The Basics

ere is how the sculptures at Dan Perez Studios are produced. If you are interested in learning to sculpt, this article will introduce you to the basic materials and techniques involved. Since I sculpt primarily figures in 1/6 scale, the tools and techniques I use are adapted for that purpose. This article was revised in November 2001.

CAUTION:: Polymer clay contains chemicals which are harmful if ingested. Always wash your hands after sculpting with polymer clay and if you use eating utensils for sculpting tools, do not use them for eating again afterward. If you use a pasta machine to condition your clay, don't use it to make pasta again afterwards. Do not leave polymer clay where little children can get hold of it. In fact, keep all sculpting tools, materials and solvents away from children. Do not use baked polymer clay items as food or tobacco containers. When using lighter fluid as a smoothing agent, remember that it is highly inflammable. Keep it away from heat sources and open flames.

Getting Started

This article assume that you've already conditioned your clay. To condition your clay, refer to the About Polymer Clay article. Also, all references to Sculpey refer to my favored mixture of Super Sculpey and Sculpey III discussed in the polymer clay article above.

Sculpting Tools

There are lots of different sculpting tools on the market. You can see the selection at your local art supply store. Craft stores may carry some tools, but their selection will be more limited. As it was for me, choosing the tools that work best for you is probably going to be a process of trial and error. Many sculptors are fond of a certain set of tools, and this will vary from sculptor to sculptor. Still, there are some basic tools you'll probably find useful. Frequently a store-bought sculpting tool with have a different tool on either end of the handle, which is like getting two tools in one. Note that if you can't afford professional sculpting tools, you can often make similar tools from materials found at home. Some homemade sculpting tools include spoons, toothpicks, butter knives, nut pickers, old paintbrush handles, chopsticks and sewing needles. Carved and sanded wooden sticks (like old artist's paintbrush handles) can yield some really useful shapes for sculpting.

I make a lot of my own tools by shaping hardened steel "music wire" (from the hardware store) with a propane torch and then polishing the tips with a Dremel tool. Then I mount them on chopsticks (with epoxy glue) or into old toothbrush handles.

Homemade tools (top to bottom): music wire dogleg shaper, needle tool, specialty needle tool, homemade wire loop tool, music wire hook tool

When thinking about what tools you need, keep in mind the three basic techniques of sculpting: 1) Adding clay; 2) Removing clay; and 3) Shaping and refining clay. Here's a selection of tools for each process. Adding clay: generally you'll be adding clay with your fingers, but some metal, wooden or plastic shaping tools of various shapes will help you blend the clay you add into your sculpture, particularly in tight spots. One of the more important tools here is a spatula-shaped tool, which is helpful for shaping flat surfaces. Note: many of the tools you will see are dental tools. Dental tools are particularly useful for shaping fine details on your sculpture. These can be ordered from specialty sculpting outlets, or can be procured from dental supply houses. You dentist may even give you some old or broken dental tools.

Spatula tools (top to bottom): dental wax spatula (one of my most-used tools), steel plaster spatulas, curved dental spatula and painter's pallete knife (good for cutting through clay)

Some of the most important shaping tools are spoon tools. These versatile tools allow you to create rounded and incised areas, as well as dimples and depressions. A good all-purpose tool is the Loew Cornell scriber tool (the straight point/curved burnisher type). You can get one from the Texas Art Supply online store. You can get a lot done with this one tool alone. It's pictured below.

Spoon tools (top to bottom): 2 dental wax spoon tools, soft-pointed spoon (one of my most-used tools), Loew Cornell scriber tool (also much used)

Removing clay is where wire loop tools come in handy. You can use a wire loop to slowly shave down a part of your sculpture, or to carve grooves into the surface. Wire loop tools come in all sizes, but for the sculptures we're talking about, the most useful ones are the smallest ones, which have an aluminum shank and thin steel wire loops. You can make your own wire loop tools using brass tubing and a wire brush. Cut a wire bristle from the brush, then shape it like you want and crimp the ends in the brass tube. Add a drop of cyanoacrylate glue to the tube to help secure the wire loop.

Wire loop tools (top to bottom): large wire loop tool (too large for fine work), Kemper loop tools, aluminum shank wire loop tool, homemade brass tube wire loop tools

Shaping and refining clay: here's where your trial and error will really kick in, but the tools I find most useful include ball-point tools, spoon tools, a hook tool, needle tools, and an assortment of dental tools. One very useful tool I made myself by hammering and filing some steel wire that was just slightly smaller in diameter than a paperclip. I shaped one end into a tiny flat spatula, and the other end I shaped into a tiny spoon. I mounted the two ends into a wooden handle made from a chopstick. This tool is very useful for fine work, such as on faces.

