New Blog

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that my new blog is "Days of an Artist" - http://days-of-an-artist.blogspot.com/

I created this new blog as this blog is outdated and I am trying to venture away from the ties I have with the name "Twinessence". Doll Maker's Dream is more accurate to the vision I want for my works and tutorials, not to mention that it's more search engine friendly.

So my new blog will be keeping tabs on what I'm up to most days, as people tell me I often drop off the face of the planet lol. Truth be told it's because most of the places I post stuff on the internet I only really want to post completely relevent information. So this new blog will allow me to post all the stuff in between, even if it's just sketches and other stuff :)

Of course, I will still discuss my doll stuff on the new blog too, but it just won't be quite as limiting :)

Cheers everyone!

Amanda

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New Website: Doll Makers Dream

Hello everyone! Amanda DeVirgilio here! Yes that's right, I'm now Mrs Amanda DeVirgilio. The wedding was on 7th August 2010 and it was a perfect day. We went straight to the honeymoon which was in a gorgeous 5 Star Hotel called the Mariotte. From our honeymoon we drove down to our new home in Victoria- two states away from where we were.


I love the weather here, it's so much cooler than Queensland. I've been a busy bee getting our lives in order. Go figure, it's actually really complicated changing my name and moving state at the same time, lol. I'm starting to get organised though.


I've been working on a new website called Doll Makers Dream.


It's going to be dedicated to beginner sculptors around the world, people learning how to make OOAK Art Dolls for the first time. All of the beginner polymer clay tutorials are posted there FOR FREE.

It's still under-construction- a lot more tutorials will be added. I have a page called "What's New" and that will list all of the pages I've written or worked on lately. So that's a good first place stop if you want to see if there's any new polymer clay tutorials.


I highly suggest subscribing to the RSS Feed of my website, that way you'll be able to see new pages straight away in your Feed Reader.


Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Just contact me through the contact form of my new website:


http://www.dollmakersdream.com


Hope you like it!

Cheers!
Mrs DeVirgilio (he he)

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Scam Artist in the OOAK World

There are a lot of people who are up in arms about an Artist who has scammed a lot of people out of their money. Due to Australian laws I will not be stating their name or gender in this post and will instead replace their name and gender with “Doll” and “it”. Here is the situation:

Doll creates one-of-a-kind artist doll sculptures and has done so for many years. It has become pretty good at making them and no one denies that it has talent.

Doll opened an artist forum to which became extremely popular, and developed into a close knit community. More and more artists were joining as members, however Doll started to drift out of online activity with the forum. After a while, Doll announced that it needed more time for itself and the family and was going to sell the forum on ebay, (price specifics will not be posted but it was a relatively large sum of money).

Not long after the forum was sold, Doll opened a new forum, directed to the exact same audience. This came as a shock to many, however it seemed to be overlooked after a period of time, although those involved still have a bad after taste in their mouths.

It decided to make this forum into a “paying members only” guild, so you could not see its content unless you paid a regular member fee. The draw to this guild is that Doll promised to post content such as tutorials and personal coaching that no one outside of the guild would be able to see. A lot of new sculptors wanted to be able to make sculptures like Doll, so in flooded the memberships. However as time would pass, Doll’s “promises” weren’t met. The tutorials it did post were vague, incomplete or already pre-existing in tutorials sales available to the public. Doll promised to keep posting amazing tutorials however it still neglected to show.

Frustrated members started requesting refunds and sending Doll messages about the situation. These requests were ignored and/or deleted. Doll continued to advertise the forum for new members to join without resolving- or even faking interest- in the pre-existing member’s plight.

These members are currently seeking legal action and are searching for ways to get Doll jailed. For the moment Doll seems to be slipping through legal cracks however this cannot last forever.

