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No-Sign-of-Sanity — Quickie Face Tutorial
Published: 2006-11-08 07:51:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 63643; Favourites: 406; Downloads: 3531
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**This is an animated .gif so you must "FULL VIEW" it to see what the hell I'm talking about!!!**This is just a quick sculpting tutorial I threw together to preach about the wonders of Super Sculpey and heat guns. Super Sculpey is a heat-activated polymer clay that stays soft and workable until you bake it in your home oven. But by using a heat gun you can sculpt features and quickly "flash" bake them on the spot without having to constantly run back and forth to the kitchen.
So when doing really fine detail work, it really helps to be able to quickly bake certain features so you can work right next to them and not have to worry about mushing them on accident. So here I go thru a few stages of blocking in the features of a face and I'm using a heat gun to set those features in between each step to lock in the details.
1.) The basic shape of the eyes is done and the top row of teeth is sculpted. Then I hit it with the heat gun.
2.) The lower row of teeth is sculpted, and then I hit it with the heat gun.
3.) The lower eyelids are sculpted, and then I hit it with the heat gun.
4.) The upper eyelids, the brow structure and the top of the head are all sculpted and detailed, then heat-gunned
5.) The lips are sculpted and the jaw and neck are given some detail and then the whole piece is thrown in the oven for a full bake.
While this isn't the most intricate tutorial ever made, hopefully it'll help pull back the curtain about my process of sculpting details.
Oh by the way, this piece is 1/8th scale so this head is just barely bigger than a quarter coin. I'll share more of this piece as it draws closer to completion.
Hope this helps guys!
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Comments: 175
Thanx for puttin some of this stuff up looks great and to see how it is really done is amazing cheers
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Thank you and it's my pleasure!
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This is neat, and coincidentally, the way I do it, too. I actually got that tip from my friend who ran into Randy Bowen and a comic-con. My friend told me he was amazed that no one was at his table. Well, my friend got a little lecture from Randy and learned tons of stuff.
Do you have any tips for making sculpey super smooth, like for animated type figures. I think you told me rubbing alcohol and a brush.
Anything else?
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Just a super-fine grit sand paper. You should really be able to get it really smooth with just the brush and alcohol, but sanding after you bake it can really push it that last step of the way to smoothness perfection.
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Cool. Thanks. I have one more question. I've used both wire frame and wire mesh to work out my armature, ( and with the mesh, I work on it so that the inside is hollow, keeps clay usage down).
What do you think of armature, and what do you use?
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I use thick aluminum armature wire to get the basic skeleton down. Then I cover the wire with massive ammounts of crumpled aluminum foil to bulk out the thicker parts and conserve clay. I then tightly (TIGHTLY!!!) wrap a thinner piece of aluminum wire arround the entire thing to bind everything in place. Then I'll usually add some epoxy resin (Magic-Sculp) to the parts where my really thin wire starts and ends to make sure that it won't unravel. Then I add my sculpey onto that. So far it's worked for me without any issues.
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Holy crap! It's like you make a sculpture before your sculpture. Damn.
I've used the aluminum balls before, too. Nice tip about the wire to hold it together. Where do you find most of your armature supplies?
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It's really important to have a VERY solid and stable armature with Super Sculpey. If your armature is too flexible the sculpey might start to separate from it when you bake it (sculpey expends and contracts during the baking process) which might might cause it to start cracking from the inside. Eventually, especially if you plan to bake it a series of times, those cracks will find their way to the surface and fuck up yor work.
I tend to buy most of my wire at hardware stores in big spools, or I'll get it at dickblick.com. I buy my aluminum foil at the grocery store.
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Ain't he though!
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this is sweet. now i want to sculpt
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nice work... you tutorial has at least got me interested in this Super Sculpey stuff. Where do you get it?
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Craft stores usually carry it, so it shouldn't be too hard to find locally. You can order it online as well from most of the major art store retailers.
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Do you know it's also available in Europe?
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Honestly I'm not sure if SuperSculpey is available in Europe, but I think so. If not look for FIMO which is another brand of polymer clay that works exactly the same way. Basically all polymer clays work the same so just go out looking for something that says "polymer clay" on it and you should be set.
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okay, I'll give it a try, but first I need to make up the 10 kg of traditional clay xD
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1. BOUT TIME YOU MADE A TUTORIAL!!
2. How expensive is super sculpy? I've heard others here at school talk about it, but I've never actually seen it.
3. Where you been? We miss your terrific art-ness.
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Super Sculpey is pretty cheap. It's about $10 bucks for a pound, but most craft stores usually have sales on it where you can buy a pound for $4-6 bucks. Micheal's is notorious for having 40% off coupons in the Sunday paper so I end up buying a pound every week for $6.
I've been working really hard hammering thru some commissions so I haven't been around here as much as I'd like to be.
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