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Sculpting with Super Sculpey

"How to Sculpt a Little Ungulate out of Super Sculpey"
By Vizon Rok

This is a quick step-by-step tutorial attempting to explain the process I use in forming my tiny antelope sculptures. I work with Super Sculpey a lot – and it has become my preferred medium. It is my hope that this tutorial will be clear and informative, though I feel I must note at the start that this is not an "anybody can do it" tutorial, as much of the process depends on the sculptor’s ability to control and manipulate the clay with some measure of pre-existing skill and knowledge.

Preparation:

First off, Super Sculpey is a polymer type of clay that has a texture like soft wax. This means it is great for holding its shape, not drying out, and lends itself to wonderful detail. It also leaves a bit of a residue on surfaces, and will react with some types of paint/varnish. In my Keyon sculpture I discovered to my surprise, that the clay absorbed the black paint off my TV tray, leaving behind a permanent mark. So I’ve taken to working off a disposable or tested surface (in this case, scrap cardboard):

Here are three examples of my favorite tools – my fingers (and fingernails), a pin tool (in this case a dissection tool that is much cheaper), and my most favorite clay tool which has a sharp scoop on one end and a pointed blade on the other:

Once you have your clay and tools, you need to choose what type of ungulate you are going to make (if you haven’t already) and gather resources for reference (google image search, animal books, animal magazines, zoo photos).

The Body:

Take a small amount of clay and roll it into a ball, then roll it longwise to form more of an elongated oval shape. This will be the body. Inevitably when rolling Super Sculpey into any shape, you will end up with wrinkles in the clay.

To get rid of these imperfections, stroke the clay across it with the back of your fingernail, spreading it like a knife does peanut butter over the wrinkle.

Then smooth the area with your fingerprint, stroking it gently (petting your Super Sculpey is the best way to get it to cooperate). :)

Squash, press, and pinch your oval into the shape of the animal’s body (it is best if you have some profile images as well as front and back)


Then take a smaller piece of clay and form it into a neck and head shape. You will have to gauge by eye about how large to make it compared to the size of the body. I use an adding rather than subtracting technique when I form something out of clay. You may have to strategically add bits of clay here and there before you get your desired shape. Feel free to trim it if you add too much (using the exacto-like end of tool #3). Oh – and I recommend that you roll the bit of clay you are about to work with between your fingers before adding it. This helps make it more pliable and soft and less lumpy/full of wrinkles.

When you add bits of clay, use a finger to blend the added bit to the rest.

Two Sides to a finger:

I will attempt to explain the difference between using the back of your finger (nail) and the front of your finger (fingerprint). I never thought much about it until I made this tutorial, why in some cases I use my nail while in other cases I use the softer side of my finger to blend. I studied on it as I worked and realized that always I end up stroking the clay smooth with my fingerprint, and sometimes I can use my fingerprint alone to blend the clay. But often times the nail is the better tool, as it is more precise and can pull the clay with more force. This is good for merging two parts, but always leaves behind choppy marks:

After using your nail, you have to use your fingerprint to smooth over the choppy marks to complete the merge/blend:

The nail is also good for forming some details like neck muscles, dips in the muzzle, and things like the distinction between cheek and neck here:

The Body Continued:

After forming your rudimentary neck-head, match it up to the body. Here, you see, I made the neck too long to fit this body proportionally:

I trim it to fit using the blade of tool #3:

It then fits the body:

I feel the neck is thinner than where it attaches to the body though, so I add a little roll of clay to make the merge more gradual and less abrupt between the body and neck.

The Head:

I have learned through trial and error, that it is best to refine and add details to the head first, as you primarily hold the animal by its body while you are working, and to hold it by its body with legs/tail attached would squash and distort the appendages if you left the head to last. In fact, even in forming the head first, you will find that you will have to redefine and repair as you go, as you unintentionally squash or bump previously finished areas. Super Sculpey must be handled very delicately to retain your details.

