What are /r/Sculpture's favorite Products & Services?

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If you are just starting out really dig into anatomy. Take the time to understand how the bones and muscles are shaped, their proportions and how they relate to one another. Then you can move onto surface anatomy. Wrinkles, folds, fat, ect . That kind of thing. I will make you a much better artist.

I would suggest the following books. Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck. Anatomy for the Artist by Jeno Barcsay. Any of the books by George B Bridgman. All give a very good job of how the bones and muscles of the human machine work. Really you should get all of them.

Chavant is a great product. I would also check out Brown microcrystalline sculptors wax. The advantage of wax is you can clean it my melting it and pouring it through cheese cloth. And you can use it over and over again. You can even add paraffin wax to make it harder for finer detail. I wouldn't waist money on the skulls. Put that money in wax or chavant. Or buy a decent full size replica skull as a reference model. Better yet sculpt your own skull. Take the time to get it just right, make a silicone mold of it and you can pour melted wax or plaster into it and make as many as you want. That reminds me, learn the mold making process. Check out Smooth-On products. They are expensive but really great.

You can get all this from Amazon or Sculpture Depot .

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. I'm happy to share what I know.

It's most likely a polyurethane or EVA foam platform, for cosplay it's sold in thin sheets for gluing and stacking but it's also what cheap yoga blocks are made of. Good luck!

I would post something on your local Craigslist asking for a carpenter to give you a quote. Also see if you can find anyone on Etsy who's local to you and ask if they'd do a custom job? A buddy of mine has a side business on Etsy where he makes cool stuff out of wood. Here are some pictures. He does projects for people all the time, though I know he's really busy at the moment.

I'm also getting married soon and my fiance and I are spending a few nights/week making decorations and signs. Doing stuff in the style you're talking about would be really really easy. See if there's a hobby shop or even a Michael's near you. They'll have a wide assortment of little 1-3ft pieces of crafty wood. If you do 3 or 4 designs using the sizes available there, you could probably just wood glue them together and then stain them and they'd look really nice.

My inner art student is really glad that you like Judd and Sol LeWitt, they're so underappreciated. However, they're really cold and sterile. Not exactly wedding fodder. In my humble opinion, doing stained wood would warm them up and make them more wedding-friendly. Vinegar and steel wool always look nice as a stain.

Good luck!

Yeah, no prob. Here's what I do:

Take a piece of 3/4" plywood as your base, I like using around 1'x1' to make 18" sculptures but whatever works for you. Then build your armature by twisting together several strands of aluminum wire that you can get at an art supply store. If you plan on casting your sculpture, you'll need to be able to remove this armature easily so keeping it minimal (just a spine?) is best. If you're using a hardening clay as your final thing (which I don't like) you can follow this tutorial http://www.paint-sculpt.com/tutorials/sculpting-tutorial/building-an-armature.html but I think this is way too much armature. You really just want enough that your sculpture doesn't become too heavy and break. Something more like this http://www.instructables.com/id/An-Easy-Sculpture-Armature-human-figure/

Attach your armature firmly to your base. Depending on the pose, you can use pipe fittings for something large and heavy duty or just a lot of staples from a staple gun. Whatever works.

Once your armature is posed, start blocking out all your big shapes-- barrel for the chest, squareish thing for the hips, head, attach shoulders, then the major muscle groups-- abs, lats, delts, biceps, quads, etc... then work your way smaller, working on and refining the whole thing at once, rather than focusing on one part at a time. By using this additive, whole body approach rather than carving into the shapes, you should get much better results.

Remember, you'll hate your first few sculptures so move quickly until you get a feel for the clay. You can always pull off all your clay and re-pose as well.

Good luck!

I can't for the life of me find the name of it, but this seems to fit your description? It's from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

I'm a big fan of chavant medium clay. Good color to see details (unlike white). It's sulfur free, making it useful if you ever want to make a mild if your sculpts.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YNZ7IQC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_DNHRB4M9SKDR53BNP273?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

this is seems to be - A+B Epoxy 9906K Gray A+B Rezolin Epoxy Kit
looks like it is what you search!

check the link
https://www.amazon.com/Epoxy-9906K-Gray-Rezolin-Container/dp/B0B5S3KSDB

It's this kind (I'm very unfamiliar with clay types so not sure that this is ceramic?)

J-Mac (J.F. McCaughin) Classic Clay 2-AB250 Tan (Soft) - 10lb Slab https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ZJSBF2/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_11A1SV0BDNYTP3SB3MKE?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I really really appreciate this advice!!

Hi sorry for falling off the earth but appreciate the info! And your work is pretty freakn amazing btw.

