Adam Beane's Sculpting Tutorial DVD and New Sculpting Material

[Wake]

This looks awesome. I wanna check these out.

 

[cloudfilter]

Ok so here are my (belated) impressions of this stuff. Bear in mind that this is in relation to how I'm used to working so I don't want to sound like I'm slagging it off, but I don't think this is the material for me. I've used Super Sculpey Firm for three years and Casteline Hard for the last six months.

The good: I love the colour and matte surface texture, the casts I made from silicone moulds of some of my old heads looked just like untextured 3d model renders on the computer. Well, apart from the bubbles. It would be very easy to see what you're doing with every last detail while sculpting and it must photograph very well too I imagine.

The less good: To reiterate this is just how I work so these aren't necessarily product flaws but they make it no good for me. When the leaflet in the packet said hard as plastic at room temperature they meant it. I'd liken it to a decent bar of dark chocolate just taken out of the freezer. You can scratch it with a pin but it's very brittle and shatters or flakes if you try to carve it. You can heat it up with your lamp, obviously, but it cools incredibly quickly so you'd need to hold it one or two inches from the lamp permanently while you worked it if you're not using an electric tool. Holding my carver in a flame then carving a little bit then back to the flame resulted in the CX5 melting to very liquid state when I first touched the tool to it then rapidly hardening again to unworkable within seconds. Basically unless you work with an electric Wax Pen as your only tool I can't see you getting very far with this. Which seems a problem for 1/6 scale as I've never seen small detail tips available for electric pens, not like the sewing needle size ones we need for corners of mouths and eyelids and so on. This testing was done in England in January by the way, Hawaiian and Arizonan board members might have more luck.

The quite bad: This stuff smells pretty bad when it's hot. It's a kind of artificial spice type smell which gives the impression to me that CX5 naturally smelled bad and they tried to add a strong perfume to cover it up. Whatever the reason behind it though the effect is not good at all. At first it's a kind of soft pleasant cinnamon spice like standing just outside Santa's Grotto or something but after half an hour its like the elves are holding you down while Santa forces your nose into his armpit. I wouldn't like to have a pot of it in a melter next to me for a whole afternoon.

 

[robbiethepainter]

I had the exact same experience. I was hoping to use this material to cast heads and then do mods to them but the bubbles were a major problem. I even heated my molds in hopes it would give me a window of work time to get some of them out but it didn't. It could be I'm too depended on clay techniques and this is a wax material.

Ok so here are my (belated) impressions of this stuff. Bear in mind that this is in relation to how I'm used to working so I don't want to sound like I'm slagging it off, but I don't think this is the material for me. I've used Super Sculpey Firm for three years and Casteline Hard for the last six months.

The good: I love the colour and matte surface texture, the casts I made from silicone moulds of some of my old heads looked just like untextured 3d model renders on the computer. Well, apart from the bubbles. It would be very easy to see what you're doing with every last detail while sculpting and it must photograph very well too I imagine.

The less good: To reiterate this is just how I work so these aren't necessarily product flaws but they make it no good for me. When the leaflet in the packet said hard as plastic at room temperature they meant it. I'd liken it to a decent bar of dark chocolate just taken out of the freezer. You can scratch it with a pin but it's very brittle and shatters or flakes if you try to carve it. You can heat it up with your lamp, obviously, but it cools incredibly quickly so you'd need to hold it one or two inches from the lamp permanently while you worked it if you're not using an electric tool. Holding my carver in a flame then carving a little bit then back to the flame resulted in the CX5 melting to very liquid state when I first touched the tool to it then rapidly hardening again to unworkable within seconds. Basically unless you work with an electric Wax Pen as your only tool I can't see you getting very far with this. Which seems a problem for 1/6 scale as I've never seen small detail tips available for electric pens, not like the sewing needle size ones we need for corners of mouths and eyelids and so on. This testing was done in England in January by the way, Hawaiian and Arizonan board members might have more luck.

The quite bad: This stuff smells pretty bad when it's hot. It's a kind of artificial spice type smell which gives the impression to me that CX5 naturally smelled bad and they tried to add a strong perfume to cover it up. Whatever the reason behind it though the effect is not good at all. At first it's a kind of soft pleasant cinnamon spice like standing just outside Santa's Grotto or something but after half an hour its like the elves are holding you down while Santa forces your nose into his armpit. I wouldn't like to have a pot of it in a melter next to me for a whole afternoon.

 

[Grosby]

I just saw that there were new posts here.

Holding my carver in a flame then carving a little bit then back to the flame resulted in the CX5 melting to very liquid state when I first touched the tool to it then rapidly hardening again to unworkable within seconds. Basically unless you work with an electric Wax Pen as your only tool I can't see you getting very far with this.

I only had experience with Sculpey and I found it tough to achieve smooth, fine details in CX5 at first too but after a while I got to a point where it was comparable to Sculpey (maybe even easier because I didn't have to worry about squishing nearby parts as I worked). I use an alcohol lamp, which I leave always burning, and then I just touch the tool to the flame for a short moment. You don't need to leave it to the point that it would burn your own skin, just lightly warm it up and it'll make smooth marks without flaking. If it melts on touch, you've held it to the flame too long. Alternatively, touch the sculpt to the flame for a second. If you just try different things I think you'll get it.

