High Five 3: My Top Five Customizing Tips

 

Introduction

It’s so great to see customizing experience a Renaissance these past few years! For a while there, some of us were quite worried that customizing would just fall to the wayside, a mere shadow, a sliver of its former glory, its arts becoming largely forgotten or marginalized. And why? Well, thanks in large part to the advent of artist resins. Ya gotta admit, since their inception in the early 90s, resins have just taken over to become the dominant artist-based cottage industry today. And for very good reason! It directly addresses the issue of accessibility, pricing, collectibility, and productivity in this madcap, voracious genre. But the thing is, up until the early 90s the custom was top dog in that department — that’s all there was in terms of accessible artistry! You could do ceramics, sure, but the buy-in to get started is extraordinarily expensive in terms of learning curves and equipment. But customs? Darn near anyone could accessibly paint a cheap OF. So yeah, OFs, ceramics, and customs — that was pretty much it prior to 1990. So when ARs came onto the scene, it was like a literal explosion went off, flipping the equation completely and ever since, customs have had a rather rocky road staying relevant — that is, until these last few years. Beautifully, customs have risen, like a Phoenix from the ashes to again take their rightful place as a top dog! Fabulous! And it’s been brilliant to see them come back into their own thanks primarily to the next generation of artists who have breathed new life in the art form! Because here’s the deal: The one thing that customs have going for them that ARs do not is freshness and novelty, and even better, sculptural aspects that are otherwise impossible to cast. Indeed, to own one is to own a true one-of-a-kind that can truly push the sculptural envelope! How cool is that?! Now that’s serious street cred! 

But what’s even better about customizing is that it’s literally The Artform Of The People. Yes, there are many established artists specializing in customs with great success, and that’s great! But the truly great thing about customizing is that you really can do it yourself, too. And the buy-in for it is significantly lower in terms of materials as your only real investment is your time, energy, basic materials, and gumption. You see, more people can end up with a viable showhorse via customizing affordably than they can buying an expensive resin. Just take an $8 body-quality Classic Swaps, customize it really well, and then give anyone a good run for their money in the show ring! Potentially win to boot! You don't have that kind of access with a $2K nekkid resin. And many folks are even afraid to touch their blank resins simply because they are so valuable, and so they languish on the shelf unpainted. But who cares about a $10 beaten up old PAM, right? And customizing allows you to go as far as you want to go, and still end up with a viable horse to show. You can’t say that about sculpting an original sculpture—once you start, you’re committed to the full scope until the end. And as we all know, creating an original is its own can of worms from media to casting to armatures to proportion to difficulty to, well…yada yada yada. But with a custom, you can just do a retouch or an etchie, or a repaint only, or any degree of customizing you want from the very minor to the most extreme. I just affords you perfect freedom in what you want to take on, even allowing you to baby-step your way along your learning curve. Yet at the end, you still have a finished horse you can show. That’s a pretty cool equation! In short then, customizing an OF is all about accessibility and feasibility, two great things that go better together!

So in that spirit of getting more people arting through the accessibility of customizing, I’d like to share with you my Top Five customizing tips to hopefully augment your skillset or jumpstart your inspiration to dabble! Because the fact of the matter is this: Many of our best artists today developed from having to “do it for themselves” simply because they couldn’t afford the beautiful customs and resins they were seeing in their formative years. Their art was literally born from equal parts necessity and passion! And here’s the thing: The next big superstar could be you! Hey, yes—it could happen! You won’t know ‘till you try, right? So let’s get to work!…

#1 Epoxy Putty

The kind of epoxy putty you use will spell all the difference between a good or bad experience with sculpting. In all cases then, your experience should be good! You should look forward to sculpting on your model, not dread it. Definitely, you shouldn’t have to fight your epoxy putty — it should work with you so you can get to the eager business of sculpting. To that end then, I’ve tried a lot of epoxy putties. Phew. And in the end, the best one hands down, in every way, is Magic Sculpt. It’s far superior to any other epoxy putty on the market in every category in my opinion, so I recommend this particular brand most heartily (I prefer the Natural color, but try the different colors if you wish). Why? Well, for these primary reasons:

