Using Sculpey

[LadyAmalthea]

So I'm in the process of trying to change a BBE Baby Frosting into a NBBE pony. It's my first attempt at this, and I found a tutorial that uses Sculpey III to fill the eye sockets. I couldn't find that product, but I bought air dry Sculpey. Has anyone used this product before for pony customs? The instructions in the tutorial say to dip the pony head in boiling water to set it, but do I need to do this step if I'm using air-dry clay? I filled the sockets and set her aside, skipping the boiling step for now...I'm worried it might make the clay shrink up. Can I really just paint over this once it's dry?

Oh, and if anyone has done a BBE-to-NBBE before, did you remove the pony's eye shadow first? I didn't, but I noticed too late that the pony in the tutorial pictures doesn't appear to have it, but it didn't say anything about removing it. Should I try to remove it prior to painting the eyes, or will the acetone affect the clay?

Thanks for any guidance on this!

[BlackCurtains]

I didn't know Sculpey made an air dry clay. You don't have to set it, it'll harden by itself. It may shrink. If it does you can always use more in the gaps until it's filled up.

Does it say on the package that it's able to be sanded after it's dry? If so then sanding it a bit will give better results.

As an aside, boiling Sculpey isn't a good idea. The water doesn't get hot enough to properly set it and it will crumble with time.

[LadyAmalthea]

Thanks for replying...the package strangely didn't have any instructions at all...I might try to sand it anyway just to make sure the surface is flush with the sockets. I did smooth it out with a piece of tape over the pad of my finger as the tutorial suggested.

She did say something about Sculpey sometimes having the tendency to crumble during the boiling process, and the next time she was going to use apoxysculpt so she didn't have to boil it, but I didn't see that product either at the 2 stores I checked.

[NanoRuby]

A quick swipe with some acetone should be fine for the eye shadow. I've heard of people using acetone to clean fingerprints off of clay, so I don't think it'll affect the sculpey much, if at all.
You could always try acetone-free nail polish remover. It takes longer to rub the paint off, but you wouldn't have to worry about acetone then.

[LadyAmalthea]

Thanks NanoRuby, I'll give it a try! I thought about trying to paint over it, but I think if I did that I'd have to end up making the eyes bigger than what would look natural, and I didn't want to do that.