She's looking better every day.

Subscribing to this as it is interesting in the tutorial aspect with input. Great for someone like me very much interested in this discipline of figure models.

Yes, that "input" is greeat here on PlanetFigure, and that's why I like to post here
Sometimes advices and tips from experienced sclptors are really priceless.I think this is the place where I learned more than anywhere else.


As for the figure,one step forward two steps back - I just broke her right fist at several places - grrrrmgh, I knew that decision not to put armature in the fingers will cost me...


I was looking some tutorials for putty sculpting - I'm afraid that is not a medium for me, It requires great precision and planing - and I just can't do do it this way - I want the possibility to alter any part of figure in any part of the process-as I often find mistakes late in the process.
Sculpey is great, but it really can be very fragile at small scale and it often can't hold very sharp details.
More and more I think that using sculpey for sketching rough volumes and then refining in wax could work for me.
Now, has someone some experience with this way of sculpting ? What are the drawbacks ?
Which wax should I use ? Can I use the same silicone for waste mold as for resin casting or is there a cheaper medium ?

When you say wax, I'm not sure what you mean. I've worked with jeweler's carving wax before, but that was for jewelry. I don't think I'd like it for figure work.

I've used microcrystaline wax for larger work and I really like it. It's not great for detail work though.

I've also used some of the JF McCauphin waxes from Arizona Sculpture http://www.arizonasculpture.com/products.asp?catID=4&subcatID=9 and they are nice to work with, but I tend to prefer Magic Sculpt. I like how I can saw, grind, sand and file Magic Sculpt after it's hardened and add to parts without damaging other parts I've already finished.

I agree with you about Super Sculpey, I don't like it at all. Premo is a little better in my opinion and I've just bought some Super Sculpey grey Firm but haven't had time to use it yet. I've seen great results with it from some Planet Figure members though.

Looking good Darko!

Yes, this is absolutely going to be a nice sculpted girl.

Marc

You are right, jeweler's carving wax would be probably a pain to sculpt with, but that is not my intention. I would continue to sculpt with Sculpey, and when satisfied with overall form transfer it to the wax, then continue to refine, polish, fix the rough surfaces and add fine detail. That would be OK for jeweler's wax ??? Is it possible to melt it and pour into the mold ?

Edit: What I had in mind is something like this:

http://stopmotionanimation.com/handbook/20.htm

Jeweler's wax polishes very nicely. Now that I understand what you're talking about, I think it would work quite nicely. They do make injection wax to make multiples of a master for lost wax casting. I'm not sure how it would pour without injection though.

I'm intrigued by the silputty they use in the demo, it's too bad the wax recipe links don't work any more.

There are many types of Jewellers wax, some are designed to be carved my hand or file, these are usually harder and very nice to use, you can get excellent detail by using it and can get it to a near polished finish, but I would still prefer to sculpt a figure by using traditional modelling putty.
Then there are other waxes designed for injecting into moulds. It can be melted and then poured but the results would be less than satisfactory as you will get heaps of air bubbles and it wont form into all the detail. It is designed to be injected so that this will eliminate these problems. By injecting it, you can get very minute detail to form as its under pressure.
Both styles of wax are then used in Lost Wax Casting to replicate the item into metal.
There are better waxes out there that are designed for sculpting figures ane the like.
Ben

Hey Darko, looking for wax, go with WillowProduts. http://willowproducts.com/ He makes a whole line of waxes for sculpting. Some of his waxes are sculptable when warm, just like sculpey... Most are pourable into molds. Look at his catalogue.

Shes looking good !

Did you say this was a one off or will you cast her ? if so Im in

I'll be casting it for sure, but I'm not satisfied with level of details I can pull out in this scale with sculpey (as You can see from previous posts).
Today I bought some clean beeswax, and I'll give it a try.
Waxes that TorMag pointed out look superb, but unfortunately they are from USA, it would be very expensive to ship them to EU, so I'll try with pure natural material.
So far it looks fine, few tests I did show that clean beeswax is very close to what I need, tomorrow I'll try to melt it down and pour into some old mould to check can it work this way.
We'll see soon

Here is the result of the "wax experiment"...

Casting is possible, details are transfered OK, but wax is not filling areas against gravity (bottom of the ears were messed up). Wax did not stick to silycone or burn it.

