Latest Scratch built Polymer Clay Original Sculpture of Aspergillus Mold humanoid Woman Statue

 

I thought it was time I did another complete scratch built sculpture before doing another work from a press mold. In this post I am going to show how I created my Standing Aspergillus Lady from scratch. She will be posted to my Etsy shop once I'm finished painting her. This post will only cover the sculpting part. 

I started off with a wire armature with only a little bit of foil in the torso area. For polymer clay I am using super sculpey living doll mixed with colors of cernit translucent clay. This sculpture finishes up the custom mix that I have been using for my last few polymer clay creations. The cernit that I received from mail order Michaels was incredibility crumbly. I have not used cernit before outside of this purchase from Michaels, but I would think that the clay is just old as opposed to that's how it was supposed to be. Mixing with super sculpey seemed to work well, although it took awhile to get a nice mixture. I liked the blue tint of this mixture. 

For sculpting tools, I am using a hard wooden tool that was actually original purchased as part of a doll making kit from Patricia Rose many many years ago. I almost ruined by having epoxy resin dry on it but I think I was able to save it.

 Also I use Clay shapers by Royal Sovereign Ltd. You can get cheaper silicone tip tools on Amazon but these are really made better. The extra firm black tip ones are the ones to get and they work well for any type of sculpting, Blick sells size 0,2, and 6 in 5 different shape tips sets. I only got the flat chisel in size 6, shown above, since I try not to sculpt too big. 

I start off just adding clay to the armature. Because this a humanoid type sculpture I am not concerned too much for the hands, individual legs, etc. 

At this point I baked the sculpture for the first time in the Deni oven, about 250F for 10mins or so. I am not concerned with the back of the sculpture at this point, so I lay the clay figure flat on the tile. After baking the areas in contact with the tile will be flat. I know many people use their regular oven to bake clay but I just don't feel comfortable doing so. Many times I find oily residue inside the Deni oven in-between bakes. I read that if I don't bake completely, this will happen. But for my final bake I bake for the full duration thickness at 275F, still finding the oily residue inside. I just really recommend getting a stand alone oven just for clay. I only spent maybe $50-60 on this. The only downside is to be limited by the space of the oven. This setup wont work for really huge one piece sculptures. 

After the basic shape is there, I start working on the face next. I carve, then sanding, followed by adding additional clay back. Cycle repeat until satisfied. 

Here is some progression pictures of the face. 

I move on to working on the hair next. 

next sculpting progression, working more on the hair. I switch between using the wooden tool and the clay shapers. 

I work on the body a little bit more. I am going for as if the body is made up of hyphae. 

Sculpting progression back of hair. 

Next baking I already did quite a bit of details on the back so I don't want it all be flatted by the baking. I put a layer of cotton balls underneath the sculpture, and on top of the tiles. I put the cotton balls in foil to kinda keep them together. I had before where once the oven turned on the individual cotton balls swirled all around the oven. 

At this point I am done with the polymer clay and will finish up this sculpture using Fixit Sculpt. Why? I sculpted this one as a standing figure, so I want the bottom of the sculpture to be as the base, and be nice and strong. I actually think a screwed up woth some of the hair peices, I should have done them in fixit sculpt instead of polymer clay. It seems to be fine now but I just worry if the hair stand is strong enough. 

Fixit Sculpt will just stuck to anything. The Idea is to just have it gradually flow into the base part. I really will miss this color of polymer clay since it looks to be a good match for fixit sculpt once cured. Fixit Sculpt is very soft until it hardens. It hardened on a slight slant that needs to be sanded. 

I added in some more fixt sculpt to fill in some areas, I couldnt do the whole thing in one batch. 

The sculpture is almost done at this point. You cannot see where the polymer clay ends and the Fixit Sculpt begins. 

I used 100 grit sandpaper in a bin filled with water and went back and forth until the bottom was sanded flat and the sculpture could stand on its own. 

Here I'm gluing the conidia to the phialides. 

And this is it until painting. Working time probably would have been only a few hours if I was able to work on this continuously, maybe 5-6 before painting.

I will post a short priming video before moving on to the painting. 

OOAK Mushroom pixie boy Water Mixable Oil Painting with Artisan and Duo Aqua Holbein Paints WIP Tutorial

 

Here is the final post for this Mushroom Pixie Boy Sculpture 

Originally I got the Artisan Water Mixable oil paints from Michaels. At the time that was the only water mixable oil paint brand that they carry, I'm not sure if they now carry other brands currently. Artisan is fine to use but compared to Duo Aqua water mixable oils, they dry more slowly, appear to have more gloss, and are more wet.

I got my Duo Aqua paints from Blick art supplies. These paints are more stuff, appear more matte, and dry quicker than Artisan. These are the only two water mixable oil brands that I have tried. I do intermix them with one another. Interestingly Duo Aqua states it can be mixed with acrylic paint, where Artisan says not too. 

