To: <puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org>, <PaperMacheArt-AT-yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 04:28:15 -0400
Subject: [Puptcrit] Super Sculpey and apoxie Sculpt


Hi all.
I just made my best sets of hands EVER, using only Super Sculpey.

They are 8 cm high and smaller. You can get how hard it is to get the fingers all even..
Maureen Carlson helped me out a lot , as I used her method from her book entitled "How to Make Clay Characters". Much simpler than the other way I tried earlier this week. No need for armature this time.

It was very easy, but took a longer time, as I needed just enough detail and the right size and personalities.

Super Sculpey is amazingly easy to control, once you get the hang of it.
I used a heat gun to set the details as I saw they were okay.
I put the hands in the oven for a final baking when they were finished.
The heat gun does not heat evenly enough for a real strenght.

I have seen a marionnette with hands and feet made of Super Sculpey recently, and they looked ok and undamaed, despite being a few years old and used both for stage and street puppetry. That puppeteer must be a VERY careful person... 
I know from experience that suoer Sculpey is failry easy to break, by accident. 

Not the case with Apoxie Sculpt.
The tests have been very convincing for me. The test hands I made were submitted to extreme conditions, and they resisted a good long fight.
I prevailed, but it took a good stubborn effort to break the tiny fingers off.
Such strenght against impact and bending is ideal to make tiny puppet details, not only for delicate marionettes, but also for table-top puppets.
I don't know about a set of delightfully violent Punch puppets though.
The impact can get very high velocity with them... I think it would still work, but one would need to use less delicate fingers.

I will have the chosen hands (I did a few pairs)  molded to be reproduced in the Apoxie Sculpt, or do it myself, since my moldmaker friend has a pig-headedness that makes him convinced that such small detail cannot be molded safely into a push mold. He of little faith. I've seen Play doh push molds that had more fine detail than that. I think I might use the Apoxie Sculpt as the mold material also. Strong enough? you bet!
The only thing is that the object must be removed from the Apoxie before it sets.
Care must therefore be taken when removing the object, to avoid changing the shapes.

I need to figure out how to make the two-part push-mold in one step, without waiting for it to set before removing the hard object from the soft Apoxie.
my guess is that I can use the clay wall method as a model, and start from that.
First, applying talc over my hard hand model. The push into a piece of freshly mixed Apoxie Sculpt. Then sprinkling some more alcum poweder, but this time on both the hand and the mold. Then pressing more apoxie sculpt on top of everything.
Then very carefully removing the top of the Apoxie mold (still soft, no waiting) from the object, then carefully remove the object from the bottom part.
Some corrections to the mold can be done now. If appropriate care was taken, the corrections should only be a bit of pushing or pulling the mold, no tooling required.





Mathieu René Créaturiste
Marionnettes, Masques, Etcetera...
Puppets, Masks, Etcetera...
www.creaturiste.com
creaturiste-AT-magma.ca
(514) 274-8027
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