About the CX5 cooling down: if you can get a hang of how long to hold the tool to the flame then all you have to worry about is the tool, it seems to me. I agree though that it cools quickly - the video gives the impression that it stays workable for a long while, by the warmth of your hand, but I'm not finding that at all. Hand warmth seems to do absolutely nothing.

I haven't put a whole lot of time into using CX5 so far, probably about 20 hours at most. I've just been messing around with it, not working on a project. I feel I'm getting a hang of it in some areas but in others it's tough. It's not as intuitive as I expected and I don't think the DVD is as helpful as I thought before actually using the CX5. At the moment I can see myself sticking with it though - it feels like it can work out in the end. Compared to Sculpey, I like how rapidly you can build a figure, that's a big benefit. I also like that it's hard and you don't much worry about ruining one corner of the eye as you work on the other, etc. Smoothing details out though I've found not as easy as with Sculpey. Other things I can't think of now.

The quite bad: This stuff smells pretty bad when it's hot. It's a kind of artificial spice type smell which gives the impression to me that CX5 naturally smelled bad and they tried to add a strong perfume to cover it up.

Yeah, to me it smells like old lavender on something. I worry about it. Supposedly it's non-toxic but that's a pretty strong and strange odour it gives off.

 

[dchung]

I might give this a whirl...

Grosby... have you tried working in conventional sculpting waxes? The benefits you mention are those of sculpting in wax versus clays (polymer or otherwise)... Having said that, I'm wondering if there are reasons CX5 is superior to wax?

Any insight greatly appreciated!

 

[Grosby]

No, I've only ever tried SuperSculpey, Sculpey Firm, and CX5. I'm also just a bum, to be clear. I'm just a beginner with sculpting, still struggling with basic things and have very limited experience, so I'm no one to really comment on what might be best and whatnot.

 

[uscmhicks]

I'm also just a bum, to be clear.

I think the majorety of us are here.
Who can resist giving it a shot though with some of the amazing artists here for inspiration.

 

[dchung]

No, I've only ever tried SuperSculpey, Sculpey Firm, and CX5. I'm also just a bum, to be clear. I'm just a beginner with sculpting, still struggling with basic things and have very limited experience, so I'm no one to really comment on what might be best and whatnot.

I'm a bum too. lol...

I've worked in Sculpey, Supersculpey, Supersculpey firm as well... and wax is much better at holding tight detail. It's also rigid when cool, so you won't damage other areas when handling. Unlike the polymer clays, which you bake every now and then (kinda like hitting "save" when typing up a long document), wax is a lot easier to carve. The downside is you can't push and pull it, or smear it on to build up thickness. You have to use a wax pen.

It was in trying to recapture the ability to do this (push/pull, build up thickness/layering) that I'd try CX5. And not having to build armature for a body... that'd be cool too.

Anybody try out these techniques in CX5 yet?

 

[Grosby]

I'm the chief bum.

In CX5 it's easy to build up thickness and also connect pieces. The DVD recommends heating up both points of contact (takes about 2 seconds) for the greatest strength but you can heat up just one side and it'll still stick and stay. In the DVD he at one points roughs out a full figure and then decides the torso is not long enough, so he gets a knife and cuts through the body in half, then adds some CX5 to lengthen it, then sticks it back together with no trouble. He also removes parts of the body, such as the head and hands, to work on more easily, and then smoothly attaches them again.

When making the figure he actually builds a kind of armature out of CX5. He rolls up long pieces of it and shapes the frame of the figure, then bends it in the pose he wants and then he builds on top of that with more CX5.

In searching for reviews I found this link. There's not much there but there's some comments on how it compares with other waxes:

https://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=131832

 

[dchung]

Been fooling around with some CX5 lately...

It basically handles like a very firm wax. You'll need a wax pen and all that jazz... but now I've got a couple of questions:

1. anybody else have problems where, I guess it must be the oils from my fingers, but after some handling, the surfaces gets gummy/tacky?

2. what is the best liquid solvent to use for polishing?

If I can't figure out these issues, i'm gonna have to go back to wax...

 

[Grosby]

And I return once again! It's funny, I keep thinking about sculpting, imagining myself getting a handle on things there, but I'm no further along than I was a three years ago. I'm a skilled/competent self-taught illustrator, I understand the nature of learning and how to overcome difficult points on my own, but with sculpting it's really proving weirdly tough for me. I've never truly committed, a lot of stopping and starting, I guess that might be part of the problem or maybe all of it. One day though! Or maybe never!

Anyhow, while fantasizing about sculpting once again, I found that Beane has been putting up more videos on Youtube, he now four one-hour-long sculpting/technique videos. Three months ago he put these up but only just now did I see them. If anyone else missed them, they're here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/AdamBeaneSculptor/videos

 

[hollys]

wowow it's amazing !!
I just entered his site and I saw his works.
thank you for informing this site to me.