peto blog: [wip] Fun with Sculpey

[ 06.01.08 ]

I wanted to find out how Sculpey behaves when cured so decided to try something simple:

Rolled out the parts and baked them for 15 minutes. The result is something a bit softer than resin, but very workable - not tacky, easily sanded and drilled. I pinned the parts like a normal resin kit and found that the surface bond when tacky is very fragile when cured. Each of the blocks in the antennae broke apart with slight force and had to be glued. This is actually a good thing, since it means it should be easier to make parts fitted together and seperate them after curing.

Oryzae-tan, about 2.5cm tall. Finishing it from here on would be just like doing a regular resin kit.

After wet sanding, antennae rounded and mouth filled in with some putty. On top of a penny for size reference.

I need to wait for the putty to cure to work on the mouth and also cure the base. I'm going to finish painting him and set him on my monitor at work. :D

[ 06.03.08 ]

Let's brew!! I decided to make more oryzae-tans and thought about making a mould to cast them, but I've never done casting and they're so small I'm not sure how to layout the mould. It was easier to just sculpt more and each one is slightly different which gives them some character.

Fresh from the oven, here they are stuck to my work lamp. I embeded a 1/16" NdFeB magnet into each base so they will stick to any metal surface, at any angle, even upside down. I think these will do for now. I'll sand down the new ones and then start painting.

[ 06.05.08 ]

And some friends...

[ 06.08.08 ]

I accidentally let some paint dry in my airbrush for a few days. After painting Satsuki, I wanted to clean it in the ultrasonic, but got caught up in taking photos and left it on the counter. It took a few days of soaking in cleaner before I could dislodge the dried paint, but it's back in service now and the spray pattern looks about the same as before.

Base coat sprayed with white mixed in a sealer. It seems that paint adheres to sculpey slightly different than resin, so I had to spray in even thinner layers to avoid droplets beading up. This will get a light sanding when cured and then the actual colors will go on.

You might have noticed I bought a new cutting mat. I left some uncured sculpey on my old mat (the purple one) and it reacted with the mat surface. There are warnings on sculpey to not place it uncured on fine furniture, but it seems to react to a lot of surfaces. The warning should probably be don't place uncured sculpey on anything you don't want damaged. It doesn't react to aluminum foil, so I've been placing it on foil since.

[ 06.19.08 ]

I've been testing out the new PC by playing Orange Box, which had been sitting in my steam account for ages, thus neglecting these little guys. I finally sprayed on the colors tonight:

I don't think I'll shade them as they look like claymation figures, which is the idea - plus this little project was just for me to figure out how to work with sculpey.

[ 06.21.08 ]

Eyes painted, assembled and sprayed with Future to seal. Too glossy though, so they'll get a flat finish later and be done. They like hanging around my work lamp.. shoo!