# Air dry clay for monster mud creatures?



## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Does anyone have any suggestions for an air drying clay that can be used for detailing faces of monster mud creatures? 

I tried plasticlay because it details well, but when applied over and under monster mud, the oil (or whatever) in the clay leeches out and stains the mud. It also tends to weaken the monster mud since it never really dries out.

I'm looking for something with the detail-ability of Sculpty/plasticlay, but without the shrinkage and rebound problems of Model Magic. 

Baking clays are out because I can't fit the creatures into the oven. And, I kinda doubt I'd be allowed to try anyway.

Thanks...


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## bobzilla (Nov 13, 2008)

Have you ever tried paper clay ? I've never tried it over monster mud, but have used it over paper mache. You can find it at Michaels Crafts. You might wanna try celluclay also. (The white on my busts is paper clay and the gray is celluclay)
neither one has any oils in them. Good Luck  http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...=celluclay&um=1&hl=en&sa=G&ndsp=20&tbs=isch:1 http://www.nmclay.com/mmNMCLAY/Images/silver/paperclay.jpg


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## Howlinmadjack (Jul 20, 2009)

Have to agree with Bobzilla, the celluclay works really well, and you can get great detail with it. The best part for me is that I place it in front of a fan, and it dries out pretty much overnight.


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## Jaybo (Mar 2, 2009)

Yep, Creative Paperclay can be found at Michael's. It's good stuff. Very easy to work with and can be easily detailed.


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## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Excellent! I'm going to try both paper clay and celluclay this weekend. From the looks of your picture bobzilla, it looks like this should work. It doesn't look your busts suffered from shrinkage or cracking.

Thanks again to everyone for the inputs...can't wait to try them out. You've also saved me a huge amount of time and effort trying to locate and experiment with different materials.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

You could try apoxy sculpt or magic sculpt. They are slow epoxys, but have water clean up and no shrinkage. Just an option. Creative paper clay is also very good, but it does shrink, so it needs a rough base to hold it on. I used it on plastic skull, and when it dries it shrank and popped off the skull.


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## bobzilla (Nov 13, 2008)

I made the busts almost two years ago, and no shrinkage or cracking to date !



ouizul1 said:


> Excellent! I'm going to try both paper clay and celluclay this weekend. From the looks of your picture bobzilla, it looks like this should work. It doesn't look your busts suffered from shrinkage or cracking.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for the inputs...can't wait to try them out. You've also saved me a huge amount of time and effort trying to locate and experiment with different materials.


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## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Epoxy. I'll have to take a look for those as well. I like trying new materials. Even if they don't work out today...somewhere down the road, they will.

Here's a link to a picture of the effect I'm trying to achieve. http://home.comcast.net/~ouizul/Pix/Myka%20face.JPG

If it pops off when it dries, that's okay. The plan is to put a layer of monster mud over it anyway, both to restore the mud texture and protect the sculpting.


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## She_wolf (Jul 19, 2009)

Wow!!! So far your sculpture is looking awesome!


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## nixie (Sep 17, 2008)

I agree, the sculpture is looking amazing! Is he as big as he looks in the picture?


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## Howlinmadjack (Jul 20, 2009)

Have to agree with the rest, nice sculpt!


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## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Wow. Thanks for all the good comments. It's encouraging.:smilekin:

The creature is just a little guy. His head is about 8" long x 6" wide. It's the first of hopefully more to come. 

bobzilla, how did you get your busts so smooth? I picked up some celluclay and played around with it. It's some interesting stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

You can add some liquid hand soap to the clay to make it less sticky and easier to smooth. It can also be smoothed by dipping you fingers in water first and then gently smoothing the surface.


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## The Watcher (Sep 13, 2008)

That is a very nice looking sculpt you have. I hope you will show us some more of your stuff.


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## bobzilla (Nov 13, 2008)

I used the paperclay over the celluclay and sanded it. It sands really well ! I used a fine sanding sponge. It helps when your sanding a project with contours.You can also sand the celluclay with med. to course sand paper. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...s?q=sanding+sponge&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbs=isch:1



ouizul1 said:


> Wow. Thanks for all the good comments. It's encouraging.:smilekin:
> 
> The creature is just a little guy. His head is about 8" long x 6" wide. It's the first of hopefully more to come.
> 
> bobzilla, how did you get your busts so smooth? I picked up some celluclay and played around with it. It's some interesting stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it.


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## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Been experimenting with the celluclay and some air dry stuff from DAS. 

The DAS stuff works well but doesn't really like to stick to dry surfaces. Misting the mud with water did finally allow it to stick and hold. It's a good substitute for plasticlay in looks, feel, and workability. But it does stink like kinda nasty astringent medicine. Drys hard without noticeable shrinkage.

The celluclay is just awesome! When it dries, the surface tends to roughen up and ends up looking like weathered stone. No matter how smooth it was when it was wet. This is okay. Like bobzilla said, sanding it smooth works fine.

I was surprised at how well celluclay holds up to against a dremel tool. I attacked some test pieces with just about every cutting, grinding, and sanding tool I had available and at rpms from 1000 to 9000. I was able to carve in some really fine detail and some really deep details without any issues at all.

This is truly some amazing stuff!


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## sluggo (Jun 16, 2010)

From what I gather reading this thread, the consensus is that Celluclay doesn't have shrinkage issues. I have used Celluclay over a Bucky skull base. I am seeing cracking in a number of spots. I was assuming it was due to shrinkage. Is it possible something else is causing the cracking?


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## ouizul1 (May 22, 2010)

Well, celluclay does shrink as it dries. As to whether or not it's a problem depends on the application. I've made a few small stand-alone pieces and they definitely shrank as they dried, but without cracking because there was nothing inhibiting the shrinkage.

I'm thinking you have cracks because the celluclay was wrapped around a rigid form which is keeping the clay from being able to shrink in upon itself and reduce it's diameter as it dries. The clay is going to shrink a certain amount...no matter what. 

For example, if you roll out a bit of the clay into a strip 3" long and let it dry flat, you will find that after it dries it will be less than 3" long. Let's say for the sake of argument that it shrinks to a length of 2 3/4". Now, if you wrap it around a rigid form with a 3" circumference, it is still going to shrink by the same amount and you'll be trying to cover 3" of area with only 2 3/4" of material. If effect, you're trying to stretch the clay to make up the difference. If the material is not flexible/elastic enough to make up the difference then stress cracks will appear to make up the difference. And celluclay is not very elastic after it dries.


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## sluggo (Jun 16, 2010)

Ok, thanks. That confirms what I suspected. It seemed like people here were saying that Celluclay doesn't shrink, which seemed to contradict what I was seeing. I suspect your explanation is right on, and there's probably little I can do about it.


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