Assorted tools (top to bottom): Loew Cornell scriber tool (one of my most-used tools), ball-tipped tools, dental probe (commonly called a dental pick)

The most important tool in shaping clay is your fingers. But sometimes you can't get into tight areas with your fingers, and these flexible clay and paint shapers (sold at craft and art supply stores) are very useful--they're like miniature fingers. The round and wedge shapes are most useful.

Clay shaper (top) and two paint shapers -- invaluable tools for getting where your fingers can't

Another tool you'll find useful is calipers. You use calipers to measure your sculpture so that everything is symmetrical, and to measure your reference materials. Most artist's calipers are too big for smaller scale work like 1/6 scale, so try using a double pointed drafting compass.

Double pointed drafting compass used as fine-scale calipers

One of the most difficult aspects of working with Sculpey is getting it smooth. ONe way to smooth rounded surfaces (such as the top of a bald head) is to use a roller tool. I use simple brass or aluminum tubing and roll it across the surface of the clay to even it out. You can use the larger gauges of tubing just like a rolling pin to roll out flat sheets of clay.

Two different gauges of brass rod used for rolling out clay or for smoothing curved surfaces

Another important smoothing tool is a brush. I use both bristle brushes (for coarser shaping) and fine camel-hair or synthetic fiber brushes along with lighter fluid to smooth the contours of the clay.

Assorted brushes (white brushes are bristle brushes) and lighter fluid used for smoothing

Other smoothing tools will ease your work. Use Q-tips dipped in water tp smooth the surface of the clay. Cut small squares of Scotchbrite scouring pads and dip them in lighter fluid to smooth larger surfaces. Hemostats are great for holding bits of cotton wool and other materials to let you get into tight spots.

Smoothing tools (top to bottom): Q-tips (use with water), Scotchbrite pad (use with lighter fluid) and hemostat

Sculpting References

Many sculptors use reference materials to refer to as they sculpt. If you're sculpting a human being or an animal (or a combination of the two, as in a werewolf), you must familiarize yourself with human and/or animal anatomy. There are many good books out there for anatomical reference, and you should study the way bones and muscles work. You can also examine your own body for reference. Make a tight fist and examine the way certain muscles bulge and stretch, how the skeleton is visible beneath (wrist and knuckles) and how the skin wrinkles and stretches. Then stretch your fingers out wide and look at the differences. These are all things you'll need to be familiar with as you sculpt. Here's a helpful list of reference books for the beginning sculptor.

You can also use photographs for reference. Sculpting a musclebound superhero? Cut some pictures out of bodybuilding magazines. Sculpting a dinosaur? Get some pictures from natural history magazines or photocopy some from books. Assemble your reference material where you can refer to it as you sculpt. I keep a Foamcore noteboard handy on which I can mount photos, illustrations, etc. while I work, so I can glance up from my sculpture and study the pose and anatomy of my subject.

A sculptor at Stan Winston Studio sculpts a clay likeness of Franklin Delano Roosevelt--notice the board full of reference photos he's using

One trick is to enlarge or reduce photos or drawings on a photocopier (or in a program like Photoshop) until they are the exact size you want your sculpture to be. Then you can use calipers to measure your reference photo and then your sculpture to make sure you're getting the proportions correct. Early on, you may feel frustrated that your sculpture doesn't look like the reference, but if you keep adding, removing and shaping the clay, it will begin to look right after a while. Keep at it.

A third source of reference is other model kits and sculptures. These are ideal because they can be viewed in all three dimensions, and you can study them to try and figure out how the sculptor made the sculpture. I think it's easier to study an unpainted kit than it is to study a painted kit, so I keep my reference kits unpainted.

Creating an armature

Now that you've got your clay, your reference materials and your tools together, there's one more step before you can begin to sculpt. You need an armature. Simply put, an armature is a strong, flexible internal support for your sculpture. The armature acts as a skeleton for your sculpture, supporting the weight of the clay and providing the basic pose for your figure. Note that you'll want to make sure that your completed sculpture fits inside your oven. You may actually want to measure the inside of your oven to determine how big your sculptures can be. Generally, a home-baked Sculpey figure should not be more than about ten to twelve inches tall.

