Clay Bronze
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What clay should I use to sculpt a life size statue that will be casted in metal?
I am a sculptor, and am planning on creating a life size statue of a man preforming karate. I have not worked with many clays before except sculpey and some kiln fired clay. I was woundering what would be the best clay to use if I needed to sculpt this. I am not vey fimiliar with the casting process, and am not sure if I need a clay that remains soft like pastillina, or some kind that hardens. This statue will be cast in bronze or metal. Can you give me some guidence please?
Thanks so much, Sarah
anything that size you (or somebody you pay for doing it) has to make a mold of it. So the best would be using an oil-based clay on an armature (if you can weld that this will be best) so you can keep working on it without having to worry about it drying out.
As oil based clay is clearly more expensive than water based clay unless you mix it yourself you may opt for water based clay. Then I would recommend making paper clay, as the paper fibers in the clay give it additional stability and especially allow to remoisten modeled clay more easily. The paper fibers suck e.g. spray moisture deeper into the clay than it would get otherwise. Still, eventually it will get unworkable. Wet paper clay also can get fairly smelly if you store it for a few weeks without using it.
After making a mold from your sculpture a wax (of a thickness of about a 1/4 inch) has to be made from the mold. To cast it into bronze there will be a couple of additional steps, and depending on the foundry they may not be able to cast it in one piece, which means it has to be welded together after casting. I would visit an art foundry, tell them you are a future customer and they are probably willing to explain the process to you and show you around. Or at least look up lost wax casting.
The whole thing is not going to be cheap, also because bronze keeps going up in price. It's now about 3 times as expensive than about 5 or 6 years ago...
Depending on the pose (and how gravity defying) the statue is going to be you also need to figure out how it is going to be attached to its base before it is cast. It may be a good idea to cast whatever anchoring system is used into the sculpture.
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