Sculpting Tips

Feel free to add whatever tips you have.

Armatures - For most clays you must have a strong armature or your sculpture is going to be extremely weak and likely to fall apart or break. For very small sculptures a couple bits of 20 or 22 guage floral wire twisted together into a stick figure is sufficient. You can get floral wire at any store that sells craft supplies, I get mine at Walmart. However the larger your sculpture get the more complex creating an armature gets depending on what type of clay you are using. Lightweight airdry clays like Paperclay need only a minimal armature up to preatty large sizes and you can use floral wire, heavier clays like Super Sculpey you need heavier wire like 14 guage aluminum (or copper or any other metal though I would highly discourage lead wire because it's toxic) build the stick figure and wrap it with fine guage floral wire which help the clay hold on better, it often also helps to pad up the armature with aluminum foil and requires less clay (it can get expensive if you sculpt a lot so save where you can). Check the links on Sculpting for more help with armatures.

Proportions - Use the armature as a way to get the proportions of your sculpture correst before adding clay (because then it's too late). Drawing and anatomy books and websites are great references. Here's what I do for a human figure (it applies to animals as well). It's not a rule in by any means, just what works for me. Experiment and find out what works for you.
1) Open up the reference book/website to where it has the measurements for the human figure.
2) Calculate the scale in this example 1/6 scale (1 foot = 2 inches)
3) Convert real measurement to scale, a 6 foot man would be 12 inches, if his legs are 32 inches then the sculpture leg would be (32*2)/12=5.33 inches.
4) Draw a stick figure on paper with the converted proportions.
5) Lay the wire down on the paper and shape the armature using it as a guide. Mark the major joine with a permenent marker.
6) Pose your armature, using the joint markers as bending points.
7) Go crazy sculpting.

To determine scale in reverse take the height you want you sculpture to be like 11 inches and the real height like 5 feet, divide the sculpture by the real height. 11/5=2.5 so 1 real foot is equal to 2.5 sculpture inches.

Tools - Sculpting tools can be pretty expensive at the art store but you can find or make your own tools that are as good or better than what you can buy. Here are a few that I have.
Knitting Needles - I bought 6 pairs of different sizes for about $1 at a yard sale, you can get them at a craft store or walmart for around a dollar a pair for cheap plastic ones.
Homemade Needle Tool - I took a large tapestry needle (you can get them at craft stores for a couple of bucks for a pack of 6) rolled a sausage of the really cheap white sculpey, stuck the needle in the end, and baked it. The needle did come out after a while but I superglued it back into the end and it's never come out again.
Old Toothbrush - Just a worn out toothbrush with nice soft bristles. Use it to smooth areas, dip it into water or rubbing alchohol (depending on the type of clay you are using) and brush the area to be smoothed.
Pallete Knives - These can be expensive but I found some plastic ones, a pack of 5 for $3. They are very cheap, I wouldn't want to actually use them for painting but they make some nice impressions in the clay.
X-acto Knife - Only costs a few dollars compared to more expensive clay knives.
Paint Brushes - For clay I use either cheap craft brushes (if is costs more than a dollar I'm not going to buy it for using on clay) or painting brushes that are a bit too ragged to use for painting anymore.
Embossing Stylus - It looks like a pen with a ball shape on either end, it's supposed to be used to create embossed designs on paper. Mine came with my lightbox but you can get them at crafts stores for a couple bucks.
Texture Stamps - The cheap white sculpey isn't really good for sculpting but it makes nice tools and it's cheap enough that if you only use the tool once or twice it doesn't matter. Take the sculpey and shape it into a ball, teardrop, sausage, whichever fits the impression you want to make best. Then create a texture in it, you could use your tools, or a found object. An impression of orange peel works great for pebbly skin, you could also use sea sponges, bark, bottle caps, whatever you have that is the right shape for the texture you want.
Absolutely anything else that might possibly make an interesting impression on the clay, experiment and collect what works.
-- [Noadi]