Sculpting David Duchovny 2

He's been through is first bake. As you can see, when he came out of the oven he had a couple of cracks on his face. This is not a problem, because I use Kato clay, it does have a tendency to show cracks when it comes from the oven, but they close up most of the way as the clay cools. I normally don't see cracks like this when I bake over wood, so there must be something that relates to using the sculpey ultra light as an armature.

 

After the first bake of a Shimai head, I paint it and then coat it with a layer of Translucent Liquid Sculpey. I do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly to make the paint more durable. Secondly to add strength to the sculpture, and thirdly to fill any little cracks that have developed during the first bake.

Below is a picture of Mulder's face after it's been painted. You can see by the picture that the cracks have closed up partially just during the cooling time that it took for me to paint him.

He is now in the oven on his second back with his TLS skin applied. In about 10 minutes I'll be able to remove him and start to assemble his body.

xoxo