I will begin the head details with the horns of the antelope. Roll a small bit of clay into a long snake, pointy on each end:

Cut it in half and trim (if too long) to the right length.

Attach horns as shown:

It’s tricky to smooth the seam, as the horns are so thin and delicate. Big fingers cannot reach between the horns, but they can reach the edges in front and back.

Use your #3 tool like a fingernail (very carefully with a slow partial spin motion) for between the horns:

Once that is finished, you will probably need to be more cautious about setting your sculpture down, as the horns are easily ruined. Use hunks of clay to prop your antelope upright for the moment, as you pinch off two tiny bits of clay for the next step:

The Ears:

Your bits of clay for the ears need to be miniscule, and of equal size. Roll them into little balls then work with one at a time. Squash the ball flat between your fingers to form a tiny pancake:


This is where it gets tricky. Even with utmost care, ears often fail to take their proper shape. Don’t be disappointed if you have to try many times before getting a decent ear. If it’s not the right size or looks too squashed or ill-defined, just roll it back into a ball and try again. No loss.
Carefully peel up your pancake shape without damaging it and bend it carefully so that two edges curl up:

Then pinch the ends into points (adding a tiny pull along with the pinch sometimes helps if it’s very rounded):

Voila! You have an ear:

Now you have to attach it to the head without squashing it (also tricky). Be sure to glance at your references to make sure you are putting it in the right place!

Smooth it at the base, but don’t worry about the seam at the back.

The Face:

The pin tool is best for the face details (which are minimal in such a small sculpture). I have taken to simply poking holes for eyes, as it results in a round black dot (which is cute and simple enough, and you don’t have to worry about making itsy bitsy eyeballs and teeny-tiny eyelids). You can poke little holes for nostrils too, and lean and pull the pin tool towards the inside to create more of a tear-drop shape (implies a V-shaped nose as opposed to horse-like nostrils):

The blade side of tool #3 is good for the mouth, which can be made by a shallow cut that curls around the tip of the muzzle. You might also suggest a vertical slit towards the nose (if your antelope has one).

Legs:

The legs are next, and they begin like a chicken drumstick: fattest at the top, but perhaps not as rounded as a drumstick. After all, this is a shoulder muscle, not a calve muscle.

Pinch and pull out your leg as you go, and create a bend (the elbow). Pinch it so it’s pointy.

Then pinch and pull the rest of the leg out long, cutting it off where you see fit and forming a hoof if you can:

Stick it on the body at the correct angle:

Smooth it with your finger, or you can use the sharp scoop end of tool #3 to blend while maintaining a nice curve. It is better for smaller detail than your fingers. I prefer to use the back of the spoon, as it is less likely to dig in. Like your fingernail, however, it leaves behind some marks that you will need to smooth with your finger:

Next, create your second bend:

Pinch that too so it looks more like a joint and less like a rubbery cartoon leg:

Form your other front leg the same way, remembering it is going to be facing the opposite direction (I usually form the shoulder part flatter on the side where it will attach to the body).
The back legs are next, which you form in a similar fashion, though the thigh is much broader, and I tend to aim for a visible calve muscle. It will bend opposite of the front legs.

Stick it on the rear – be sure it isn’t too close to the front leg or your body is too short. The antelope needs at least some stomach space.

Smooth it where it is supposed to be attached:

Form your fourth and last leg, and you are nearly done! It is missing one thing though still…

A tail! Cover that lop-sided butt crack!

The Tail and the Final Touch:

A gemsbok tail is kind of horsey with long hairs, so I’ve formed the tail with a paddle-like section I will texture:

Attach the tail at the top. Make sure it’s centered and looks like part of the spine:

Then, using either the pin tool (which digs and pulls) or the blade end of the #3 tool (which cuts a line), "draw" lines fanning in a downward diagonal from where the tailbone should be to imply hairs.