• Mixing: It mixes in an easy 1:1 ratio by volume, allowing you to judge exactly how much you need, reducing waste. Just as much, it’s soft and easy to mix. No struggling with stiff putty here!
• Texture: It has a lovely, superfine, soft, squishy texture somewhat similar to porcelain clay. Other epoxy clays have the texture of greasy, waxy bubblegum, making them harder to deal with or they’re kinda crumbly and weird. But not Magic Sculpt! It’s wonderful stuff!
• Cost: You get a ton of epoxy for many customs for a relatively affordable price as compared to other epoxy putties, particularly when you consider the quality you get.
• Safety: Thankfully, Magic Sculpt is non-toxic, which is one of the primary reasons I recommend it. Some epoxy putties can’t make that boast so avoid them. Even so, wear gloves, especially if you are prone to sensitivity.
• Workability: It sculpts like a dream, holds details crisply, it's smoothable to a feather’s edge with ease, and able to support itself relatively well like for ears and nostril rims. Free-standing portions like mane tendrils will need an internal armature, but that’s normal for any portion of free-standing epoxy putty, or any clay for that matter.
• Durability: This is tough stuff when cured! It doesn’t bend, slump, chip, or crack when fully cured, and it’s not going anywhere. Really, you don’t have to worry about the longterm durability as it doesn’t degrade or crumble apart over time — it’s inert!
• Sandability: It drills, Dremels, carves, and sands like a dream!
• Stinkiness: As compared to many other epoxy clays, Magic Sculpt isn’t so stinky. It actually has a pretty low stink value to it, thank goodness. Some epoxy clays are just intolerably pungent...ugh.
• Cure time: You have about 45 minutes to 1 hour to work it reasonably well at about room temperature. However, a cool room (colder than 70˚) will prolong the work time whereas a warm room (hotter than 70˚) will shorten the work time. That’s comparable to a lot of other epoxy putties. After 24 hours then, it’s completely cured and hard (it’ll even cure under water). Even so, I recommend getting your work done within twenty-five minutes all the same.

Honestly, if you want to max out a positive experience with what is arguably the most difficult clay to use (epoxy clay, due to its short open time), Magic Sculpt is your ticket. Give it a try to see if it works for you — I bet it will! But if it doesn’t, try Aves Sculpt. (Here's a nifty video on how to use it.) It’s also non-toxic but it has the texture of slimy, waxy bubblegum and that can take some getting used to. Also try the different colors (I hear blue is the most popular) as they have different textures you may like better. Don’t worry, the colors won’t bleed or show through once primed and painted. I’ve also heard of people using Milliput with great success and speak highly of its approximate two hour working time (the Original or Superfine White are most recommended). However, Milliput can create a sensitivity or a reaction in its uncured state with some folks I’m told, so definitely wear gloves when using it.

As for working with Magic Sculpt, my best bit of advice is to not fight the cure time but to use it to your advantage — make it work for you! We do this by quickly blocking in our body part in the fresh epoxy and carefully blending the epoxy into the surrounding areas feather-thin first, then working to get that body part as close to what we want — sans details — as possible. Just block and blend in the first ten to fifteen minutes. Then as the epoxy firms up, you can progressively add more detail and crispy things up with tighter delineations and polished surfaces. I also recommend dipping your sculpting tool into your solvent regularly as you go to provide lubrication. Now this does mean you have to know exactly “where you’re going before you get there" sculpturally speaking, but with practice, it’s doable. Use lots of references and plan your strategy beforehand, visualizing the sculpted area first clearly before you even start. If you go in there all willy nilly with epoxy clay, you’re going to end up in the weeds pretty quickly! Epoxy clay is the least forgiving so have a clear mental game plan first, a strong visualization of what you want before you even start. In this way, epoxy clay teaches three impeccable lessons when sculpting realistic horses. First, it presses the issue of prep, research, and study, of really knowing what it’s all about before you dive in. Second, it asks for clarity and confidence, to know exactly what you want and the moxie to just do it. And, third, it requires discipline and follow-through because once you’re committed to the area, you have to see it through. All three of these mindsets will serve you well, especially if you switch to more forgiving media with longer open times like oil clay or ceramic clay. You’ll find your time with epoxy clay has sped up your sculpting, made it more accurate right out of the gate, and has made you highly disciplined to finish your piece in a timely manner. You’ll also find yourself missing two particular qualities of epoxy clay that oil and ceramic clays lack: An ability to hold structure really well and the propensity for hyper-crisp detailing. So epoxy clay isn’t all bad! Once you learn to work with it, you start to see its bonuses and make them work for you.