Here is what you can do for yourself: before handing your money over for ANYTHING online, think about the following:

• Does this person have a CONTRACT? Look for something that states in writing EXACTLY what services you will be getting by paying this money. With most legitimate websites, they will post a Terms and Conditions page that you have to read before handing over the money. The contract should always be long-winded. If it is at all vague in what it promises to provide, you will most likely not get your money back in the event of a problem, nor will the person get into legal trouble. In Doll’s case, it should have had a contract that stated in it “New extensive tutorials will be posted every month on how to re-create my art-form from past or present. All tutorials will be based on working methods of creating the art-form and will be a complete tutoring in each stage of creation.”

• Does this person provide a REFUND POLICY? They need to provide details as to how they deal with the situation in the case of a complaint. Do they offer money back? Do they offer credits to be used for other services? Is there a time after a certain period that the refund policy becomes void? Does this person offer other avenues to chase up a refund such as paypal disputes in the case that they cannot refund the money due to personal circumstances? If they do not have a solid refund policy, DO NOT HAND OVER YOUR MONEY.
  

Unless both of these things are met, you should not be handing over your hard earned cash. It does not matter how nice, famous or accomplished someone seems to be, if you are not covered by a good contract and refund policy, there is very little that the law can do for you in the case of a problem.

Artists are generally very kind-hearted and trusting, however we all need to realize that there are predators online in all shapes and sizes. We need to take our cash in our own hands and be extremely cautious. Ideally, we shouldn’t have to worry, but these people are out there and their will be more.

This achieves two things, you won’t need to stress over losing your money forever…. And….

… The mongrels can go to jail if they go against their contract….

I realize that some people will know who I am talking about and I ask that you do not identify this person or their gender on this site. Australian law is tough on identifying things like this especially since I am a related business. Please understand that attempts to identify them on this site will be removed. All other comments are extremely welcome and encouraged!

I ask that this post can be linked to or quoted in as many places as possible so that Dolls’ potential victims will think twice before paying for its services.

Sincerely,

Amanda

P.S. Please note that the above mentioned are not the only things It has done in bad business.

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Stormthecastle's Sculpting Miniatures Video Tutorial

I found this series of videos very interesting. It's made by www.stormthecastle.com
He has made a series of tutorials teaching how to sculpt in polymer clay, and putty to make a large sculpture and miniature sculptures. He goes through every training step a beginner should follow. Definitely worth a look!

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

Part Five:

Part Six:

Part Seven:

Part Eight:

Part Nine:

Part Ten:

Part Eleven:

Part Twelve:

Part Thirteen:

Part Fourteen:

Part Fifteen:

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My Thoughts on Selling Sculptures

Lollipop Lolita, OOAK polymer clay sculpture by Nicole West
Sold for $1056.44 AUD on eBay

Today I beg the question, what makes a polymer clay sculpture sell at a high price? I know a lot of people wonder this question all the time. It's so hard to predict how much a sculpture will sell for. Polymer clay sculptures are, quite honestly, a relatively new medium. You look at paintings, bronze sculptures and stone artworks, they've all been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Paintings from professional artists can sell anywhere from $200 - $55,000, give or take. Who decided this price? How did they decide this price?
From a business perspective, you can look at it like this:
Decided hourly rate x hours spent, + cost of materials and selling fees = Artwork price.

But I fear this equation doesn't really work. Why not? I see artists out there who work on a piece for over a month and get $70 for their auctioned sculpture. If they decided they don't want fate to predict their price, they put a reserve, or a higher asking price. But often, these works do not sell. What do you do? I find most artists are practically giving away their works at prices cheaper than it cost to make them for the purpose of getting exposure. Is this harmful?

It's rumoured that customers are stubborn creatures. While you're starting out, they may be buying your works for $50 a pop. However, with time, you hone your skills and your sculptures start to resemble the sculptures of the masters. Now you should be able to get thousands for your works! You eagerly watch your item in ebay waiting for that elusive final selling price. $350?? What? Why did it sell so cheap? Weeks of meticulous work has gone for a price cheaper than if you were walking dogs for a living. Many people think that if you've got the reputation of selling cheap, it actually devalues your work. So how do you sell when you're first starting out?

