advice on types of polymer clay for sculpting dolls?

[Nouria]

hi,
i ve got a question (apologies if this has been asked in this forum already)

which (air drying) clay is best for sculpting dolls/ faces with lots of details?
i ve heard about "ladoll", "premier", "craft porcelain" and "creative paperclay", can you recommend one? (and why?)
how about super sculpey, is it good for sculpting details?

thank you! :heart:

[MsLilypond]

For oven baked clays I like using super sculpey, but you can pretty much only do caucasians with it. you can mix it with sculpey III but it gets a little soft, I prefer to mix it with a little premo for other flesh tone
Cernit is very popular with dollmakers, and comes in 5 different flesh tones,
plus some colors.

I do suggest making armatures for the figure, no matter which type of clay you use

I can't advise you on the others as I haven't used them.

[Noadi]

I prefer super sculpey mixed with premo however I don't sculpt in flesh tones, I paint my skin tones instead. With the exception of original sculpey and sculpey III which are both extremely soft and spongey most of the major polymer clays (super sculpey, premo, fimo, cernit, prosculpt) hold detail quite well. The main difference is the color selection and consistency, some are firmer than others which can affect how you work with it and how easy it is to get fine detail, in general the firmer a clay is the shaper you can get detail but the harder it can be to blend the clay and get a smooth surface so you need to experiment to find which works best for you.

For air dry clays ladoll, premier and paperclay are all great, again each has differences in consistency that effect how you use them. Craft (or cold) porcelain is very different from the other airdry clays you mentioned. It actually can be made yourself quite easily just search online for cold porcelain recipes there are quite a few out there but the basic ingredients are cornstarch, pva glue and mineral oil or cold cream. It's very good for doing flowers, leaves, and other fine delicate details because it's quite flexible and durable when dried. I have no idea how well it works for something as thick as a doll.

[silver900]

If you want to go with an air-dry clay instead of a baking polymer clay then I recommend either LaDoll or Premier. I've used Creative and it's not bad - especially the price and availability, however I found it a bit gritty and lumpy to use, a tad lighter and less strong.

I have only done one fairy (http://www.silverliningsculptures.com/ooak.html) so I don't have a lot of experience. She was made over a wire armature (even the fingers) out of 1/2 LaDoll 1/2 Premier.

~Lori:wave:

[Penguintrax]

for an ovenbake, a lot of folks like the puppenfimo line. it is especially for dollmaking. many like cernit as well.