Pro tip: When you’ve mixed your fresh epoxy, dip the wad in your rubbing alcohol once (we’ll get to the rubbing alcohol in just a mo’) and mix that in. Maybe do it twice if you need it gooier. That’ll extend the cure time by about thirty more minutes, maybe more in cool conditions. Only do that once or twice though because it’s my understanding that too much can degrade the epoxy clay and we want that epoxy inert on your custom, particularly if areas are load-bearing, like legs or tail docks, or mane and tail armature layers, or if they're free-standing like ears.

Pro tip, too: Know what to fresh sculpt and what to Dremel-armature when working in epoxy clay. Things like truly accurate ears — thin and delicate — really can’t be sculpted in one go in epoxy clay because they’ll just sag or droop, even if you futz with it as it cures, constantly reshaping it, and that’s just a lot more effort than it’s worth. As such, I find the better result with ears is to shape, position, and size the ear roughly in epoxy clay, let it cure, then use a Dremel to shape it out into an armature which you can then sculpt over again with fresh epoxy for your final ear. In other words, make an epoxy armature first for actual sculpting later. Or if you wish, you can just do the fold-over technique and call it a day for a more simplistic ear.

Pro tip again: In that first fifteen minutes of working the fresh epoxy clay, your big priorities really should be (1) feather-blending the edges into the surrounding plastic areas, (2) getting the epoxy clay de-lumpified and smooth and (3) blocking in your structures. That should be done in the first five to fifteen minutes. It’s a lot to deal with quickly, but with practice you can do it. But the point is, if you work with the cure time and smooth that epoxy with your fingers, brushes, and tools as it stiffens (more on this in a bit), you can get it to a point where you barely have to sand anything later. No joke! Like this guy I customized for a painting class was barely sanded at the back end, all thanks to my careful work with the epoxy clay in the beginning. Like he required maybe ten minutes of light sanding, tops.

#2 Solvents n’ Smoothing

Water works to smooth the epoxy clay, sure, but you know what works even better? 91% rubbing alcohol, that’s what! Works way better! Indeed, you can feather out the epoxy flush with the plastic to the point where you barely have to sand that interface at all after it cures.

And of course you can use your fingers to smooth things out — your fingers are your first and best tool. But for delicate areas or small, tight areas your fingers can reach or would just destroy, use soft paint brushes or make-up brushes to smooth the epoxy instead. Like dip them into the rubbing alcohol and use them to smooth the epoxy, to soften details and to blend and marry features. Essentially, use the brush as a kind of micro-extension of your finger to smooth, blend, shape, and melt fleshy details into soft effects. As such, you can achieve very fleshy, soft, complex textures relatively quickly with a brush that’s tricky to get other ways, like softened wrinkles, crinkling, rippling, bumpiness, and other types of goo. You can even use brushes to do actual sculpting which can sometimes give a finer result with their fine bristles than a harsher tool. 

For example, the typical way I sculpt facial textures or wrinkles is to block them in the fresh epoxy then smoothing them over with brushes and alcohol to "melt" and soften them, shaping them and adjusting them just so with both my tools and brushes. All this all happens in the first ten to fifteen minutes of laying down new epoxy...you want that epoxy fresh! Then I use the cure time, as the epoxy stiffens, to sharpen features and details, and polish everything into a smooth, fleshy mass that doesn't require any significant sanding. Indeed, that's the secret: You never never want to sand your textured areas! Never should sandpaper ever touch your wrinkles, your faces, your necks or shoulders, your stifle areas, or anywhere where you've applied textures. There is absolutely no sandpaper available that won't damage the subtleties you've achieved, so why ruin your work? Instead, work the epoxy with solvents, brushes, and the cure time so it's seamless, smooth and pretty much ready for priming. This is a hard and fast rule of mine. Indeed, I usually only use sandpaper for six things:

1. Removing flashing, pour holes, sprues, seams, or boogers.
2. Sanding around the perimeter of an epoxy clay patch if needed to make it perfectly flush.
3. Sanding the outsides of the ears flutes smooth after Dremeling them finer and thinner.
4. Using emery boards to sand the hoof walls smooth and level.
5. Softening the insides of the nostrils after being Dremeled out more hollow.
6. Roughing up an area intended for epoxy clay.

