O
Joined: Sep 29, 2003
Posts: 1098
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O
Hey Atari, the first question i have is are you going to mold this to pour up? I see you have a pvc piece in side, so it is a bit confusing as to whether you intend to fire the finished sculpture or this is a master sculpture to mold.
If you intend to fire this, the piece looks pretty thick. Dry very slowly, very carefully. My foray into the handbuilt pieces has been a mixed bag thus far of success and failure. Babalu should bounce in on this if you intend to fire these.
If you are using these as a master sculpt to mold, one thing i can see off the bat is problems in the area under the brow. You need to make sure that plane is flat and does not have the crease at the base which would be an undercut. Go back into the base and fill in the crease and make sure you have a pretty smooth clean plane.
General smoothing out can be done with various rake sizes, then you can do a smoothing with some alcohol and a powder puff (the large pinkish colored ones), final smoothing with a foam rubber makeup sponge. Being that these are water based clay sculptures, i hope you are keeping them wrapped up in plastic when you are not working on them, or they will dry too much and crack. When you have completed the sculpture and it is ready for molding, let the clay get a bit firm, no sludge or heavy moisture on the surface, and seal it. The sealing will generally not prevent the clay from continuing to dry out, it will slow the process down a bit, so if you seal it, then have to wait some time before molding, re bag the piece. Also, when you do a sculpture to mold, always keep in mind the parting lines of your intended mold,i.e. if this is a 4 sided mold, make sure the drafting to each parting line is clean.
Hope this helps, hope you have fun with the craft, and look forward to seeing the finished pieces.
[ Edited by: oceaotica 2009-03-02 13:22 ]
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