Sculpey - Projects and Products using Sculpey Polymer Clays!
But, it's not for everyone. I use it because of the feel. Unless you have sculpted that won't make sense though..i geuss it's like the difference between acrylics, oil paints, and water color. Because if the clay is to soft, it won't lend itself to detail, but it won't need kneading. If it's too firm, it will lend very well to detail, but for the main mold it will take a long time to knead. That's why play-do is so hard to sculpt with. It's not firm enough.
But if you want to carve, don't do it with poly clay. I use some tools for my polyclay, too.
In my opinion the best tool by far, (you won't need much more than this) is an exacto knife. You can stick it in and make holes in the clay, then get little beads of another color and put it inside the hole so that it squeezes out to make good eyes. You can cut perfect clay sizes with it. You can carefully remove peices of clay that stuck on accidentaly, which is very useful if you do not keep every color seperate(that's me). You can fine tune the shape of you sculpture with it.

You have to bake poly clay at 275", for an amount of time that depends on your sculpture. The main problem with sculpey is that the size limit is about...pencil high. And to do that, you'll need wire and some metal. I used peices of coat hangers inside Blohard's arms, and legs. Then i had to support him from behind with a nail.
The other problem is that while a good density, you can't detaiil it as much as stone. But that goes for pretty much all clays. For bigger sculptures you can use that air dry clay, but keep it wet. If you use air-dry clay, you can make pate, dissolving some bits of clay in water. Pate is like glue for clay , but it doesn't work after the clay is hard ( i think).
I have used air dry clay once or twice, my biggest project with it was a 4-inch king kong that i gave as a birthday present to a friend. You could also use Femo polyclay, but it's toxic, don't rub your eyes or eat. I am starting to think about carving from things, though.
If you want to carve, you could try soap at first. I tried, it it was pretty fun. I made a christmas tree (it started as a fish, LAWL.) And a tiki with arms. But i'm not so good at carving, it's just that you can have more detail that way. You can also buy some non-bake clay for practice. For this i use claymator's clay. I like to make monsters, then have them tear eachother apart in a deadly tournament. I give them names like "cyclops" "brainhammer(my dad's)" and " thunder lizard" the latest: "Armed dillo" and "hive" and "Vesuvious".
Thanks if anyone actually had time to read this!
P.S. I believe i am using sculpey III. It's in the site i posted HERE.

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