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I have been thinking for awhile about sculpting my own greater daemons for my army. Most specifically a great unclean one and keeper of secrets. The problem is I have little experience in the ways of doing this and it has been awhile since I last had an actual sculpting class.

As far as materials go I was thinking of using Sculpey clay, but considering there are various kinds, I'm not sure which one would be right for what I want to do. As far as the GUO is concerned I'm not too worried about that since it is mostly a blob and will have fewer parts that are likely to snap off. The keeper of secrets on the other hand I plan on having long arms and legs, similar to the FW one. I have no idea how strong sculpey cooks to, or which kind will be better in this case. Any sort of input or experience will help.

Also, is it recommended I use a wire frame for the KoS?

Different Sculpeys cure to different hardness that can affect post-bake working, but there isn't all that much variation in their working properties (all will soften with body heat and kneading). If you plan to do any carving/cutting/scribing, use the original. Super Sculpey takes better to filing and sanding. Air dry clays are usually cheaper and can therefore be a boon when blocking out large, rough shapes, but polymer clay will be able to handle pretty much anything you want to do without completely breaking the bank or collapsing under its own weight.

Personally, I prefer epoxy putties to polymer clays for detail work, as the gradual cure allows you to perform different tasks at the optimal firmness for each. GS/Kneadatite, specifically, is nice in that the somewhat rubbery cure keeps thin parts from snapping off if you so much as sneeze and it also works as an adhesive. So long as you don't need a very hard edge (can be cut into sharp corners, but they're hard to sculpt in and it doesn't take very well to filing), it's my weapon of choice.

As far as an internal framework is concerned, I'd definitely use a wire armature for the KoS and a relatively stiff one, at that (coat hanger wire or the like). I might even use tightly wadded aluminum foil as a base for the GUO, if only to save on sculpting materials.

Yes you need an armature of some sort and wire is the best option. The stiffer the better for those larger sculpts. And i second the use of aluminium foil.

And if you want to use sculpey it's probably the best to use not one wire as a base but - if you have the room - use wires twisted around each other. (Or something similar like wraping it in foil very tightly) Because otherwise you will have a hard time getting your clay around the wire without moving and twisting wile you work on it.

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably start with a GUO first as it seems more forgiving and will refresh my memory on sculpting.

As for detailing, I was probably gonna do gross details with the sculpey and then once that is baked, go back with green stuff for finer details.

So here is my work so far. I tried to emulate the FW GUO as much as possible with a few differences. For one, I plan on having him holding a glob of his intestine in his right hand once he is dry. In addition to that I tried to model his head off the Ku'gath artwork from the codex. That was a bit trickey. Heads are not my forte, so hopefully I'll be able to make it look better with some greenstuff once it is dry. As for horns I'm gonna go out and grab some sticks, and whittle them to my liking. I think that will look much better than my previous attempt and sculpting them. He's going into the oven pretty soon. Keeping my fingers crossed he bakes properly.

I have been trying out some the different Kneadatites.

Green stuff
Perfect for sculpting organic stuff, edges "rounds" up when it cures. rather flexible when cured.
http://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13168

Brown stuff
Perfect for inorganic stuff, vehicle parts, armor etc. Keeps sharp edges when curing. Quite hard after curing.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/tools-and-misc/brown-stuff.html

Grey stuff
In-between green and brown stuff. neither good or bad for anything....
http://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13168

Milliput
Any color. Cures to rock hard, can be machined after cured. Impossible to use for any details, since it behaves like clay, and falls apart easily when made into too small things.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/catalogsearch/result/?q=milliput&x=-1206&y=-69&cat=

Give Magic Sculp a look.

http://www.sylmasta.com/acatalog/Magic-Sculp-8-8oz-Pack--250g--357.html#SID=16

Looking good so Far man. Your should be able to carv in a lot of the skin textures using carving tools pretty easily. Just as an FYI, sculpey can be reheated but be careful, I've had it crack on me if heated too many times.

I have to agree that for larger work, magic sculpt is a good way to go . I recently got the 5 lb kit of magic sculpt off amazon and damn its a lot of putty. When it dries, it's super hard. One good idea is to flesh out the armature using aluminum foil to bulk out the body shape, then going over it all with magic sculpt to form the rock hard base to work from.

I've been playing with a new material called cx5, which is a kind of modeling wax that reacts to heat. It's got a really steep learning curve and initial cost layout for the tools to use it can be a lot too. It's really meant for larger work so I might try something similar like a monster. I think this more for prototyping.

Time for an update and another question. Here's some pics of the final product:





Hopefully these pictures are better than the last. it's pretty hard to take good pics of blindingly white surfaces

So question: what do you use to prime sculpey? I was looking on the internet with no real answers. The only thing I got was that you can't use anything that is a petroleum based spray. Is this true? And if so what are my alternatives? I'd prefer to be able to spray prime a basecoat on considering the size of the figure, but if I must I suppose I could just get brush primer somewhere.

Sculpey is a polymer clay like FIMO and Kato. Polymer clays are PVC like the DWV pipes in houses...and Reaper Bones. Most the time the surface of the PVC will take paint extremely well without priming, provided it is clean. GS though needs a primer though...so you will want to go with that.

Now that they are readily available, you can use acrylic primers like Krylon. The thing to watch out for though are enamel primers that are sprayed on too heavy, or too close. Back in the day, acrylic primers were almost non-existant, and you had to use enamel primers. If you sprayed them on too heavily or held the can too close the solvents in the paint would interract with the plastic and it would take weeks to fully dry.

You could avoid this by holding the can further away (if you hold it 12" away for regular priming...hold it 18-20" away to prime polymer clay) and by doing 2 or 3 thinner coats to get full coverage, allowing each coat to dry to the touch before applying the next coat.

You can also get urethane primers now without much difficulty, and some people like to prime polymer clay with gesso.

Awesome, thanks for the info!

Just in case there was confusion, rereading what I wrote...

Krylon makes both enamel and acrylic primers...make sure you look for the one that specifically is called Acrylic primer. The other works...but like I said, if you put it on wrong...you might be waiting a month for it to dry.