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Hi All

SO ive been suing ther GSW roller and clay to try and get some Eldar ruins efefcts.
I got two types of clays, one beige and one white but its essentially the same stuff, polymer clay and I can't really tell a difference. I assumed once baked these would be nice and hard/brittle like real clay. Obviously they are not nor are they supposed to be I have leared.

What I'm wanting to do is to have a nice chunky bit of clay I can then break into slabs to use on my alien/ eldritch themes base. I can sort of use what I have and I will try a much thicker chunk now that I got some silicone rings to go on the roller to help with getting an even chunkier thickness.

However, I got some nice mini bricks online and they seem to be made from terracotta/clay and exactly the sort of material I want.
Does anyone have experience with use a similar materials in miniatures?

You can get a terracotta coloured miliput, dries rock hard and no shrinkage due to not needing baked.

James Wappel aka Windy City Miniatures uses a lot of Sculpey for his basing, it's exactly what you're looking for: a bake-hardening clay that can be sculpted and molded, baked, then broken up into bits. It's also cheap and widely available at most craft stores, at least here in the USA

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/03/time-to-bake-some-sculpey.html

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-lion-rolls-on.html

If you're doing large quantities of terrain, go with either an oven-dry clay, or a artist's air-dry clay. Both will be far cheaper than Milliput, Green Stuff, or other epoxy-based clays.

Judging by your post, I'd say the air-dry clay will be most likely to give you the effect you're after.

I'd go for SUper Sculpey as it's reasonable cheap.
I know you have to bake it but that's not much of an issue. It holds detail well.
Here's an example of what I've done with it:

(I know it's not a base)

Note that you only need 110 degrees C which is hard with a gas oven (which is what I have) as gas mark 1 = 135 C so you have to be careful.

 Kalamadea wrote:
James Wappel aka Windy City Miniatures uses a lot of Sculpey for his basing, it's exactly what you're looking for: a bake-hardening clay that can be sculpted and molded, baked, then broken up into bits. It's also cheap and widely available at most craft stores, at least here in the USA

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2013/03/time-to-bake-some-sculpey.html

https://wappellious.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-lion-rolls-on.html

Just a note that James now says, in most of his videos, that the best Sculpey to get is the gray Firm Sculpey, not the original white, or the usual Super Sculpey.

I'd tend to agree, Super Sculpey don't do all that great in my testing. I don't have any of the Firm kind, but I trust him that he is likely quite right.

Super Sculpey and Sculpy III both cure with a little bit of flex to them. Not much, but it's there. Air-dry clay or Sculpy Firm sound like much better options, for what you're after. I'd recommend a plaster for good breaks, but you want to press in detail, not carve or cast it.

I want to say that those bricks are generally cast with colored plaster, but I may be wrong. The tiny pack that I have, at least, seems to be.