Most armatures for the type of sculptures we're talking about are made of wire. You can use coat hanger wire, or uncoated copper wire, but I find these too stiff and difficult to work with. Another type of wire is aluminum armature wire, which is available at art supply stores. This is better, but it's hard to find in a variety of useful sizes and can be expensive. For my sculptures, I use aluminum bonsai wire. This wire is used by bonsai enthusiasts to help shape their miniature trees. You can find it at some garden supply stores, but the best source is mail-order. There are bonsai websites which do mail-order, and you can order a number of different diameters of wire. Make sure you get the aluminum wire and not the annealed copper wire, which is more expensive. The wire diameters I use the most are 2.5 millimeter and 1.5 millimeter.

Aluminum bonsai wire

You'll need to strengthen the wire before you use it for constructing an armature, and I do this by braiding it. The basic technique for this is to to take triple the length of wire you need, then fold it over into three strands (as in the photo above). Clamp one end of this triple strand in a vise, and insert the other end into the chuck of a power drill and secure it.

Wire braid, step one

Then you can use the drill to twist the wire into a uniform, three-strand braid. You can use this method with two strands of wire to make a smaller diameter double braid. You can also use the triple braid method with smaller diameter wire.

Wire braid, step two

Various braids of aluminum bonsai wire--note the 28 gauge steel wire being used to wrap the braid at bottom

This braided wire is both quite strong and still flexible enough to bend with your fingers. You may want to use needle-nose pliers to make sharper bends in the wire (for knee and elbow joints). Use the braided wire to form a skeleton for your figure. Generally, you'll want to create a spine and attach arms and legs as required. The spine can also include a tail, as in this photo of my baby raptor armature.

If you've got a photograph or drawing that you're using as a reference for your sculpture, make a photocopy enlargement of it until it's the size of the sculpture, then lay the elements of your armature skeleton against the reference to get the proportions right. Mark the joints (elbows, knees, etc.) with a permanent marker so you can pose your armature after it's constructed. Measure carefully, as a well-proportioned armature will lead to a well-proportioned sculpture (and vice versa).

Note: always leave a 3/4 inch length on the end of the legs of your armature. You will be using this extra length as pegs with which to secure your armature to a stand. You may also want to add a support wire that comes out the back of the sculpture, which will help it stand upright, and which can be removed later on. [photo ref].

Bind the elements of your armature (spine, legs, arms) together with 32 gauge cloth-covered floral wire, which is available at most large crafts stores. Then use a couple of drops of superglue to secure the floral wire. I use a superglue accelerator (known commonly as "kicker") to speed the setting of the glue. Then you can further secure these bindings by applying small amounts of epoxy putty (a two part putty which, when kneaded together, hardens in several hours). I use Milliput Medium grade putty, available at model shops. You can see in the raptor armature above where I coated the pelvis and shoulder bindings with epoxy putty. I created the taper in the tail by binding a single piece of aluminum wire to the braided wire with cloth-covered floral wire and superglue.

Finally, to help the Sculpey adhere to the armature, you can wrap the entire armature with 28 gauge steel floral wire (uncoated). Just cut lengths of the wire (again, available at crafts stores) and wind them around the larger aluminum braids at about 1/4 inch intervals. You can see in the raptor armature above that it is partially covered with this final coating. The legs and arms have yet to be wrapped.

To create small details such as fingers, horns, spines, etc., you can use the wire braiding method with 28-gauge wire to make thinner wire braids. Attach these elements to your sculpture with superglue and a bit of epoxy putty.

Some sculptors also add crumpled aluminum foil (or even crumpled paper) to their sculpture at this stage to build up the basic body shapes, and apply a layer of Sculpey over that for final detailing. This makes a sculpture lighter and you use less Sculpey for the finished product. Others build up the underbody with epoxy putty and/or Sculpey (bake the inner Sculpey layer before adding the outer detail layer) instead of foil. I use both methods, depending on the effect I want. You should experiment with both methods to see which you like best. Two materials you shouldn't use for your sculpture's underbody are wood and styrofoam. Wood contains moisture, and expands and contracts too much, both of which can cause your sculpture to crack. Styrofoam releases dangerous toxic vapors when it melts, so never use styrofoam in your sculpture.

To create a stand for your armature, drill holes (equal to the diameter of the armature's leg wires) in a piece of 3/4 plywood, and insert the foot pegs into the holes. They will hold the armature securely while you sculpt the figure. Use plywood instead of regular boards, as plywood is more resistant to warping in the oven.

