Tiny miniatures, Help!

[justme]

Hi,
I need to make highly detailed 1 1/2" figures for a client. The finished pieces need to be in wax, the client will do the casting.
I'm hoping some of you have worked this small and can tell me things like what do I sculpt them out of? Do I start with the final wax? Do I buy special hard wax? Or do I make them out of something like sculpey, bake, mold, pour in wax?
I will really appreciate some experienced advice.
Thanks a bunch. It's so nice to have this community.
Julie

[justme]

Hi Everyone,
I've gotten no replies. so I'm trying againg.
Thanks, Julie

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Hi,
I need to make highly detailed 1 1/2" figures for a client. The finished pieces need to be in wax, the client will do the casting.
I'm hoping some of you have worked this small and can tell me things like what do I sculpt them out of? Do I start with the final wax? Do I buy special hard wax? Or do I make them out of something like sculpey, bake, mold, pour in wax?
I will really appreciate some experienced advice.
Thanks a bunch. It's so nice to have this community.
Julie

[HappySculpting]

Hi Julie-

There is tons of info on sculpting small miniatures over at The Clubhouse. http://theclubhouse1.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=9 And if you post there, in a matter of a day you will have probably 10 posts or more with people trying to help. It's a very active forum made up primarily of guys who make the action figures and garage kits. They work mainly small and often post their little head busts.

If you simply want to search prior posts, you'll still have to join the site. It's very easy to join and then your off to having lots of answers. There is a guy there named Ralph or Toxic Papa that sells a really good wax and gives lots of great advice too.

Hope this helps,

Tamara

P.S. From the home page, you'll need to go to the "Sculptors Forum".

[BMBourgoyne]

Any of those approaches will work-- it just depends on your preference and working style. Personally, I'd model them directly into victory brown wax, or perhaps "Casteline" which is a wax based modeling compound that can be burned out of an investment. Harder waxes will be better for carving details, though I just freeze my Victory brown wax models for that.

The downside of this approach is you have no back-up if the casting fails, and you'll have to re-model from scratch. Molding and casting waxes from an original made of something else gives you that insurance, but more work too. If the figures are variations of the same, you could mold and cast duplicates of the first, and then modify from there.

good luck with it.
Brad

[justme]

Thanks Tamara and Brad,
I'm taking all of your advice. This is so great to have people to ask.
I joined the clubhouse and am just about to write out my questions.
They've already been very nice.
Hope I can help you two sometime,
Julie