I know I've been hit with this problem. When I first started out I sold some sculptures to a lady for well under what it was costing me in time and materiels to make. I explained to her when I first sold them that the prices would go up when my sculptures become more popular and I'm better known. The prices that she was getting was promotional only. She agreed to these terms and bought the sculptures from me. A couple years down the track, my sculptures were in much higher demand and I started creeping up my prices closer to what I needed to be getting for them to cover costs. This lady had been reselling my sculptures at double what she paid me for them, which is what I recommended when I first started. However, when my prices went up, hers went up... still at double. It got to the point where she said that people wouldn't buy it at such a high price and told me I had to lower my prices. There was a problem with her logic...
If I sold her a sculpture for $350, then she would try to sell it at $700. If she lowered her prices and sold it at $500 instead, she would still be making $150 profit for every sculpture and they would keep selling weekly. This was the same profit that she was making when I started. If she had've lowered her prices, I would be getting what I needed and she would be getting the same profit and the sculptures would be selling just as fast as they used to. However she wanted me to lower my prices so she would get a larger profit.

I could have backed off, lowered my prices and continued to sell at charity prices. But shouldn't you reason like this... if she's that concerned about making such a huge profit, how long does she think I would be able to sell sculptures at those prices? She was so concerned about her own temporary profits that she wasn't looking after the artists' wellfare, who could possibly bring her regular profits for many years to come. If she wasn't going to help me keep my business running at a mutual benefit, I wasn't interested in lining her pockets. I stopped selling to her.
It wasn't long until I realised she was forgetting to hand out my certificates of authenticity, not mentioning my name at all and she had even changed the name of one of my sculptures. She even repeatedly broke my sculptures and got me to fix them free of charge. To continue selling with her would be detrimental to my career as an artist. I am thankful I didn't drop my prices for her.


Take a look at the wonderful work by Nicole West at the beginning of this post. She sold this recently for the price of $1056.44 AUD. Now that's nothing to be coughed at. However, how many hours did she spend making this piece? Goodness knows this amazing sculpture is worth closer to $2000. Look at the detail!

Nicole West has this amazing ability to make the eyes look very ethereal. The eyelashes are meticulously placed and you can even see her little teeth poking out from her luscious lips. Her hair is Tibetan Lamb Wool and goodness knows the paint job is amazing. Nicole also told me once that she sculpts the whole doll, and doesn't series bake. This is a huge feat as many cannot do this. Clearly there is great talent here, but how was the price decided? The auction started at $200; what made people decide to keep and stop bidding?

I wonder if the price is determined by the pure fact that Nicole West has a number of avid collectors. Or maybe it was determined by the level of detail that she puts into her sculptures. What about realism? Maybe the fact that her sculptures look very believable is a determining factor?

If these all decide whether or not a sculpture gets a high price, would that mean that any sculpture that follows those sorts of rules should expect to get the same price?

Take a look at this next sculpture...

The sculpture above is a one-of-a-kind polymer clay sculpture by Julie Mansergh, or as she's better known, "Fairies In The Attic" (FITA). It is a very different sculpture, but still has all of these supposed "deciding factors" of a high selling sculpture. Julie is well known, puts a huge amount of effort into getting incredible details (and she makes a point of photo-cataloguing all of the details) and is definitely known for the realism of her works. Some, if not all of her sculptures are practically perfect in anatomy and tend to look more like a photograph, instead of a small polymer clay sculpture. Her work really is outstanding.

However, here is the cruncher... this particular sculpture sold for only $769.31 AUD. Admittedly a lot of her sculptures do drag in very good prices, but why the difference between the two I'm comparing? The amount of talent needed to create such a stunning piece is surely worth more than the sales price? At least, would it not be closely comparable to the talent of Nicole? Why has one artist done better than the other when they both have extraordinary talent?

This leads into my next thought. The market. Both of these sculptures were sold in a period of time fairly close to each other. Is it possible that during this period of time, more people were looking for something cute, bouncing with character, yet still keeping sexy undertones? Perhaps the market wasn't there for a sculpture, more real to life, but somewhat more serious and sultry.