That's it, that's all, pretty much. Now do you notice how I don't use sandpaper as an all-over treatment? Truly, if I have to use sandpaper to smooth a sculpted area, I've failed at my job. Textures are a huge thing with me as they're truly what bring the piece to life, and I'll do everything to preserve them intact. Like if an area ended up being too rough to my liking, I'll Dremel it all back down and start again to get it exactly to my liking. Flesh must look like flesh, at all costs.

What does all this mean? It means that I literally sculpt the actual and final configurations within the first fifteen minutes of laying down the epoxy, and the remaining forty-five minutes are spent simply defining and refining key features and smoothing things. So if you're still manhandling the configurations after thirty minutes, you've languished too long and it's just diminishing returns after that with epoxy clay. You've got to do your actual sculpting within ten to fifteen minutes, when the epoxy is super fresh, then just refine it is as it cures. This is how you not only achieve more confident sculpting, but more importantly, more "happy accident" sculpting by letting the chips fall where they may in the first fifteen minutes. Sure, you use references, and you should have a very clear idea of where those references should take you on your piece, but as for the fleshiness of it all, that's left to serendipity, to "organic chaos," the one quality hardest to mimic yet the most worthwhile to capture.

As for the brushes, I recommend soft filberts for the face and detail areas in sizes 1-2 and for the body in sizes 4-6, and soft rounds for tight areas of the face like around the eyes and between wrinkles in sizes 0-2. And get them on sale if you can because you’ll eventually destroy these brushes with use (Dick Blick usually has good pricing on brushes every day). The process just kills them so when you find some you like, buy a few of them. Personally, I'm partial to the Royal & Langnickel Zen line of brushes. That said, don’t throw out your destroyed brushes! They can be very useful for texturizing clay, even painting because they’re so roughed up and demolished, making a great randomizing tool. (Like this epoxy-smoothing process can make nifty dappling or stippling brushes over time.) 

What’s more, don’t overlook make-up brushes for smoothing. No joke! Yes, make-up brushes — like those used for eyeshadow blending, concealer, and highlighter — can be a real boon for polishing the stiffening surface of large body areas so you basically don’t have to sand later. For this, I recommend the E.L.F. brushes because they’re super cheap but not cheaply made. In other words, they're super affordable but they don’t shed, they’re super soft and dense with good spring, they come in a load of styles and sizes, and their ferrules are on there solidly. So try a couple to see how effective they can be for smoothing the epoxy as it stiffens. Just keep this in mind when using make-up brushes: You have to wash them thoroughly after you're done as this process will destroy them quicker than any other brush. You see, their softness is their Achilles Heel as that's the first quality to go kaput with epoxy-smoothing use. So you'll be replacing your make-up brushes often (thank goodness they're so cheap), but they're the only brushes that'll produce a hyper-smooth polish. But if you wash them really well after use in alcohol and soapy water, you can make them serviceable for a lot longer. On that note, be sure to thoroughly clean your filberts and rounds after use, too, to extend their using lifetimes. The cost of brushes can add up quickly, but if you want those smooth, detailed and fleshy effects, they're the only route to that with epoxy clay. Pro tip: If a brush is truly wiped out, snap off or cut off the handle and use the tip as a sculpting tool.

Now the only real hitch with using rubbing alcohol as a solvent is that it’s super-drying of your fingers and cuticles. So either wear gloves (which I highly recommend anyway when working with epoxy clays) or after you’re done with your sculpting session, use hand lotion liberally with cuticle oil (just wash your hands first before you handle your custom again so you don’t transfer lotion oils onto it). Like if you’re into manicures, this technique will destroy your nails, so use gloves!

