Working with clay: Could anyone please give me advice?

[Kitkumi]

I have taken a journey in to the wonderful (if not terrifying and confusing lol) world of sculpting for a swap pony, and I have hit some major snags. I've checked out all the tutorials I could find around here, but none of them really answered the main question of 'what went wrong - round 1!'.

I'm using Sculpey Oven Bake clay, since it was all that was available at my local store, for minimal changes to the pony (so I'm not using a ton of it), and after baking last night and letting it cool, I gently poked one corner of the piece to make sure it wasn't soft and the entire thing cracked and fell off the pony! O.o I mean, this stuff just felt like it had turned to dust, or plaster, and crumbled. I am sculpting directly on the pony and then baking it, so I had the oven set at a slightly lower temperature than what the package suggested, but I also let it bake a little longer (also, how can you tell if you are over baking it? I'm not a fan of toxic fumes, as you can imagine).

I'm worried if I attempt this again, that I'll end up with the same problem, or that it will survive the customization process only to break in shipping, or shortly after my partner gets it, and needless to say, that is no good! :/ I wouldn't mind using apoxie sculpt, but is there any where you can get a small 'sample size' kind of thing (not an actual sample, just smaller than the big jars I've seen for sale).

[Uninu]

Sounds like you over-baked the pony, at least according to my experiences.

There are some small packages of Apoxie Sculpt for sale, you can get them straight from Aves Studio's website for example. Their smallest size is 1/10 lb.

[Galactica]

Yeah- sculpty drives me crazy sometimes.  SO easy to overcook or undercook-

If you undercook it- it cracks and crumbles, if you overcook it- it becomes brittle and dark.  And even when it cooks perfectly- you drop it once on the floor and POOF crumbles.

Give me some nice sticky, toxic apoxie sculpt every time. I LOVE that stuff.

Just remember to put LOTION on your hands before working with it (apoxie)- or it will stick to you and be very not fun.  Or you can wear gloves but also put lotion on the gloves or keep wetting them.  And keep a cup of water on hand to smooth out rough patches- so much easier than sanding after it is dry...

[lovelauraland]

Although I can't give any advice around sculpey, I found it really easy to break, apoxie on the other hand is super strong when dry, I use water to smooth it out and plain flour to stop it from sticking, especially when I'm trying to roll it out to make dresses, good luck sweetie xx

[Kitkumi]

Thank you everyone for the advice, I'm so glad that I asked *many hugs* With the feedback here, I think I will go ahead and pick up a 1/10lb container of apoxie sculpt from Aves Studio's (thank you soooo much Uninu for the website! I had never heard of them). The oven bake clay just doesn't sound like a good choice any more for this project. Also, thank you very much for the suggestions and advice regarding the lotion and flour, Galactica and  lovelauraland. It's little tips and tricks like that that i love talking to the community for

[aintnobuffalo]

Hmmm... I actually over bake accidentally from time to time and don't usually have any issues. It is important to bake at the temperature listed. Just as with food, somethings need to bake at a certain temperature so it can reach the necessary internal temperature. Perhaps the clay didn't quite bake properly and became to brittle or soft? What are you sculpting onto the pony?  Certain things are more ideal to sculpt with apoxie, but I've just always been a Scupley girl for its easy accessibility and light weight quality.

I really do need to try out and experiment with apoxie though!