Usually I just paint straight from the tube. These paints are now very old at this point. I first got them around 2009, so about 15 years old. Some of the colors are stiffer but I used very little painting medium mixed together in the paint to get it to its original consistency.  

Here I spread the paints on a flat plate palette. These paints dry much more slowly than acrylics. 

Not shown was that I had made the skin tone less green still with acrylics. I had tried before to paint straight with water mixable oils on a white or off-white surface but it really increased the painting time, since the paints are more translucent, brush strokes would show through and it took more coats to get even coverage, etc. So painting over a base coat of acrylics first I think was great since I'm just concentrating on the shading aspect.  

I tried two ways: first is I just applied alittle bit of water mixable oil on top of the acrylic and tried to spread it across the surface. The problem with this is that the paint did not glide so well. then I thought to add oil or painting medium on top to help it spread better. 

The final version how I shade with water mixable oils is to just repaint the full surface with a base coating of a similar color to what is underneath. Then apply the shading colors on top and blend all together. 

I painted light colors to dark colors. This way when I have to repaint the areas where the paint went to the wrong spot, its much easier to correct than going dark to light. Usually when I am at this stage of painting, I have the model/sculpture firmly attached to the base. This way I don't have to handle the main figure anymore. In this case I wasn't use if I wanted to keep the figure independent from the base. In the end, I decided to permanently attach it to the base using magic smooth, as I thought the figure shouldn't be handled too much after painting. This way, the base can be the main handling point instead of the figure. So I made more work for myself by not attaching the figure to the base before final painting. 

Here is what the base looked like unfinished. I used hearty clay over a wire and tin form armature. Then attached it the wooden base with magic smooth. Also I used magic smooth for grass texture. 

Here I am painting the mushroom cap. I used Artisan Cadmium reds paint. They have great coverage, but they do contain cadmium so handle with care. Usually, I am always wearing nitrile gloves while painting nowadays.  If you remember from part one of painting with acrylics, I had previously painted the white spots in acrylic, but here I just covered the whole area with red and readded the white spots at the end. It was just easier this way and smoother blending for me. 

This one is currently for sale in my Etsy Shop if interested: 

https://blueorandasculpts.etsy.com/listing/4345332096/ooak-woodland-mushroom-elf-sculpture

Watch My Painting Process: 

If you'd like to see a quick video of my painting progress, you can watch it here. 

Finishing a Polymer Clay Elf Pixie | Part 2: Water Mixable Oil Painting on Fantasy Sculpture WIP

Completed pictures below:

OOAK Mushroom pixie boy Acrylic Base Painting with Vallejo and FolkArt Chalk paints WIP Tutorial

 

Before painting, I hand brush Liquitex Gesso on the sculpture. Originally this was a polymer clay sculpture, but I have used Liquitex Gesso as primer for many things, including resin minis, garage kits, epoxy sculptures, etc. It is best to get no brush strokes by working an entire area at once. Clearing any area that appears to have air bubbles. Once dry there will be no brush strokes. It can take some practice to get the consistency just right. Too thick or too thin is no good. Once dry for 24hrs, the surface should be scratch resistant. 

Recently I got some Folkart chalk acrylic paints to try out. They are really used for furniture, but I got them because they are supposed to be scratch resistant and also no primer needed before application. Using regular folk art, Americana, Delta, etc brands of craft acrylic paint alone on a sculpture will peel right off if you were to scratch it. For the chalk paint to claim no surface prep necessary, it must be a really scratch resistant paint. 

The other paint in the picture, and what I ended up using mostly, is Vallejo model color acrylics. These are specifically formulated for mini painting. I've only ever painted minis for display, but supposing you use them for gaming, you would be handling them a lot and so you want strong paint that won't come off easily. These are my go-to paints for any model kit or sculpture.  

The consistency of the chalk paint is very thick. For the purpose of painting a sculpture, it should be thinned down to prevent brush strokes. I ended up only using it for the red of the mushroom cap shown below. 

I put a little bit of paint onto a regular welled palette, all the colors I am going to use at one sitting. 

I am just painting the base coat so that everything is uniform in color before I shade with water mixable oils. So I am not doing any shading with Vallejo paints for this sculpture, except the eyes slightly.

The red now is the folkart chalk paint. I thinned with water. once dry it really was scratch resistant. I'm not sure how it would do for shading, but its fine as a base coat. 

At this point the base coat of acrylic painting is finished. Now I work on the eyes. 

Here I do the same step one eye at a time. 

Last step was painting the white of the mushroom caps. 

Thats the end of part one of painting, 

Watch My Painting Process:

If you'd like to see a quick video of my acrylic base painting progress, you can watch it here:

Painting a Polymer Clay Elf Pixie | Part 1: Acrylic Base Layers on Fantasy Sculpture WIP