Here I demonstrate on a separate piece of clay:

Only one last touch remains – split hooves. I leave this and hair texturing for last since both details are easy to mess up with even the slightest touch:

Finishing the Sculpture:

After you are finished sculpting your ungulate, place it carefully on a cookie sheet and bake it for no longer than thirty minutes at 275 degrees Fahrenheit (read your Super Sculpey clay instructions in a word, and follow them). It will come out a darker shade, and you can handle it (after it’s cooled) freely. It should now be firm and tough – resilient, but not unbreakable. If you did not blend your clay well in some places, you will see evidence in spots of discoloration, but no worries – paint usually hides that.

I usually mix a runny acrylic wash that is the principle color of the animal.

Then, using a very tiny paintbrush, constant pictorial reference, and a steady hand, I add the other colors and patterns.

And there you have it – the entire process from start to finish! If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

P.S. – For larger sculptures, I recommend forming a basic filler shape out of aluminum foil and/or wire, and adding clay over it so that you do not waste clay and so that it will cook fully and evenly.

that's a really nice tutorial.

question: sculpey vs. fimo?

this is a very in depth and informative tutorial! Thank you so much for doing this. I'm eager to give it another shot. I'm used to working with the regular sculpey but found its sometimes a little /too/ soft whereas this kind is too hard for me to work with. I can't really get it to roll into a nice ball very well, what would you suggest doing to combat the hardness of the clay?

Soufex: Fimo is the first polymer clay I ever used, and as I recall it was really hard and one had to put it in a plastic bag and let it float in warm water to soften it up (which in and of itself is a pain), and even then it was tough. They may have changed it since then (after all, that was when I was in 7th grade), but I'd already discovered the joys of Sculpey by then.

Thornwolf: Yeah! I'm happy to try to help anyone who's curious. Regular sculpey is a lot more play-doh-like than Super Sculpey, and more recent batches I've noticed are super soft and tend to wilt and spread (I don't remember it being so soft in the past). When you try to do details with it, it is like trying to get details out of play-doh. So I do not recommend regular Sculpey for anything serious.
Super sculpey can be tough at first (especially straight out of the package), but all you have to do is knead it a little and it's easy to work with. Sometimes If I have a big chunk I want to work with, I'll break off about an inch, knead it, then another and knead it til it's soft, and so forth until I have converted the entire chunk into a pile of kneaded blobs. Then I'll put them together and form it back into a larger blob, which is then quite easy to work with. The kneading and the warmth of your hands is all the affection it needs to behave. And after the first kneading, it usually does not return to its initial hardness, unless left for a very long time. I often will grab a hunk of clay and just work and knead it absent-mindedly as I think about what I want to make. In fact, it might be good practice just to play with a piece and practice the fingernail/fingerprint smoothing techniques, forming it into different shapes, pulling, rolling, and just in general getting used to the feel and behavior of the clay. You can see in the very first photo in the tutorial that the clay I am working with has already been kneaded in preparation for use.

Awesome, thanks.

I find that when I use sculpey, especially for finicky details such as horns, I will wrap the clay around a small piece of sturdy wire, then press the end of the wire into the clay and attach as you have. It prevents accidental breakage.

I also use masking tape and aluminum foil to start the base of the body (needs to be smaller than the clay blob), which reduces the amount of clay used and makes the sculpture lighter.

If you find that you're smooshing some details, you can always get a hair dryer and spot cook some parts, but again, this all depends on how you sculpt

I don't use any form of armature on little bitty statues, though, too much work :D

Right, Amara Fox. You can also hollow out a piece from beneath (as with stoneware) to make it lighter and save on clay. I suggest scooping out the insides while it is still a basic shape though, as details are sure to be squashed and distorted if you hollow it out after you are done.

If you have big fingers a nice tool to replace the fingernails suggested here is a scalpel. If you were already getting the needle, get the kit and use the scalpel too. You can use the flat side to smooth things out as suggested here and sharp edge for all sorts of things.

And if you get the blade really filthly somehow, you can THROW IT OUT!

