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Old 08-18-2010, 06:12 PM   #21
Vader
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I find that super sculpey is the best/easiest medium to work with. You can do just about anything with it. It just doesn't air dry. It has to be baked. I think Randy Bowen uses sculpey but I could be wrong.

Apoxie sculpt and magic sculpt are great in that they air dry. but they are difficult to sculpt with in single strokes. you have to build up with them. And they are much less fluid/free flow to work with. It's more like working with gum. I find magic sculpt less sticky/tacky and easier to work with of the two apoxies. Apoxie sculpt is great to get structure on an armature.
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Old 08-18-2010, 07:20 PM   #22
cyborgt800
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Best medium

IMHO I think the most versatile material to work with is Chavant's Y2Klay....when warm it spreads like Sculpey and when cooled it hardens but not permanently..it's very light and durable cold, can be drilled, milled, carved, tooled, sanded, scraped and polished. Like Wax, it can be melted and poured repeatedly. Oh, and it doesn't inhibit the curing of silicone.

This is the stuff they sculpt car bodies out of.

Depending on your hand strength it can be totally worked by hand with no equipment. I use a $4.00 electric candle warmer and an old juice glass to warm up the clay first though.

The best thing about this stuff is you can work additively or subtractively with no "cure" in between and it doesn't dent easily when cooled so it's not fragile. I can hold an entire figure in my hand as I work on detail and not worry about messing up previous detail. It costs about $0.30 per cubic inch or $15.00 per ingot. Or if you buy 35# of it the price drops to about $0.19 per Cubic inch.

Super Sculpey costs about $0.48 per cubic inch and is Not reusable or pourable...SS will shrink and crack also where Y2Klay will not. If you're going to mold/cast the piece Y2Klay is the way to go...If you're looking for an end product and are experienced and fast Apoxie is the way, but if you're inexperienced or slow then SS is you're best option. Just know that finished pieces will be much more fragile than the Apoxie.

Everyone has Their favorites though and I use MANY different materials depending of what I'm making and which method I plan on using the most; additive, subtractive or carving and machining. You definitely don't want to trycarving any significant amount of material from Apoxie...even with a Dremel it's a pain. The stuff is HARD!

Last edited by cyborgt800; 08-18-2010 at 07:30 PM. Reason: addition
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Old 08-19-2010, 12:38 PM   #23
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not for nuthin', but i have never had any experiences with super sculpey shrinking.
whether it's been on a straight up wire armature, a bulked out aves armature, or sculpted and baked layers, i've never seen that happen.
i used to get cracks from time to time, but that had to do with the armature letting things sag once in the oven (not being strong enough, hence why i use aves over armatures now).
typically cracks happen when you don't bake the sculpey for long or hot enough, or like i said, if you have a weak armature.
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Old 08-19-2010, 02:20 PM   #24
cyborgt800
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Cracking is almost always caused by insufficient curing or by uneven thickness in the sculpture.
That is taken straight from Polyform's Website.

My pieces often have varied thicknesses.
The material issue is one of personal taste....I humbly offered an opinion on my preference...personally I believe there are many more useful materials out there than the Almighty Sculpey....I do use it but it's not my main material.
I try to use a variety of materials then decide where each fits into the equation instead of limiting myself to one thing.

What isn't an opinion though is the fact that Y2Klay is the most versatile and economical of the materials discussed. It may also be the most forgiving material for a beginner as well which is what this thread is about.

Red on me? what's that?
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Old 08-19-2010, 03:49 PM   #25
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lol!
"red on you" was line a re-occurring line in the shaun of the dead. it was a funny bit about how a pen exploded and rather than people telling him he had ink, they just said: you've got red on you.
i'm a nerd, what can i say!

as for sculpey and whatnot, it really is a salt to taste kinda thing.
i love all manner of clays and waxes and it really just boils down to knowing the working properties of the chosen medium and understanding it's respective pros and cons.
sculpey is pretty versatile stuff once you get used to it.
it's a soft clay at the start, then you can bake it, sand it and so on... then you can add epoxie mediums to it, detail areas in various waxes (toy wax sticks to it like a dream).
as with so many things, find something ya like and run with it!
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Old 01-15-2018, 05:03 AM   #26
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I've heard that you can use alcohol while the sculpey is not baked. How about for the apoxie? Can I use alcohol as well to smooth out the apoxie księgowa Jelenia Góra?
Edit: Ok, I didnt saw it, sorry
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Old 01-21-2018, 12:38 AM   #27
cyborgt800
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Synker View Post
I've heard that you can use alcohol while the sculpey is not baked. How about for the apoxie? Can I use alcohol as well to smooth out the apoxie księgowa Jelenia Góra?
AS mentioned previously in this thread, water may be used on Apoxie to smooth it.
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Old 01-27-2018, 09:51 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by cyborgt800 View Post
AS mentioned previously in this thread, water may be used on Apoxie to smooth it.
There is also an actual product you can buy that is Apoxie clay thinner that works much better than water and can actually make a type of slurry to make certain textures you cannot accomplish without it.
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Old 01-27-2018, 09:55 AM   #29
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What type of clay you use depends on the size of sculpture you are making and how much detail you want. For quick large sculptures like full size bodies most people use water base WED clay. For masks I like Monster Clay because it has the properties of clay and wax combined and you can get great detail and it never dries out. For smaller sculptures you may want a wax like castilene or use super sculpey or an epoxy type putty.
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Old 02-02-2018, 08:05 AM   #30
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Originally Posted by Arkalogik View Post
There is also an actual product you can buy that is Apoxie clay thinner that works much better than water and can actually make a type of slurry to make certain textures you cannot accomplish without it.
Water also makes a slurry with Apoxie Sculpt. You can also sand/buff it post curing.
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