Take the time to try several different poses for your armature. Do you want a static museum display pose or a more dynamic action pose? Try a number of different poses and see what you like best.

Time to sculpt

Okay, the time has come to sculpt your figure. If you haven't used aluminum foil to build up a basic body shape, apply Sculpey to the armature to get a basic shape for your sculpture. To help your Sculpey adhere to any epoxy putty, brush on a light coat of Vaseline petroleum jelly.

I took a sculpting class which was based on the classes taught by Oscar-winning special effects whiz Chris Walas (The Fly, Gremlins), and I think the techniques taught in this class were very sound. It advocated building up the shape of your sculpture with bits of clay, first defining the overall shape and muscle masses of the sculpture before working on any details. Build up the basic muscle shapes with balls and rolled snakes of Sculpey. This roughing in stage allows you to add and subtract clay, measure proportions with your calipers and get the pose just right. Once your rough looks good, you can proceed to the refining stage.

This is where you will be using your tools. I strongly recommend playing around with the tools to see what they do and how you can use them.

Continue to use calipers to get details like eyes and ears symmetrical, and to measure your references and your sculpture to check the proportions. One trick for eyes is to embed loose plastic pearls (get 4 millimeter ones from the craft store--these are perfect for 1/6 scale human eyes) or steel ball bearings in your sculpture's eye sockets to create perfectly round eyes. I used to do this, and still do it sometimes, but nowadays I sculpt the eyes from clay more often than not. Use your tools, brushes and lighter fluid to start smoothing and blending the Sculpey now.

Steel ball bearings were embedded in the eye sockets of this roughed-in baby raptor

If your figure will be wearing clothing, you only need to approximate the anatomy underneath the clothes (big exception: if the clothing is clingy or skintight, you'll need to refine the anatomy pretty well first). This is called creating an anatomical rough. One secret of sculpting more quickly is to try and get the muscle shapes (or hair masses or whatever) as close to what they're going to look like in finished form before you apply them to the sculpture. This means taking a little extra time shaping and forming the pieces with your fingers prior to applying it, but less time later in reshaping and shaving off clay (although you'll still have to do some refining). Many books on drawing and anatomy will have diagrams that show basic proportion shortcuts (such as the fact that there is one "eye width" distance between the eyes on a face, or that the average male figure is 7 1/2 heads tall). These are extremely useful, and you should seek them out and study them closely. Getting anatomy and proportions correct is one of the most crucial aspects of sculpting well.

It's useless to start doing fine detailing and skin texture if your proportions and forms are off. If you get an area too thick, shave it down with a wire loop tool, and if it's too thin, build it up with clay. If your clay surface is uneven, squeeze out thin, flat bits of sculpey with your fingers and apply those to the low areas. Use Scotchbrite pads soaked in lighter fluid to wet-sand the clay surface, and then smooth it with your fingers. You'll find that you can smooth and shape a lot with your fingers alone. Another useful technique is to build up raised areas (knuckles, elbows, knees) by adding tiny bits of clay and blending them until the shape is just right.

Something you should do fairly frequently is step back from your sculpture and look at it from a distance to see its overall shape and form. Look at it from various angles. Placing your sculpture on a store-bought turntable really helps. Examine it with a single-source light (such as a desktop lamp), casting shadows here and there, to check symmetry and shapes. Use the sculpture's reflection in a mirror--sometimes this reversed image will show up a flaw your eyes have grown accustomed to ignoring.

Take the time to get it right

The most important thing to remember when sculpting is that if you screw something up, you can always go back and fix it. Here's and example from my own experience. I was working on the hair and braids for the Ellie Arroway, and I thought I was off to a good start. Wrong! I checked the DVD for reference and saw that her braids are much thicker and that the hair patterns weaving into the braid were different. So I just decided to completely redo it. Look at the difference.

Never be afraid to tear your work off or goosh it up (highly technical sculpting lingo, there) and start over again. That's the coolest thing about clay: it's endlessly reworkable. Just make sure you're improving the piece when you're redoing something. Here's another example (after I started in on the collar, I realized the braid I had worked so lovingly on would have to be severely cut back because it made the collar look strange.

The finished and baked braid has been cut away to make the collar look right. I will resculpt the bottom part of the braid so that it goes down into the collar the right way. Keep working and reworking an area until it looks really good. It might be frustrating to have to keep redoing an area, but as your sculpture takes shape and begins to look like the reference material (or your original idea), you'll see that the extra time was well-spent. For final detailing, skin textures, and finishing out your sculpture see the article on detailing.