Some artists who have purchased my Magic Skin Sculpting Video, have asked me to explain how I made one of the tools shown in the video.
It is simply a wooden dowel, about 5 inches long. You need to drill a hole down the center of one end of the dowel, about 1 inch deep. To drill, I use a Dremel® Moto-Tool.
Take a piece of size 18 or 20 gauge wire. Use a gauge that is much less bulky than coat hanger wire. Using wire cutters or pliers, cut a piece of the wire about 3 inches long. With pliers, bend a tight bend in the center of the wire. Use a hot glue gun and fill the drilled hole in the wooden dowel, then quickly shove the raw cut ends of the bent wire down in the hole. Let the glue cool.
Use a tube of clear bathroom silicone caulking, run the bent wire down inside the tube, or squirt a line of the silicone onto a disposable surface, and dip the bent wire into the line of silicone, coating the wire all around.
When you pull it out of the raw silicone, it will probably have a string of silicone hanging from the tip. You don't necessarily want that string of silicone, but how to get rid of it?
You can use a very fine, silky camel hair paintbrush, and WET it so the silicone will not stick to it, then brush the end of the siliconed wire into a smoother, less stringy shape. Be sure to clean your brush right away. Keep the wire covered with silicone, don't brush off all the silicone and expose the wire. If you do expose the wire, you will need to coat the wire with silicone again. Or, you could try wetting your fingers to smooth the silicone into the shape you want it.
Pretend that the wire is the finger bone, and the silicone is the finger flesh. What you are trying to construct is sort of like a tiny finger that will allow you to get into areas of your sculpt that your own fingers are too big for. With this tool, you can easily get into and around delicate spaces, like nostrils and eyelids or ears.
Let the new tool set somewhere overnight, so the silicone is not touching anything. By morning, the silicone will have set up or cured.
While you are at it, make several of these tools, and surely one of them will be shaped the way you like. I must have at least 2 dozen of these home made handy-dandy sculpting tools, and they are easy to make.
Another home made tool I use is simply a wooden dowel, about 8 to 10 inches long, and 1/2 inch in diameter, which I have carved each end to a rounded shape, then sanded like mad until it is all smooth as glass.
I call this my mini rolling pin tool.
I also use several of the fine sculpting tools from:
Perfect Touch Sculpting Tools
Dona and Walter Vaughn
P. O. Box 905
Sugar Land, TX 77487-0905
Phone: 281-491-2389
Email: perfect-touch@sff.net
Website: www.perfect-touch.com
I use Pro-Sculpt® polymer clay from:
PRO-SCULPT Clay
Phone: 1 800 290-9998
Johnston Original Art Dolls
530 Tanglewood Loop
North Salt Lake City, UT 84054
FAX: 1 801-299-9088
Email: jackjohnston@artdolls.com
Website: www.artdolls.com