard for my smaller ones(for the detail). I have a heat gun on hand to soften it up because I haven't made a warming box. I've ended up using the Klean Klay as mold dams.

The older tutorial videos (and some of the newer ones) say to spray clear cote on the clay. This will prevent the sulfer issue, but why bother. If your doing a stone mold then the clear coat is used as a grip coat.

Really, the deciding factor for you could be what is available locally. I've heard of come good coupon buys at Hobby Lobby(I think) on Chavant. You'll save on shipping.
 
TokyoRose said:
Molding is a whole other story. If you're making a latex mask, you'll need some UltraCal or HyrdroCal. There's lots of info on the site about that, and you can always ask more questions when you're closer to that point.
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Brandon, have you ever tried Plasti-Paste for a mother mold-- works great and you can use it over and over again with no worries. A bit more expensive but worth it in my book if you are keeping the mold. Just sharing info Brother!
 
From my experiences with NSP, it'd stink up a kitchen oven but it needs to be heated before I go at it with tools. In my opinion, water-based clay bought at a local art store is great for both practicality and price.
 
eaglewood said:
Brandon, have you ever tried Plasti-Paste for a mother mold-- works great and you can use it over and over again with no worries. A bit more expensive but worth it in my book if you are keeping the mold. Just sharing info Brother!
Click to expand...


I haven't actually. I've looked into it a few times but when it all comes down to it I'm pretty much a molding Virgin. I've got a lot to tackle in the next few months so I'll definitely keep it in mind. I must have been mistaken though, I had always thought that plasti-paste was more suitable as a support shell. I didn't realize it could be used as a mother mold. Good to know man, thanks for the tip! I don't imagine it being very porous, do you have any experience using it with Latex? Or do you use it when casting in another particular medium? Knowledge is Power :unsure:
 
TokyoRose said:
I haven't actually. I've looked into it a few times but when it all comes down to it I'm pretty much a molding Virgin. I've got a lot to tackle in the next few months so I'll definitely keep it in mind. I must have been mistaken though, I had always thought that plasti-paste was more suitable as a support shell. I didn't realize it could be used as a mother mold. Good to know man, thanks for the tip! I don't imagine it being very porous, do you have any experience using it with Latex? Or do you use it when casting in another particular medium? Knowledge is Power B)
Click to expand...


A mother mold is a support shell :unsure:
 
Thanks again for the help guys! And is working with hard clay really that hard on your hands? When I made my first mask (it was atrocious), my hands didn't hurt at all. Maybe it was because I was using water based clay, which cracked horribly and messed up the mandibles pretty good. But I'm not sure. Thanks again guys! :unsure: and Tokyorose, I love long winded responses! They have lots of stuff and make me think of a movie B)
 
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