#3 Time-saving Dremel Bits

First of all, when using these suggested bits, wear a butcher’s glove on your supporting hand and wear all PPE (including the proper respirator and face mask), do your Dremeling outside, and follow all tool recommendations. Take all precautions with the tools and with particulates and with these very sharp, aggressive bits! I also recommend using a variable speed Dremel with a flex-shaft to cut down on vibration and fatigue. Because yeah...Dremeling sessions can take some time if you're doing extensive customizations, and we want to minimize that as much as possible. We don't want you Dremeling for more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time, tops. You see, some artists have developed carpal tunnel from the excessive use of motor-tools and you need to strategize things to avoid that for yourself. This is why I use these particular Dremel bits as they're highly aggressive and get the job done very quickly, but they do take some getting used to. And they aren't for fine carving or refinement work...they're there to cut and rip away material like a pair of ravenous hyenas. They're supposed to get the job done as quickly as possible with the least amount of work, and boy...do they! (For refinement work like for ears or inside nostrils, I use diamond-tipped mini-bits, using the teardrop shapes and the round shapes the most.)

So that said, for cutting up your OF, I recommend using the Dremel tile cutting bit at a sweet spot low-speed for chopping up the plastic. It’ll cut right through it like butter in sort order. Just keep that speed on low otherwise you’ll melt the plastic and make a mess out of your expensive bit (they’re not cheap). Also exercise careful control with it because it will jump and runaway on you if you don’t have a firm hold on it. So practice on a junker OF to get a feel for it. Just remember that this bit removes its width in plastic as you cut, so compensate for length when you piece things back together. You can also use the Dremel 1/8” Tungsten Carbide Cutter as well (it comes in lots of shapes), but I prefer the tile cutting bit. It’s just more aggressive for impatient little ol’ me. I also use this bit to drill in leg-pinning holes and mane/tail armature-making holes on 1:9 models. For smaller scales, I'll use my diamond-tipped mini-bits for mane armatures, but I'll still use the tile cutting bit for smaller scale tail armatures (except for Stablemate and smaller). Really, I want that tail on there!

When grinding away unwanted epoxy, I use the Dremel Structured Tooth Tungsten Carbide Cutter bits (I use all the shapes). They come in various shapes so pick the ones you prefer for the offending areas and just rip it off, making way for fresh epoxy later. In other words, I don’t use these bits to sculpt but to remove what I don’t want because — ooof — you’d have to do a lot of hard sanding to smooth that resultant texture down! So just remove unwanted areas and resculpt with fresh epoxy over it to minimize sanding later and to create better, fleshier results. These bits also work like a charm on resins, and it does to a point on OFs at low speed. At high speeds, it’ll just melt the plastic and entomb itself, and they’re also pretty expensive so take care with this. Again, practice on a junker to get a feel for them first. Even better, their particulates are quite large and tend to fall to the ground, or become shrapnel so wear a face mask when using them. 

Note how I don't use the disc cutters? Don't use those! They snap and break, spewing shrapnel right at you, and they jump the track all the time. Just really dangerous in my opinion.

#4 Reassembly

Okay, so now you have a cut up or cut-apart OF that has to be pieced back together, but you’re kinda at a loss with how to do that — well, I got you! What you use is aluminum foil to fill the gaps, reattach heads, or armature necks and then use Devcon 5-Minute Epoxy resin to seal it all up, gluing the parts back together, using the foil as a supportive filler for the resin glue. However, don’t do this all at once! Go in stages, reattach each piece or gluing each gap separately so you can keep tabs of how it affixes together properly. You see, when you first apply the glue, it’s quite runny and will make a mess—so protect your surfaces and your floor with drop cloths or tarps, and wear junky studio clothes and shoes. And keep your hands clean of it or wear gloves. But as it stiffens up over 10-20 minutes, you can adjust things so their alignments and positions are correct. So like with epoxy putty, work with the cure time with this epoxy resin glue. 

Anyway, if you need to, use supportive wires to peg legs back together or peg legs back onto the body, and do that with the 5-Minute glue for real sturdiness. So take it all in stages, completing each attachment one at a time then let that all cure completely for 24 hours, ideally 48 hours so it’s really hard and inert.

