Materials

An important consideration is the type of clay to use. Do you want an original that doesn’t require molding and casting to achieve a finished product? Or do you want to make copies of your critter?

Many artists use Sculpey and Super Sculpey, which are polymer-based “clays” that can be baked in your home oven to become hard. Disadvantages? I think they have a beastly working texture. Rubbery is the only word that comes to mind. Also, Sculpey should be fired in layers, so you can’t change your armature too much after you’ve started because it will be covered in a layer of hard material.

An alternative to Sculpey is two-part epoxy. Apoxie Sculpt from AVES studio has a nice working texture, will set firm in an hour or two, and hard in 24 hours. Again, once you’ve started your model is going to be set in one position, and the finish and detail work will likely require hours of sanding.

For purposes of this article, I only focus on the use of non-hardening clay.

Non-hardening clay is exactly what the name implies. These are oil- or wax-based clays that do not set hard with the application of heat or time. There are many different types and brands. I love Chavant products. They have some very nice, smooth-textured clays in various levels of hardness. Use the NSP (sulphur-free so it won’t stink up your studio and cause heck with certain mold rubbers) medium and hard varieties. They come in a few different colors, the rust red being my personal favorite because it’s just so horsey.

Disadvantages to non-hardening clay? It won’t get hard! (Duh.) This leads to the wonderful and perilous adventures of moldmaking in order to achieve a hard copy.

Tools

Anything goes. Really. I’ve used dental tools, toothpicks, pencils, spoons, knives, forks, a variety of professional sculpting tools, and of course the fabulous fingers and hands. The really good thing about using your fingers is that you’ll never misplace them.

Before you start to get seriously wild with the clay, do this.

Refer to your benevolent, all-knowing morgue, and mark down the major internal joints of the horse. Some artists use toothpicks. You don’t want to lose track of these while you’re building up the mass of muscles and fat and goo that comprises the bulk of the horse.

Making a model should be one quarter actual hands-on work, and three quarters research. That sounds severe, but if your intent is to make a realistic horse-shaped object, don’t depart too much from the way things actually are. Constantly check your work against real horses and photographs, and realize that no matter how much you know, there is always room to learn.

Of course there is still artistic license, but even abstract painters know the basic structure of the thing they’re portraying, and are simply putting emphasis on real parts. If you’re grounded in the ABC’s (Anatomy, Biomechanics, Conformation) your work will look convincing, and good.

In the picture above, the model in front of my own gruesome little monster is Zahourek’s Equiken Pro, an incredibly valuable and fascinating resource.

This is half-inch pipe, which seems too thick. Quarter inch works great. At his feet are an assortment of dental tools, wire cutters and X-acto blades (I’m not sure what I was using those for, but at the time it probably made perfect sense).

Had enough? Go on to Moldmaking (shudder)

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