New at sculpting and latex

Aftermath85

New Member
I looked for a pinned post or an sop on this, but I couldn't find anything, any help or guidance would be much appreciated. I have watched multiple YouTube videos, not sure what materials exactly. What it is i want to do is, do a cast of my own head, then use plaster? Then use that to sculpt clay for the mask?
 
What are you trying to make? A mask? If you don't want to go through casting your head you can buy a ready made armature for sculpting or just use a cheap mannequin head. The thing is to take measurements, you want to build up the sculpture large enough that it will still fit after the latex shrinks.

You can use water based (pottery) clay, it's cheap and quick and easy to build up forms. The thing with water based clay is it dries out, it shrinks and it will crack due to the armature under it. You need to keep it moist with a spray bottle of water and wrapping it up tightly when not sculpting. There is a time limit to sculpting with it, you can keep it moist for a long time if you're vigilant but eventually it will either dry and crack or get moldy. I've worked on a water based sculpture for 6-8 weeks though so depending on how long it takes you to sculpt it may not be an issue. You generally cannot reuse the clay afterwords. A lot of people use WED by laguna clay, it's pottery clay with glycerine added to keep it from drying as fast. Personally I find the difference to be negligible so I just buy mine from a local pottery store, but it is very popular though so maybe it's just me not noticing the difference.

Oil based clay does not dry out like water based does. It will stay workable more or less indefinitely. I've worked on an oil based sculpture over the course of a couple years, coming back to it whenever I felt like it. Still store it with a plastic bag over it to keep dust and hair off of it but that's it. But it is more expensive, it's much firmer so in the beginning when you're building it up you need to heat it to a workable consistency. The firmness does make it easier in later stages like detailing. It is reusable after molding. Chavant NSP Medium is my preferred brand, I hear great things about Monster Clay too. NSP hard is excellent though probably not the best for a beginner.
 
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