I should really take photos of current project. I'm busy building an armature right now, which would probably be real helpful for folks wanting to do larger critters. (It's an elephant, so it's kinda large...)

Fenris Lorsrai said: If you have big fingers a nice tool to replace the fingernails suggested here is a scalpel. If you were already getting the needle, get the kit and use the scalpel too. You can use the flat side to smooth things out as suggested here and sharp edge for all sorts of things.

And if you get the blade really filthly somehow, you can THROW IT OUT!

I should really take photos of current project. I'm busy building an armature right now, which would probably be real helpful for folks wanting to do larger critters. (It's an elephant, so it's kinda large...)

Aren't scalpels razor-sharp though? Sounds kind of dangerous... Especially for as often as I poke myself with the tools I currently use, heh heh.
This tutorial is simply meant to show how to sculpt a little animal, with only a note at the end on larger pieces. for me, a larger sculpture made with an armature deserves its own separate tutorial, as it is a lot more involved (though I would be using a lot of the same techniques I showed here). It might be good, then, if you create another tutorial showing that process (I might warn you, however, that documenting every step sure can retard your progress). Perhaps you can even show us some additional techniques, and, if you use a different type of clay, how to work with that specific clay. There's a lot more to be said in general about creating sculptures (texturing techniques, polishes, additional detailing elements), but I felt it was best to leave those topics for another time, or another author, and opted to just cover the very basics in this tutorial.
Soon enough I am going to be creating a larger sculpture with some rather outlandish raw materials (including cement and animal hair). Perhaps I will document that as well as a sort of supplement to this one. After all, it too is going to be an antelope.

I like to prebake things like eyes, horns, teeth, so I can just push the hard bits into the soft clay. You can even prebake entire heads- rebaking it won't hurt it at all. ^_^

Growly said: I like to prebake things like eyes, horns, teeth, so I can just push the hard bits into the soft clay. You can even prebake entire heads- rebaking it won't hurt it at all. ^_^

That, is a very good idea. :)

You're right, scalpel blade start out really, really sharp but lose the razor edge really, really fast. If you want to blunt it to about fingernail sharpness before you start work, slice a chunk of cardboard with it.

Scalpel and x-acto blade are my toola of choice for sculpting and I think I've sliced myself all of once in 5+ years.

I'll see about setting up seperate thread with a bigger armature so time soonish. It mostly takes me remembering to pause and photograph!

Newbie here, hope you guys don't mind me bringing up a semi-old topic.. :) I wanted to add that as far as Super Sculpy being too hard to work with properly due to age or just it's regular consistency, Sculpy makes a Diluent that is supposed to soften it however much you want. I haven't been able to find it in major craft stores (eg. Michael's and JoAnne's) but you can order it online: http://www.dickblick.com/zz332/18b/

Have you guys tried SuperSculpey Firm ? I think it's by far the best medium for highly detailed small work . You can handle your work without damaging it before baking . It feels hard at first but softens nicely with handling . You can roll and make the thinnest sections without squashing or breaking when placing on your model . Straps,belts ,eyeglasses,gogles etc.etc. are a snap .I've virtually abandoned the normal SuperSculpey . Firm however comes in grey only as far as I know so coloured work is out . I use it for prototypes . This little item is about 25mm x 25mm .This is the resin finished cast not the Sculpey prototype

Impressive! Yeah, I have some Super Sculpey firm, but I've not tried it yet. Great face on your pilot there.

Do you use glaze?

kitten chan said: Do you use glaze?

No. Not with polymer clay at least. The closest thing I use to glaze is clear fingernail polish. Otherwise it's just acrylic washes. You might be thinking of stoneware/terra cotta type clay. I have used that in the past and I did use glaze for most of those projects. Polymer is a different substance though. Much cleaner. I still like working with water-based clay, but it's harder now that I've gotten used to not having to slip and score. Or keep my projects sprayed down and wrapped in plastic.