I just make random things, just a part time creator that starts well but then I usually get stuck… lol

I bought a can of krylon to try to get it took like these examples

Read somewhere Krylon might work. And I’m assuming some type of adhesive vinyl for the relief stencil of a yet tbd quote or other verbiage. Really don’t have any confidence in hand-cutting so probably look into laser.

I don’t know if I trust my spraying abilities for uniform color, and assume some type of 4K clear on top. But since it’s aluminum stripping for a redo should be a breeze.

And I still have to make a cope n drag, and figure out if I should use some red oil sand I bought or just fine sand.

Thanks again if you happen to see this!

I've used a lot of alternative finishes on bisque-fired ceramics. There are a lot of artists doing the same. Usually the reason for only going as far as bisque firing (instead of the usual 2-firings, one for bisque, one for glazes) is that the surface of the bisque takes the alternative finishes and absorbs them much better than twice-fired clay. This piece had some velvet underglazes applied while it was greenware (meaning not fired yet but dry) and then was fired to cone 04.

I wasn't happy with the colors and wanted to give them a bit more richness, so I used these waxes on the piece, I believe red, copper and blue, applying them with a q-tip for small areas or a rag for larger areas. These are applied cold, but I suppose you could apply them hot as well. You let that dry for an astonishing 4 weeks! Then you can buff off any excess with a polishing rag. You can also put a clear wax or bees wax on top and shine some more for a higher gloss but I like this buff, dull finish for this piece.

I've also used shoe polish in different colors, it's the same principle but they dry much faster but colors are limited. I've also used acrylic paint washes and/or thicker paint, sometimes with black shoe polish on top of them once dry to hit all the low spots in the surface with a darker color. Here's a piece that I did that on and it gave it a nice patina.

You don't always have to use glazes on ceramics and more artists are learning that there are alternative cold finishes that do things glazes cannot do.

Start over and do another. Bluntly, your first sculpt is never going to be good. The best thing you can do to improve is repetition and to study anatomy. As someone else mentioned, you have all the features of a face separated onto a head. Heads are very complicated with many weird shapes and planes that all flow together in a way. Something I did was to sculpt skulls, lots of them as realistic as I could. With every skull, I noticed a new small detail or form. This will get you familiar with the ground work of a head/face. Never add hair until you completely lock in your anatomy. An excellent book that has helped me massively has been Anatomy for Sculptors Another exercise that will help your speed is to set a timer for 30 minutes and sculpt a face as fast (and realistic) as you can manage. Do that everyday and I promise you will start seeing results. Now that was a lot of criticism, but you are on an excellent start. For a first time sculpt this is great, do not be discouraged. Sculpture is an incredible art form and would encourage you to keep going!

Found a shutterstock image of your exceptional work at its final installation - beautifully cast and installed

here is a link to the album : https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM8MpIZZCBtMrHmDUQuZeDLnDERstQ5DOYrUjZf6esDcb68iFFu5FJvbplyYn8idA?key=NjI0dU9YUUVtSHFJSGRSd1BKSjktMGNGR2UycEV3

Full album at: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipO0JnPJQgRXesEMiikxpWzjjOwjxX6sEsv_4sVGks5nPu8ZmOWocmU4bIInRZZbNQ?key=T01wYmt3SEEzSjFkc2dYSUozZU5lbTZVREkyLUFB

I used the rocky mountain low fire terra cotta clay. Here is the Amazon link, I hope it helps and thank you for your kind words!

low fire terra cotta clay

Off the top of my head, I don't have any resources, but I was curious what type of work you might be doing? Are you thinking primarily cast or carved sculpture? Also, what type of scale? As you probably know, concrete get's extremely heavy very quickly. I work mostly making steel sculpture, but I'm also interested to see what information is out there...

Edit: Found this. It looks pretty basic, but maybe it's enough to get some ideas about possible techniques. Also, I would check out Instructables, or even YouTube, there's a good chance someone has uploaded a how-to for working with concrete.

Apoxie Sculpt

This is stone clay stone clay

Sorry for the delay, but the anatomy book I used was just a general old booksale type of medical book.

But I have read about recommendations of this one, from older reddit posts.

My advice would be just go for it. I went for lost wax casting for this piece (tons of YouTube videos on the subject). You should give open faced sand casting a try for a first attempt, it’s significantly easier.

Any thick walled metal tube with a high melting point will work as a crucible (steel,cast iron) just make sure to monitor the temperature as the aluminum melts so you don’t destroy the crucible. For a first try something like this would work for small scale projects.

Casting aluminum is a lot of fun and it was an extremely rewarding process for me, I never thought I’d be able to pull it off. It’s one of those things that you won’t fully understand until you do it. Pick something small to cast and give it a shot and work your way up to larger projects. Best part is if you mess up you can just remelt and try again.

