Bonsai Tortoise Sculpture

[MissterDog]

Very cool!! I've read a couple places mentioning apoxie being reptile safe because it's non-toxic and I think non-pourous? Do you think it would be a good base to use to make snake hides? I was originally going to try sculpey but others mentions while it says it's non-toxic, it's still very pourous and sealants only do so much.

how long does it take to dry and how do you prevent it from drying too soon? Like has it ever started to dry while you were still working on your sculpture or polishing features?

[piedlover79]

Apoxie Sculpt will be perfect for reptile stuff. Sculpty is porous and breaks *so* easily, this stuff turns to steel.

The cure time is highly temp dependent. In a room about 65 degrees it takes 4-5 hours to cure completely, it is very wet and sticky for 30 mins, takes some form in 60 mines, accepts detail for another hour, then needs to be left alone. You can not really slow it down other than making it colder so you have to have a plan when you work with it. It sands very easily and smoothly. I do my work in stages to prevent it from curing on me while I'm working on detail. However it also sticks to itself very well so you can add new wet to dry clay.

If you put it in the oven at 250 for 5 mins it will harden like a rock (but becareful because it gets softer before it gets harder this way so you need to make sure the clay is supported to keep it from collapsing. If you take it hot out of the oven and pour cold running water over it you can get some cool bumpy patterns in it.

[piedlover79]

Recent sculpture using a horse shoe and some real quartz crystal.

[MissterDog]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and clarifying things, this is super helpful! I'm hoping on starting my own sculpt project soon and I'm thinking of giving apoxie a try!

How do you normally go about layering? For example on your tortoise I'm guessing the scale details were added after the base has hardened? How well can undry apoxie clay stick to dry apoxie?

Also what sealant do you use? For reptile hides I've seen Minwax Polycrylic water based sealer suggested a fair bit.

Sorry for all the questions! Really admire your work! You got yourself a new watcher on DA :p

[piedlover79]

The wet sticks right to the dry! Minwax is perfect!

DA squeee!

[piedlover79]

More octopus! These two are set in resin as 'water'.

[Craiga 01453]

Those are awesome!!!!

[piedlover79]

Thanks! Octopus are my new favorite thing to sculpt!

[piedlover79]

Finally got back to the tortoise!

[Meerna]

Love it!