Polymer Clay Fan

Using a heat gun to bake a sculpture

One of the more recent additions to my workbench is a heat gun. I initially purchased a heat gun because one of the sculptures that I was working on was too large to fit into my oven. Although it takes a little longer then baking a sculpture in the oven, my heat gun allowed me to cure my sculpture so that it can later one be prepared for a mold. Since my purchase I have learned that the heat gun is also a great tool if you want to only bake certain parts of your sculpture.

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Attaching the arm

All right, so we have rebuilt the arm and now it is finally time to reattach it back to the sculpture. I went ahead and baked the existing arm so that I did not mess up any of the details. In hindsight this method could be improved if you planned to use the polymer clay sculpture as a final piece.

Even though the arm did attach relatively well there are a few weak points which I will point out in a minute. If I had to do it all over again I would want to do a better job of anchoring the arm into the shoulder instead of relying on a thin piece of clay as the support (probably would use wire, some form of bondo or superglue – however make sure whatever you use is not toxic if you have to heat it up in an oven or with a heat gun).

1. Apply a thin layer of Vaseline to the base of the arm and the shoulder where the arm is missing.
2. Add a layer of fresh clay to the arm
3. Attach the arm and blend the clay from the shoulder to the upper arm
4. Bake the sculpture (or heat the area with a heat gun)

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Recently I had put together a little article that outlines some of the key differences between sculpting with wax and polymer clays (http://www.polymerclayfan.com/sculpting-with-wax-vs-polymer-clay.htm). In hindsight, the review was more of a comparison between sculpting with Super Sculpey and a relatively new wax called FUSE. I think it is important to point out that not all polymer clays are created equal and the same case could be made for wax. As of the writing of this article, FUSE is the only wax I have ever tried so the chances are that my opinions regarding sculpting with wax could drastically change from one wax product to another.

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Why bake individual parts of a sculpture?

Adding detail to a sculpture is probably the most time consuming part of sculpting. I have personally spent hours and sometimes days detailing just one area of a sculpture. Depending on your skill level, experience and speed, sculpting individual body parts like the face and arms can be a time consuming process.

I am a very “hands on” sculptor in the sense that I like to hold and grab the sculpture with one hand while sculpting with the other. I do not have hands as steady as a surgeons so at times I will grab the sculpture with my free hand. Unfortunately in the past I have accidentally grabbed an area of a sculpture that I had spent a lot of time detailing. As one expects, my hard work usually ends up with a giant fingerprint or smudge running through it.To bypass this problem you can bake your sculpture in stages using a heat gun. This is really beneficial when you are not ready to bake the entire sculpture.

Baking individual parts tutorial

To better explain the process I am going to use an example of a warrior angel sculpture that I am working on. In this example I have already detailed the angels right arm and chest but I still have a lot of work to do on the left side of the body and his face. * Click on the thumbnails to see a larger view of the picture
** This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey

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