As far as sculpting medium & techniques, it is really a question of personal preference. You will definitely develop your own as you practice with different techniques and mediums. As for myself, I use magic sculp since it has a workable time of about 90 - 120 minutes. With regards to sculpting a face, I do what you suggested: sculpt each part, let it cure, and then move onto the next part (that way I won't mess up what I've already done).

As for referenes, tehre are two I recommend:
1. Mike Blank's new book on scratchbuilding figures published by EuroModelismo (I received my copy last Thursday and it is a really good book).
2. This forum. Visit the vBenches here for some good step-by-step articles on sculpting, particularly those of Gary Dombrowski and Jason Whitman - definitely the best on this forum.

To add to Pete's advice:

Go and get Bill Horans book asap. Together with the already mentioned this helps immensely.

And look at the peoples work here.

I'm just starting out playing with the stuff so other much much better sculptors might jump in here.

1,2 answered by Pete.

3. Haven't done eyes, but might with my current project can't tell (yet).

4. Sculpt the mass first. Whe nearly dry add texture with a needle, scalpel blade or something like that.

5. Yes, dipping into distilled water or even better saliva(my own) .

6. With a brush and water or saliva. After curing steel wool or scotch brite may be another option. That's the fine thing with Magic Sculp and others. After curing you can still carve, sand engrave etc.

amuro,

Welcome to the Planet.

How about register your name and introduce yourself? It's always easier to address someone by his name instead of a pseudo.



Quang

Welcome to planetFigure, Hopefully this will answer at least most of the questions you asked and add to those that have already responded.

1. Magisculpt's gives you enough time to complete a part of a figure be it roughing in the anatomy or doing a pantleg in one sitting. If your working in a smaller scale this is easier to accomplish, and becomes much more of a task when working in larger scales.

2. I have sculpted entire heads from putty before but prefer Sculpey as it allows me more time to put "character" into the face. In addition to correct proportions the head is the most important part of the figure, it has to be the first thing we look at when choosing a figure.

3. There are many ways to sculpt eyes. A lot of sculptors doing large scale figures use ball bearings for the eyeballs and build the eyelids around them. If you can locate small ones the same method can be used.

4. I agree with Manfred, hair must be considered a mass. Add pieces of putty/clay that make up the hair and then go in and work in the detail. I stay away from trying to make individual hairs, I prefer to "suggest individual or groups of hair especially on smaller figure.

5,6. I use water to mix my putty with the addition of a little vaseline, which helps to make it less sticky. If you mix even a small amopunt of vaseline with your putty do not use a heat source to cure it as the heat reacts with the vaseline.

Hopefully this answers your questions and I look forward to seeing your work on planetFigure.


Pete, Thanks for the kind words.~Gary