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I had to stop using polymer
clay last year (or maybe it was the year before?)
because I'd developed an allergy to it (pretty mild but I decided not to
push my
luck with my health) so I switched over to air-dry clays and Apoxie
Sculpt
(which is a two-part sculpting compound). It's definitely a little
messier than
polymer but, as you know, doesn't need to be cured in an oven. I tend to
use
Darwi the most and I think you'll like it a lot--it's not as fibrous as
Paperclay although many of the methods for working with it are the same.
I've
used Darwi (which is my preferred air-dry clay because it's smooth with
a creamy
texture while working with it), LaDoll which is also smooth but has a
kind of
marshmallowy texture, Premix which is similar to LaDoll although a bit
smoother
even, Creative Paperclay which is fibrous but surprisingly easy to
smooth and
lightweight, and Das which is very fibrous and very heavy. The only one
I don't
recommend at all is Das because of its texture and weight. Das also
doesn't take
detail at all but the other air-dries can provide some amazing detail as
long as
you don't over-wet them and erase it while you're working on your piece.
They
can also be sanded and buffed to smooth them once dried.
The aspect of air-dry clay that made me most nervous was the lack of
color and
the fact that I would have to learn painting and coloring techniques.
Surprisingly, some of my experience with accenting polymer clay pieces (ie,
antiquing, blushing, etc.) helped and it didn't take long for me to
really start
enjoying the process of painting and blushing my figures. I also
personally
found it easier to move into mixed media with the air-dries, using
fabric and
fiber for clothing and hair. You can, of course, use the air-dry clays
to make
costumes and hair for your figures but I was more willing to try working
with
fabric and cloth because air-dry clay doesn't provide all the vibrant
colors and
designs that you can get with polymer clay so I was inspired to start
looking at
fabrics for some of the luscious and vibrant designs and colors.
Apoxie Sculpt is a two-part epoxy clay that takes some getting used to
but holds
detail as well as polymer and gives you a very strong finished piece.
It's a
chemically cured clay, meaning that once you mix it, it begins to cure
so you
only have a limited working time (around 3 to 4 hours) while it's still
soft
enough to model and pose but even this has it's benefits. I've been
working on a
Pumpkin King figure and I made his head of Creative Paperclay, his hands
and
lower/legs feet are being made out of Apoxie Sculpt. AS comes in a few
different
colors (more basic than pc, colors like red, green, blue, yellow,
orange, pink,
white, black, etc.) so you can play around with colored clay, as well
but I've
noticed that many people who sculpt with it tend to use a single color
and then
use paint to add color to their figures. I wanted to play with the
different
colors so I chose brown to make his lower arms/hands and textured them
to look
like vines. I made his fingers extremely long and thing and, after
they'd
partially cured, I decided I didn't like their position. I found that
with the
AS, once the clay had cured enough to be handled but not fully cured, I
could
actually gently reposition his fingers, permanently, without damaging
the sculpt
or the texture on them. It definitely has some qualities that other
clays don't
have but it also requires rather different methods to work with it. It
is,
however, a bit less messy than air-dry clay, so you might want to
consider
investing in a small amount and playing around with it, too. They do
sell sample
sizes (4oz total) which have enough clay in them to make a couple of
small
figures.
Whichever clays you work with, have fun :D
Eva
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This is where I asked Eva is I could
put her insights on my site, she said, ok. NJ |
