Thread: Paper mache and clay help for heads

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I have been looking through the tutorials and all of the great heads people make with paper mache and clay. I have read that they use DAS, paper clay, celluclay. What is the difference? I made my first prop this week with home made clay I found in the tutorials and this morning a huge chunk of the back of her head fell off. So before I start again I want to be sure I understand the difference in clays and I would love some suggestions on your favorite clay of choice.

I'm not an expert on all types of clay. I've settled in with model magic.
For one it is clean and easy to work with (I think) With the right tools & technique, you can get good detail.
It's also pretty cheap in the 900g container. I find using a little water on my fingers allows me to blend the model magic to the paper mache head and to other dry parts of model magic.

DAS is great, but it's more expensive.

Paper Clay is really good for areas that need more detail.

I've have cracking problems with model magic however. I usually coat the surface with some liquid latex to fill cracks or use DAS or paper clay to smooth the cracks.

I've used cheap dollar store clay and it's terrible, cracks, falls apart. It's not worth the effort.

Just my 2 cents.

Hello chinclub.. I find that for a corpse like head..snot rag mache works best. It is just kleenex/facial tissues dipped in Elmers glue. You can mix the glue with a little bit of water. This will make the glue go a little further. Drape the kleenex over a styrofaom or foil made head. . Also, for finer details, Das works very well. You can use them for lips and eye balls etc..Actually, Das also works very well on it's own.. The only thing is that you will probably need quite a bit of it for covering a whole head. Also, since it is just clay, you would have to sculpt every detail. However, if you use the snot rag mache technique, the mache forms its own creases, wrinkles and designs. It naturally mimics dead, dry skin.

These were made with the above mentioned techniques. The first one was made using all Das. The other 2 were done with shot rag mache and some das for the details..lips, eyes etc...

Rob

Thanks.

check out www.stolloween.com, it is incredible the things scott does with paper mache