So what happens there? How do you know what people are willing to pay big dollars for?

What style of sculpture is the audience looking for?

A lot of it must be hit and miss. Julie, no doubt, has sold sculptures just amazing as this one, and received double or more for it. A lot of it depends on your sculpture being seen by the right eyes. Not matter what the economy is doing, there's always someone out there who wants to buy your work. But putting in the effort to market your work to the most amount of people can be tricky. If you're looking at making a living of your sculptures, it would be easier to try and make a sculpture that would appeal to the largest market.

Recent trends show that customers of polymer clay sculptures are looking for sculptures of fantasy creatures, especially mermaids and fairies, pin-up females and occasionally babies. By looking at how sales are going, I find that anything that deters from these subjects tends to be a lot more difficult to sell at high prices.

The polymer clay niche is relatively small in the arts world and hitting the market right is a difficult move. I find it easier selling sculptures when people can see the sculpture face to face before buying. I attribute this to the fact I've never been very talented with taking clear photos of my sculptures. Online, I have more difficulty, but when people see my work they seem like they can't get enough of my work.

It seems like there's a lot of little things that can improve your chances of being a successful OOAK art doll sculptor. However, there isn't really a winning formula. With everything I've observed, I can think of a few tips:

• Hit the market correctly, if fairies, babies and pretty women are selling, make that, but do it in a unique way. Think of something original, without being too risky and you find yourself a winner.
• Study anatomy. Even if your work is stylised, there are still anatomy principles to follow. Focus on making your sculptures believable. People can tell if your style is on purpose or because of a lack of knowledge. This will probably be your hardest challenge, but it is worth it. I still have a long way to go, but I found that the amount of improvement I've made so far with my sculpting has already made a huge difference to the sales prices.

Learn how to get anatomy right: http://www.dollmakersdream.com/anatomically-correct-dolls.html

• Look after your customers. If someone has just paid you for your sculpture, be professional in how you carry out the transaction. People buying from you appreciate art; they are special and need to be treated that way. The world needs more art collectors.
• Don't short-change yourself, it's really hard to break the ceiling price of your artworks after you've started. If your sculpture refuses to sell, maybe it needs some more work, or more than likely it's simply the market hasn't found your work yet. Invest in a nice glass cabinet and keep your works until they get the price you need. If you decide you don't want to hang onto it anymore and want to give it away, give it to someone special in your life. Letting it go to the public for next to nothing will only devalue your work, and they probably won't appreciate it as much as someone who knows and loves you will.
• Attention to detail. People LOVE detailed work. When someone can discover something new every time they look at your work, you know you have an outstanding product. I find even people who still haven't mastered anatomy will still get a higher price than people who's work is very simple. Detailing is candy for the eyes.
• Get known. Join forums, write a blog, write to magazines and talk to the community. I was having a chat once to a librarian about what I do and wound up giving her my business card. Not long after, I got a phone call from her asking me to do a large display in the front of the town library to which I agreed. That's a lot of exposure to my local market right there. She also told me that I would have an audience of at least 30 people if I did a seminar in the business room of the library about what I do. That's possible 100's of word-of-mouth exposure. All that from having a chat to a librarian.
• Research!! Keep watching the market and DON'T STOP. It gives you new ideas and lets you know which ideas aren't popular.
  

Obviously I don't have the last word on selling sculptures, but hopefully these thoughts my help you hone in your business skills.

What has been your experience on selling sculptures? Please leave a comment.

If you would like to read more about selling dolls, visit my business section on my website:

http://www.dollmakersdream.com/selling-polymer-clay-dolls.html


Just a note: I'm currently attempting to re-install my computer as its very sick. It's running terribly slowly which is making it difficult to backup. Sorry for any delays in communication, especially with emails as my outlook barely wants to open at the moment. Hopefully I can overhaul my poor laptop soon.

