anyone ever sculpt gems?

[StarFyre]

I have found a technique in this tutorial:

http://www.miez.nl/putty-n-paint/tutes/sculpting_tut01.pdf

doing the last finishing touches for my model...the hair and the gems (which i forgot about last week!!!).

I pressed one of Shilpa\'s jewellry pieces into apoxysculpt (it was her idea) and have been using it as a mold, but it doesn\'t really come out that well even with water lubricating it. I may try the mold idea again tonight.

Other than that, how have people here sculpted perfectly smooth gems?

Regards,

Sanjay

 

[demonherald]

I\'d never claim perfectly smooth..but a number of things I have done to get around gems is to find cheap dress jewellery and cut it up and use pieces...That is the best way to get smooth pieces...

to sculpt I have settled on a two stage process... every so often I sit down and make 20 or 30 varying shape and size ovals and balls out of Greenstuff..Generally just rolling them on a lubricated tile with a latex gloved hand. when they are dry I then carefully cut them in half with a sharp knife blade.This gives you lots of Gemstone pieces...
Then to make the mounts a flat round of GS or whichever material I\'m using (magi sculp rocks) is placed on the model where I want it then using tweezers I press the gem piece into it and shape with a chisle tipped clay shaper...

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by StarFyre
I pressed one of Shilpa\'s jewellry pieces into apoxysculpt (it was her idea) and have been using it as a mold, but it doesn\'t really come out that well even with water lubricating it. I may try the mold idea again tonight.

Try a very fine dusting of talc.

Originally posted by StarFyre
Other than that, how have people here sculpted perfectly smooth gems?

I haven\'t done any gems but one good way is to roll small balls of putty and then, at the end of the working period when it\'s just about still shapable you do the final shaping with more rolling, which sort of buffs the surface.

Then let them fully cure and cut them in half.

Mount them on the sculpt using glue or into a blob of fresh putty (GS is great for this).

Einion