First, Curing Her:
So, I baked (cured) Creation 10-001 and I was incredibly pleased with how she turned out. There were virtually no moonies ! (exciting). What I did to achieve preventing moonies was something I had seen another sculptor demonstrate online. What she did was she had a glass casserole type of plate and had some kind of soft lining in that the sculpture rested on, so I decided to try it out, anything to prevent moonies, right ? Here’s what I did:
I got the same type of casserole glass dish, I put cotton balls in to cover the bottom and create a sort of “bed” layer on the bottom for the sculpture to rest on. Then I placed my sculpture in there:
I then took more cotton balls and unraveled them so they’re long strips of cotton instead:
Once that was done I placed the cotton strips on top of the sculpture to cover her completely and I slightly padded it down for it to be snug:
Now, as I do all this, the oven is preheating at the clay manufacturer’s recommended temperature. Right now I do not have / use an in-oven digital thermometer but I do plan on utilizing it in the future as it gives much more accurate temperature readings so you know exactly how hot is in in the oven and you can adjust the heat accordingly based on the reading of the digital thermometer. So after I cover the sculpture in cotton, the oven should already be at the recommended temperature, so I place the bowl in the oven and let her cure. A Word Of Advice: to be on the safe side and not ruin your sculpture that you spent a great deal of time and attention on, I would recommend curing the sculpture for only 30 minutes on the first bake to ensure that it doesn’t burn edges or come out with other undesirable results. You can always bake more later for another 30 minutes until the desired result is achieved …. but you can never “unbake” your sculpture. So I would recommend baking in small 30 minute increments.
Now, To Make Her “Blush”:
Right now, I’m using Acrylic paints, only because they’re the only paints I have and want to use up to not have them go to waste. I will eventually migrate over to Genesis Heat-Set Paints as they have much more favorable results, especially on Polymer clay, so I hear. What I like to do first, as this will be a “layers” process, is blush the joints and areas of the body that the skin is more concentrated than others, like the ears, the nose, the eye lids, the lips, behind the ears, the palm of the hands, the bottom of the feet, the knees, the elbows, the bellybutton, the nipples, the ankles, behind the knees and any area where skin is folding on itself. So ! onto the mixing of the paints to get the kind of results I’m looking for. For those areas of the body I mentioned, I like to have those areas be a light pink-ish color, especially if they are a light-skinned sculpture; naturally for the darker-skinned sculptures you’re gonna want those areas of the body to be a darker color that pink to coincide with the color of that particular sculpture you’re creating at the time. For this sculpture, pink-ish it is. Right off the bat, keep this in mind, more water, less paint. You’re gonna want this to be very similar to water colors’ substance.
Mix, mix, mix it. You want the color to be very watery, at least that’s how I like to do it because I feel that it gives me the kind of results I want. You really only need to put, literally a dab of the color paint and then several drops of water. Once mixed, start applying the paint in moderation to start off “small” on the blushing, because remember, you can always add, you can hardly ever subtract, and adding more until it look realistic to your eye and repeat that on the areas of the body as mentioned above. So my sculpture turned out this way …. and now there are things I would’ve done differently, like had much more lighting, but overall, I’m very pleased:
All this was the first layer of blushing. Next entry, I’ll go into adding the second layer or “skin” painting to bring further depth to the sculpture, specifically adding detail to the face for personality. See you then, and always …. Follow Your Bliss.
– Fredo
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