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How to make a Fantasy Mushroom

Here's something I've been working on for a while. I was only going to post this tutorial when the sculpture was entirely finished but I may as well put it up. Most of the stages are done and dusted ^_^ I think this little project would be good for those who aren't yet good at sculpting "pretty". Most beginners need something a little absurd looking to begin with and this definitely fits the bill. The fantasy mushroom I'll be making is designed to have something sitting on top.

Let's get started...
First, make loop with fairly strong galvanized wire. This will become the base of the fantasy mushroom. Keep in mind this wire can leave a black residue on your hands, so be careful what you touch.

You will need to have yourself a base for the fantasy mushroom to be anchored to. Bend the loop over so the wire is sticking straight up. This will form the stem of the mushroom. Make sure you have plenty of excess wire at the top. Bend the wire off at the height you want the mushroom to be but do not cut the wire.


With the excess wire you had, curl it around at the top making a large loop. This will be the top of the fantasy mushroom.


Get a good amount of Magic Sculpt and mix it together. Make sure the two parts are even. I coat my fingers with flour to protect my hands. The putty can be very sticky otherwise and actually makes my fingertips burn if I leave it on there too long. The flour eases this greatly. Always wash your hands with warm soapy water after using Magic Sculpt. Magic Sculpt is an epoxy resin/putty. It's an air drying putty that sets as hard as a rock. We will be using this to give the mushroom strength.


When the Magic Sculpt has been mixed thoroughly, start using it to secure the bottom of the fantasy mushroom to the base. Blob it all around armature and blend it into the base.


Work up some more Magic Sculpt up the stem of the armature for added strength.


Start working a smaller gauge wire around the outside rim, leading to the middle like spokes of a bike wheel. Note that I have left some wire protruding out the top. This will go into the bottom of the figure sitting on top, to stop it from toppling off.


Secure all the "spokes" in the center with more Magic Sculpt. Check if it's a sturdy armature, if anything is sliding around or moving, secure it with more Magic Sculpt.


Bulk up the sculpture by wrapping the Armature completely with aluminium foil paper. Squeeze onto the sculpture tightly, making sure the armature is still strong.


Polymer clay won't stick to the foil paper, so wrap up the whole sculpture with masking tape. Make sure it's a good quality masking tape or it won't stick to the foil very well either. We want this to be a very solid foundation for our clay.


Start adding small sheets of polymer clay to the sculpture. Make sure the clay is about 5mm thick evenly, ALL OVER to ensure you cannot see any masking tape through the clay. Really focus on trying to get an even thickness over the whole sculpture.


Cover the sculpture completely and smooth off. Now we're ready to start adding details.


Add small flaps on the sides of the mushroom top to imitate how mushrooms peel. Blend it in.

Continue this step all the way around the top.

Using the pointed spoon dental tool, press in grooves on the underside of the fantasy mushroom top. Make them uneven to make it look more organic.


Ad some peeling flaps down the stem. Try not to make the polymer clay sheets any thinner than shown above or else they can be brittle.


Follow this down the stem and blend in with a tool or your thumb. Try to get it as smooth as possible. Curve the ends of the flaps into a wavy form.


With your pre-made eyes (watch out for upcoming tutorial "How to make eyes in polymer clay") insert them into the clay by pressing firmly.


I've inserted my eyes crooked as I'm going for a "mad" look. Once they're both in, layer a "top eyelid" over top of both the eyes. Keep the clay fairly thick as we'll be carving detail into it.

Do the same for the bottom.

Start pressing in detail work with your thumb or a round tool. Embossing tools work well. We are adding bags and creases around the eyes. Add a long blob for the nose and trail it between his eyes. Blend it in and shape it to how you want most of the nose to look. We're leaving the nostrils until later. Add some polymer clay which is going to form his top lip. Blend in under the nose and around the sides, but do not blend in the bottom part yet. We'll need that to start defining the top lip.

Add some cheeks....


I want the mouth to be fairly wide, so using my pointed spoon tool I'm pulling the corners of the mouth up into the cheek. Don't go overboard with this step though, you could wind up cutting the cheeks in half.


To define the top lip, drag the spoon tool up and across where you want the lip to be. This slightly flattens the area and makes it look like a lip. Don't press too hard though, or you'll wind up with a big recess where the lip was supposed to be.