I highly recommend the lamp setup, it's set-and-forget. Here's the dimmable clamp lamp: Fluker's Repta-Clamp Lamp 8.5-Inch Ceramic with Dimmable Switch https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003H200QC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_3zWMAbNC0YH2F you will also need an incandescent heat bulb or ceramic heat emitter.

Other methods I have tried to varying success: place small amounts in a tray in a toaster oven to keep warm, then remove the tray as necessary. Have even tried coffee cup warmers for portable sculpting (totally melts the bottom, but works).

Sorry, I know your original question was about solvents--I have never used any on monster clay and I asked the cashier of a mold supply store once if there were any and he said he had no idea, as it wasn't really done. Sometimes its a painstaking matter of raking an area, looking at it from a ton of angles, rinse repeat. Some imperfections are way easier to just sand out after you cast the mold.

I've done something slightly similar with thermoplastics and a heat gun like "friendly plastic" by Amaco. If you could get a thin sheet of thermoplastic and use a heat gun to soften the plastic enough to take the shape of what's underneath it, and repeat that for each different shape it could work. You would run the risk of losing the previous shape each time it's heated if it gets too hot and isn't supported from below very well, but I think it's possible if you control the temperature well enough. I used a variable temperature hot-air desolderer to heat my plastic that was around $75 on ebay, but any sort of heat gun would work (possibly even a hot hair dryer)

this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about I made sheets myself from the pellets before I knew they sold it in sheets.

A tool kit sounds like a great gift - I think many artists shamelessly stockpile tools. A learning book might be good, but they do vary in quality and also make sure you get a book that's correct for the type of things she wants to do. If you choose a good one, it could serve as a reference for years. One thing you didn't think of is a book of inspiration. I've found a lot of value in collections of artwork related to topics I'm interested in. For example, I was given 500 Animals in Clay and I love just looking through it. Maybe you can find an ocean or ocean creature related art book if your friend likes octopi. Good luck!

Definitely look into some tools!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001ED3JMS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_HKwmzbFWHSVPK

These are perfect start, especially for polymer clay

I'm guessing you're using super sculpey, right? Imo, that stuff gets a bit too sticky and it's quite hard to use for detailing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0026C1T8C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_vPwmzb724M0JK

This stuff is great, soft but won't stick to your hands. (Won't have to deal with leaving as much finger prints)

Since you're new to this I suggest really just making hard shapes and just playing with it, instead of trying to make perfect products right off the bat. Good luck!

Yeah, it's not exactly easy to find larger skulls outside of the halloween timeframe, but maybe you could do a skull and crossbones to take up the same amount of space as just a large skull by itself?

For example, there's a few skulls floating around online that are about a foot high. This one might make a good decoration if it had some crossbones under it.

I'm focusing on small works starting out and I got this set from amazon that works just fine. There are more sets in the also viewed section that have paddles and things for larger works but I don't need that yet. You also might want to get a special rolling pin or roller to flatten and smooth clay. Also, perhaps armature wire for standing figures or sections and aluminum foil to bulk out your figures so you don't have to use so much clay on them or stress your armature wire. EDIT: If you decide to use armature wire you may want to ask your Grandpa if he can share tools such as wire clippers and needle nose pliers to clip and bend the armature wire.

Yours is a technical question. I don't about online tutorials, but I can recommend the excellent book titled Sculpture as Experience. It will give you a strong foundation of different sculptural materials and methods.

Umm I found some in Amazon that looked like I could just rap them around the wire in a spiral till they look even what do you think : Extra Long 52ft 300led Starry String Lights Warm White on a Flexible Copper Wire https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014ZXTWOW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_vhaMxb6GB8E9H

Thanks for the help

JB High Heat I've used JB Weld and JB Kwik a lot, but I haven't tried JB High Heat. The cure time is slow enough that you'd need to clip or support the metal strips in place somehow, but it will easily withstand the temperature. JB Kwik cures fast enough that you could probably hold the pieces in place while it sets up, but 300 is the upper limit of its temperature tolerance from what I've read.

Look through some books. Sculpture Today has been a really useful contemporary sculpture reference for me.

What are you interested in making?

Thirded for Sculpey.

That book that Rob0130 suggested is a great book and I'd also suggest this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantasy-Creatures-Clay-Techniques-Sculpting/dp/1440336725

It goes into armatures, concept design, baking, painting and is aimed at beginner levels though it does have some useful tips for more experienced sculptors.

Also have a dig around a few creative websites like Deviant art for tutorials. This chap has some very indepth step by step guides to his work http://sculptor101.deviantart.com/