Greetings all. I'm thinking of trying some basic sculpting (54mm medieval figures) and I'm aware of the wide variety of sculpting tools, both home made and commercial. I have looked at some tools that are basically handles with different sizes and shapes of round and flat wire loops. What are the advantages of one versus the other? TIA.

Glen

I'm sure other people will chime in, but personally I haven't found wire loops useful for such a small scale. In general, I've found shaped toothpicks and needles to be the most useful 54mm.

Wire loops are great for clearing large sections of putty/clay/wax for the larger than 120mm figures though.

Francesca

Hi Glen, the wire loops, I believe are used in large scale work for removing/ scraping excess clay or waxes, such as chavant/ Roma Plasilina etc.

For your chosen size of 54mm you may well be better off with some home made tools.

Starting off with tooth-picks and shaping them to slightly different profiles, you'll be amazed at the different effects you'll be able to achieve.
For finer work in this scale, you can use needles or lengths of rod sharpened or filed to various profiles to suit your needs.

You can clean them of putty with a small bundle of wire-wool kept in a zip-lock bag, just put the end of the tool in the top of the bag and move back and forth between your finger and thumb and the tools are good as new. No need to handle the wire-wool.

Below are some tools that I use for sculpting anything from 28 to 90mm.
You can see they are very basic. The rod is brazing wire and can be picked up in many gauges to suit your needs.

Along with your own choice of blades and sanding and smoothing mediums I'm sure you'll be able to get off to a good start.

All the best....Roy.

I've sculpted in 75-80mm, 90mm and 120mm scales, but never used a wire loop. I tried using one and couldn't see anyway to work with it.

Altho Roy's tools probably could get all the sculpting jobs done and I have some of the same homemade stuff, I also like the Royal Soverign Ltd. Colour Shaper tools with the Firm points, made in UK. These are paint-brush like affairs with wood handles and nylon or silicone rubber (?) tips in various shapes. Comfortable and easy to use and they normally don't stick to putty much. I think they're actually intended for a variation of palette knife style painting, but I'm not sure. The only complaint I have with them is the points aren't stiff enough.

All the best,
Dan

Thanks for that picture Roy and the tip with the plastic bag.

Cheers

I ove Roy's tools. I really only use 3-5 myself. The two I use the most are a small spatula and a a pointed round tool. An X-acto knife with various blades also comes in handy.~Gary

For what little sculpting I do (I promise to do more this year!) I was lucky enough to inherit a small wooden box of surgical instruments made by my maternal grandfather. These include special pieces made to perform eye operations so they're really fine and despite the use I've given them as scribers etc over the years they're almost as sharp as a new no11 blade.

More tools shown here:
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7557

Einion

Thanks everyone. I'm already using a small assortment of picks, probes, and modified toothpicks to push putty for minor conversions and seam filling. At this point, I probably don't need anything else. Thanks again.

Glen