Form a banana shaped piece of polymer clay and place it just under the top lip. This will form the bottom lip. Only add this piece after you're fairly happy with the top lip as it is harder to get to now you have the bottem lip on. Note that the bottem lip is shorter in width than the top one. People make the mistake all the time with the lips thinking the bottem and top lip are the same size. In reality the bottem lip is shorter and slightly tucks under the top lip.


Smooth and blend the lips until it looks how you want it to. Here I've added some small blobs of polymer clay to start forming the teeth.


Now we're forming the jaw. Add some strips of polymer clay to form the "joules" and and round piece for the chin. Blend it in.

Place two balls of polymer clay where the nostrils should be. Blend them in.


Using a rubber tipped tool (I use a Gum Stimulator) poke some holes into the clay for the nostrils. Remember, nostrils are fairly thin so make a good sized hole. If you want smaller nostrils, start with a smaller ball of clay.


Let's add the brow. Use two thick sausages of polymer clay and line it up where you want the brow to be. Depending how you place these pieces it will determine what expression your character will be pulling.


I decided that the character didn't look "cooky" enough, so I pryed open his mouth with a pointed flat sculpting tool. Blend everything in . Now you're ready to bake. I baked this sculpture for 40 minutes at 130 degrees celsius. Baking times may vary depending what clay you are using. Check the packet for instructions.


Leave the sculpture to cool in the oven. After it's cool, paint the whole sculpture in one solid colour. I want my fantasy mushroom to look a bit dirty, rustic and dark, so I've used a browny-purple colour as the base colour.

Start adding highlights. This part is up to you really, make the paint work as rough or smooth as you want, according to what style you want the finished sculpture to have.


And there you have it! One whacky looking Fantasy Mushroom Sculpture! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Please leave a comment if you have any questions or if you gave the tutorial a try :D

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Congratulations Tammy Saulnier!!

Baby picture borrowed from http://internetpaul.com/2008/08/

A big congratulations to Tammy Saulnier from B.C. Canada! You have won the August/September competition to win a miniature polymer clay baby fairy! You're sculpture will be on it's way after I collect your details.
This has been my first comp and boy was it a hard one to judge. I've had such amazing entries and it's a shame I can't hand out sculptures to everyone. I feel Tammy's entry was touching, and believable! While reading it, I found myself sinking into "Samantha's" life. I had entries of all sizes, and even though Tammy's story was the longest, I really felt it deserved to win. You all can read it on my website at http://www.twinessence.com/TAMMYcompwinner.htm

I might take this time to add that this is only a temporary page. I'm currently getting my website rebuilt to house a more visually appealing art gallery, my tutorials and I'm incorporating my blog into my website also. It's a huge job but I'm really looking forward to the results. I'm hoping to have a place in my site dedicated to competition winners and Tammy's entry will be relocated there.

I hope you all enjoy her story everyone, and a BIG thank you to all those who entered. Keep watching for more ways to win one of my artworks! It has been a lot of fun :D

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Making the Armature

This morning I got an email from one of my video viewers (my YouTube videos) and he said this:

"I have a set of 7 tools 4 of them are made in wood and 3 are in metal. I also have armature wire, but don't know what it is used for. Could you explain to me how to use the tools, wire, and clay.
And also show me how to create the human body out of clay?"

Wow. The first thing I thought was 'boy I could have fun answering this question'. I LOVE making tutorials (I only wish time allowed me to pump one out every day). The problem is, this question doesn't have a simple answer. I thought I'd do a quick write up about it though because I think it's a question a lot of beginners are wondering.

First of all, I have to make a note about the tools. I do like to use stainless steel tools and rubber tools more than wooden. I find that wooden tools tend to absorb the moisture of the clay and the clay sticks to the tool a bit. Vanished wooden tools tend to fix that problem, but the varnish tends to make the clay dirty. With all the tools I use, I definitely have two favourites. A stainless steel dental tool, and a gum stimulator.

