I need your help to know how I can make a good figure :)

Hello,

I would like to make a Theropithecus Gelada and I'm going to start in my holidays of October.

Here is the material that I have;



I have any questions;

1) Are these Tools good for the sculptures?

2) What kind of clay I must use and what kind of wire is the best (I think the wire must be bigger) ?

3) What are the "big steps" to sculpt the body?

4) How do you do to sculpt the figure in several steps without deforming the different parts of the body that you have already made with the clay ?

5) How do you sculpt legs and hands ?

6) Just to know , how it costs to make copies ?

I'm really interested and I really want to make a figure. I think I can do this one with a lot of patience :))

Here is the picture for my sculpture (I taken other images to know how I must sculpt the body and the head).



So, can someone help me?

Thanks a lot for your help :)))))))))

I look very much forward to se what happens - not the easiest model that you chose, - but beautyful

I can't help you (sorry!) but I wish you luck in your endeavours!

Nice monkey, I think it will be nice model  


I am not expert, but I hope I can help 


1) Are these Tools good for the sculptures?
   I think they are


2) What kind of clay I must use and what kind of wire is the best (I think the wire must be bigger) ?

   I don´t know, but if you want make quality model, maybe you can use super sculpey if you have it  or air drying modeling clay?


3) What are the "big steps" to sculpt the body?

    Oh,...this is hard question, i hope somebody can have good answer

4) How do you do to sculpt the figure in several steps without deforming the different parts of the body that you have already made with the clay ?
    I make rough outline of the body, then then refine details and then coat the finest details


5) How do you sculpt legs and hands ?
   I do small roll from material and then impale on the wire. And then details of course :-D

6) Just to know , how it costs to make copies ?
   I don´t know, when you will know it can you tell me it?

I hope this can at least a little help

Thanks Carolina for your piece of advice

Hi Florian, I will try to answer your questions too

1) Are these Tools good for the sculptures?

Yes, they look OK!

2) What kind of clay I must use and what kind of wire is the best (I think the wire must be bigger) ?

Try Fimo, or Super Sculpey (firm or regular one) or Sculpey III or Premo. Also Apoxie is good but mainly to making some corrections later on.  The wire you have is OK.

3) What are the "big steps" to sculpt the body? 4) How do you do to sculpt the figure in several steps without deforming the different parts of the body that you have already made with the clay ?

First you need to make skeleton, then the inner layer. After that you can bake it for the first time. Then you work on general shape of animal and when you like it you can start sculpting details. At the end you can add fur texture. If you like you can sculpt first one part then bake it and after that work on second half-that way you are able to avoid squeezing the soft parts. You can also leave one place to hold a figure and later after baking sculpt this part with Apoxie.

5) How do you sculpt legs and hands ?


As with every part you need to observe real thing and then make a general shape first and add details when you are satisfied with the general shape. I don't know the easier way.

6) Just to know , how it costs to make copies ?

It depends if you want to do it by yourself or ask a company for doing it for you.
For the material costs: silicone costs about 30Euro per kg and resin is also 30E per kg. (1kg resin is about 5-7 figures of size like Schleich horse). For average mould you need 1-2 kg silicone.

Nice project!!! Good luck!

Thank you very much Anna for your help

I was thinking that a gelada was too difficult so I decided to start a nilgai.

What do you think? However the head is a little big but it's my first so the size will be bigger :))

Great job especially for a first attempt

Thanks Abby

It looks nice