THE MONTHLY DIY:
SCULPT OF PERSONALITY
BY MARC DEANGELIS
Last month, we laid out the best way to prep your platform toy of choice and your workspace before you get customizing. While a lot of artists jump right in and start painting, others start out by sculpting, creating additional forms to attach to the toy which adds a huge element of uniqueness to the finished piece. Fundamentally altering its silhouette, appliances let you toss out the restrictions of the toy’s physical shape and instead use that shape simply as a base to build upon. And don’t worry; even if you have minimal sculpting experience, you can still manage to create some cool stuff. So what materials, skills, and knowledge do you need to start sculpting? Sekure D, Rotobox, WuzOne, and Jenn & Tony Bot join us in our third step towards completing a custom toy. When you hear about sculpting, you might immediately think about globs of messy clay, chisels, and armature wire. Luckily, at the scale of custom toys, you don’t have to deal with any of that. A few affordable, simple tools and some small packs of sculpting material are all you need. The Ong brothers who form Rotobox Vinyl Anatomica are partial to Apoxie Sculpt, which is a clay-like, two-part substance, meaning it has to be mixed together to cure and sets without a trip to 40 | Clutter 30
the oven. A thicker material than Apoxie Sculpt, both Sekure D and WuzOne use Super Sculpey, which can be adjusted and sculpted indefinitely. Once the desired shapes are sculpted, they get baked; the heat from the oven sets the material so that it can be sanded and painted. Not a whole lot of fancy tools are needed to get working. Sekure D just uses the non-brush ends of his paint brushes, a scalpel, and a roller, while WuzOne uses a heat gun, his hands, and some sandpaper. The Bots use even less: “We sculpt over every inch of the platform by hand. Other than the platform itself, we use no armatures and, therefore, use very few tools.” Everyone’s painted, whether at home
as a hobby or in middle school art class as a requirement, but the same can’t always be said for sculpting. Our dream team of customizers will put your mind at ease, though, as they reveal that a bit of practice is all that’s needed to get up to speed. “Some skill is important though it doesn’t have to be very high unless you’re doing facial features that are realistic,” say the Rotobox duo. “What’s important is patience, practice, and sanding. Mistakes are normal.” Sekure D concurs, saying, “My sculpting skills are subpar at best. Patience is more important. Skills can be learned.” “As with anything, the more you practice, the better the results,” echo