I find that the majority of my sculpting is done with these two tools. I'm getting my website rebuilt to have a completely secure online store, and I will have those two tools available to buy should anyone want them.

As to how to use them, I'm afraid I'll have to make a video on that, as it would be impossible to describe it in writing. Unfortunately I'm quite busy at the moment so my tutorials are sitting there half-made at the moment. I will work on answering that question though so keep an eye on my YouTube videos! If you want to be updated as soon as they're up, subscribe to my email updates. Just fill out the small form on my home page at www.twinessence.com.

WIRE! Armature wire is used to create a skeleton for your sculpture. This wire is essentially what stops your sculpture from shattering to a million pieces if dropped, and if it's built strong enough it could make your sculpture virtually invincible. It would probably be more beneficial for me to make a video on how to make an armature too, but I may as well touch on it here. First of all you need some sort of reference model. I printed out a picture of a model in the position I'm going to be sculpting. I do recommend you using a model who is standing front on and straight if you're a beginner. That way you get the proportions right. For the time being I'm using the following picture.

Firstly, I made sure I printed out the picture to be the size I want the sculpture to be. This is because I lined up the armature and measured it to my reference.

I then construct the rest of the armature by twisting the wire around itself in the thicker areas of the body. In the thinner areas of the body I use a thinner gauge wire. This coiled wire gives the clay something to grip to, otherwise the clay will spin around the wire as you're sculpting, causing air pockets which makes it weaker.


For this particular sculpture, because of the size I have even armatured the hands. Usually I won't do this for a small sculpture as it's nearly impossible to get wire fine enough to conceal with clay. Also, if the wire was much finer it wouldn't make much difference to the strength of the fingers. To make sure the clay grips to the wire I've done something a little special to it. Instead of using wire to coil around it, I've used cotton thread. Once I've wrapped the wire with cotton, I put a thin layer of super glue over it to secure it. This provides a rough surface for the clay to cling to. Use a skin coloured thread if possible, this makes it easier to conceal as the polymer clay is semi-translucent.



After I have my full body armature with hands attached (or without hands if the sculpture is smaller) I start sculpting. I sculpt the hands first along with a blob around the torso and a blob on the head. This will give my sculpture something extra to hang on to. I put this in the oven, bake it according to the directions on the packet, and start sculpting the face.

After I have the face sculpted, I focus on the torso and arms. I knead the clay until soft and bulk it up around my sculpture. Squeeze it firmly onto the armature and make sure there are no air bubbles or pockets. Blend it all seamlessly to get it ready for the details.




Start adding the detail work and giving it a nice smooth finish. USE THE REFERENCE. I can't stress that enough, people make mistakes with anatomy even when they use the reference, so sculptures that were made without them genereally wind up being a disaster. It takes sculptors years before they can sculpt without a reference, and even then they usually still use one. At this point I will bake the sculpture again. I find it's a lot easier to sculpt the lower half when you have something to hang on to.



This is as far as I've got on this work in progress. I added wings before baking her to make the wings more secure. I will continue to work on her. I hope that this is enough to show you how an armature works in a sculpture. To show you HOW to use the tools and how to sculpt the body, I really need to make a video. I feel that you simply can't learn how to do it properly without a video. I'll work on it everyone. As I said, I'm quite busy at the moment, not to mention I came down with Acute Bronchitis this morning. The doctor ordered me not to leave my bed for the next few days so it's debatable how much I'll get done. Drat.

Hopefully I'll get the chance tomorrow to announce the winner of the Competition! Keep an eye out guys and gals :)

NOTE: I got a great tip from a friend at the Artist Doll Sculpture Group. Here is what she said about the wooden tools:
"With my wooden tools,i cover with oil, i like to use lemon, let it sit for a few minutes and then i wipe the tool down, getting the oil that is not absorbed into the tool off, that protects the tool and prevents it from absorbing from clay, do that every so often on all wooden tools to preserve and keep them in shape for sculpting. I learned that tip from Walter at http://www.perfect-touch.com/"

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