Then I tried to alter the shape of the nose, and that was OK (although it was somewhat to easy to do, i began to suspect that stuff is not hard enough):




And then I tried to thin eyelids. That was a complete catastrophe, wax is to soft, and it crumbles:



Did not give up yet, maybe there is some way to harden it.
In the end there is always option to buy commercial wax...

Meanwhile my good friend prepared umbrella for her:



He is one of greatest scratchbuilders here in Croatia, check this out:
http://www.m2models.hr/


The only problem will be how to make copies of this ???

what is the umbrella made out of? it looks like glass!

Have no idea Alex, but I suppose it's the some sort of styrene-cause he does most of the work using that material.
I'll ask him...

Alex, As I said the material is 0.5mm styrene vacuformed over a balsa master...


Now, back to the wax thing, it really has some potential but mix is not good enough yet. I suceed to harden it a bit with some parafine, but it crumbles to easy. Nice thing is that it really holds tiny details and textures.
Also altering and changing is really easy (first with some exacto knife and then using dental tools and some heat). Adding new volumes is easy too, little heat and it sticks very well.



I think I proved to myself that it will work, only to get a good wax...

Darko, before Gary started selling his waxes, he gave his recipies freely at the Clubhouse. Here are some of them so you can give a hand a mixing your own..... The numbers are percent of mixture.

"Just wanted to make sure that everyone got all the recipes..here's the other post in text form. They are my current favorites because they can be used together as a series, one on top of the other.
Here's my favorite series of wax recipes.
As you may note, the trade-off between candelillia wax and beeswax controls the firmness of the mix.
Adding the rosin and not letting it sludge to the bottom is the trickiest part.
Add it last, at low heat, and ground with cornstarch,
constantly stirring till cool, will prevent this ugly event.
Titox- is my abbreviation for titanium dioxide which
you can get from a ceramic supply shop. It is commonly used in toothpaste and cosmetics.
You can substitute a little dab of artist's oil paint if you prefer.
*Grind rosin and cornstarch together in coffee grinder
and add to melt last at low temp.

#1102VS (very soft)
Candelillia 37
Beeswax 36
Titox 11
*Rosin 8
*Cornstarch 8

#1102S (soft)
Candelillia 39
Beeswax 31
Titox 12
*Rosin 9
*Cornstarch 9

#1102m (medium)
Candelillia 43
Beeswax 24
Titox 13
*Rosin 10
*Cornstarch 10

#1102mh (medium hard)
Candelillia 44
Beeswax 20
Titox 14
*Rosin 11
*Cornstarch 11

#1102h (hard)
Candelillia 46
Beeswax 17
Titox 14
*Rosin 11.5
*Cornstarch 11.5

#1102 VH (very hard)
Candelillia 46
Beeswax 17
Carnauba 6
Titox 14
*Rosin 11.5
*Cornstarch 11.5
"

"I always weigh my ingredients on a gram scale for accuracy.
I always attend the melt. I never leave it for even 1 second.
Most of the recipes add up to 100, so you can treat it as Percentage or not. 1102 VH is a rare excpetion, where 6 grams of carnauba was added for hardness"

"One other thing is that you may notice that there is not a lot of fillers in the recipes. I like to let the waxes create the body. Fillers are what create the polishing problems and create problems joining pieces together and making the recipe brittle. The cornstarch is not a filler, just a means to introduce the rosin into the mix evenly. The titanium oxide makes the wax opaque so that details can more readily be seen. "

Lastly...

"If the wax you have is just too brittle and you want to change the color, you can try the following to modify the wax you already have.
1) Try adding beeswax in 5% increments. This will soften the wax and make it less brittle.
2) Grind some rosin ( available in rock form as "batter's bags" at sports stores ) with some cornstarch and then add in 2% increments. Rosin will add temper and strength the the wax.
3)Try modifying the color with red iron oxide and yellow ochre. Both are available at ceramic supply shops. With the grey base you may get some strange results. With raw waxes, human flesh is easily done up. "

WOW !
That is some useful material to study and try !!!
Thx I owe you ...

No much time lately...
Still, managed to bake "mannequin", now this should be transferred to resin and then I'll try to add clothes using some epoxy.
Sure, I'll try to do something with the fists and shoes that look terrible this way...










Pozdrav !