Give Kyle a Hand (or two)

I like to sculpt my hands out of a hunk of of clay I can hold onto. Then when I'm ready to attach them to my sculpt, I just cut off the "handle" portion I've been using.

Kyle's legs and feet have come together nicely. I think it's funny how the hand always looks like a glove at first.

A foot takes form (Kyle)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baking Kyle

I bake my sculpts over a bed of stuff (Polyfill) and am sure to support their bends and extended limbs with more fluff. I'm still shopping for a convection oven I like well enough to use for all my sculpts. In the meantime, I use a home oven, and bake the sculpts in this roasting pan. It minimizes the amount of chemicals that get into the oven itself.

Here is a shot of Kyle before and after he is sanded. In the second picture, he is still wet from the wet sand paper I use.  I start with 320 grit and work my way to 1000 or so.  I have up to 1500 left over from when I used to make jewelry and barrettes.  I usually don't make my sculpt THAT slick...they'd be glass-like.  But, one pack of this paper lasts forever!

Notice how he's pretty lumpy in the above pictures.  I always sand.  Polymer clay expands a bit when it is baked so no matter how smooth your sculpt it, the clay will come out a little uneven, due to the way it expands.