Now you can use a Dremel with a Structured Tooth grinder, or whatever bit you prefer, to clean things up in preparation for epoxy sculpting, digging into the plastic about 1/4 or 1/2 its width so you can really cement it all together with a goodly amount of sturdy epoxy clay. (Again, wear all PPE and do this outside!) In other words, you’re merely preparing the model for sculpting, not attempting to do any actual sculpting with the Dremel. Really, who needs all that sanding when you can do ten times better with resculpted epoxy clay and minimal sanding later?

#5 Making A Messo

You may wonder how some artists do their veining, capillaries, bug bites, chestnuts, moles, and ergots. There's actually lots of different ways to go about all that from sculpting them on to using paint or glue to blob them on. The way I do it though is with something I call “messo," a 30% mixture of Liquitex Acrylic Gesso (in white) with 70% Liquitex Modeling Paste, thinned with water. Then I’ll use a pointed small round and apply the messo on there like so on a 1:9 scale model (scale down your brushes for smaller sizes):

• Ergots: Thin the messo to about melted ice cream consistency and a small round (size 2ish with long bristles) to dot an ergot onto the back of each fetlock.
• Chestnuts: Use unthinned messo and a small round (size 2ish with long bristles) to carefully dab on a chestnut in the correct placement. Then as it dries, go back in with your cleaned brush to callous it up by strategically poking at it to pock-mark the surface. If you need a really sticky-out chestnut, like for a pasture horse, just keep building it up until it sticks out how far you want, letting it dry in-between coats, then add the texture. In other words do it in stages, not all at once.
• Moles/whisker bumps: Thin the messo to about the consistency of heavy cream and with a small round (size 0ish with long bristles) dot them onto the muzzle and under the eye using the ergot technique. Make them as tiny as you can and use references for placement and growth patterns.
• Veins: You have to make the brush yourself to create veins with this technique, but it’s easy! Just take a long-bristle round in size 2 or 3, then cut about half of those bristles out, leaving you with a skinner, long-bristled brush. Voilá — you now have a veining brush! So now thin the messo to about heavy whipping cream consistency, saturate the brush in it, and carefully drag a bead of messo along the body to create a vein in a smooth, sweeping motion, keeping the brush perpendicular to the surface. It takes a goodly amount of practice to ping it, so practice on a junker first, a lot. And if you don’t like a particular vein configuration, no problem! You can either wipe it off or gently scrub it off with a small stiff, damp brush and start again.
• Capillaries: Use the veining technique but with slightly more thinned messo, to about 2% milk consistency, and add a bunch of squiggly, “chicken scratch,” bumpy, or ripply capillaries on various areas of the body.
• Bug bites: Use the mole technique to add a random bug bite or two if you want.
• Bonus details: You can add debris to the bottom of hooves, scars on the body, warts in the ear, mud on the body, and other such details with this stuff using different consistencies with all these various methods. You can even texturize bases and make little rocks with the modeling paste or messo.

Note: With messo it’s normal to have to do 2-3 passes over the same dealie if it caves in on you. If you have a lot of cave ins though, apply less messo at a time, i.e. more thinner coats rather than few thick ones. Also, do your messo-ing as the last step before priming as this stuff will slough off with water. In other words, don’t wash your piece after you’ve messo-ed it or you’ll destroy everything you just did! But priming will seal it all in and you can wash the model after that.

Of course, use good references when applying all this so you get placement, proportion, networking and configurations, and textures right, especially for veining and capillaries which have their tendencies. Also, on Little Bits and Stablemates, you can use the veining technique to reinstall lost eyelids and actually quite a few details that were lost in the casting and cleaning process. In fact, you can do quite a bit of actual sculpting with this stuff and a brush when you get really good at it, like for customizing those HR minis where thick gloss has occluded a lot of their crisp facial details.

You can also use messo and a beaten-up stencil brush (sizes 4 and 6 for a 1:9 scale model) to apply a hairy, fuzzy texture on your piece, as is or to augment one already sculpted on. You can do the same for manes and tails and feathers, as well. Messo is also great for texturizing bases like for stone, dirt, or even short grass. So play around this this stuff — there’s a lot you can do with it in terms of textures and effects!

Bonus Tips

To save yourself a lot of plastic removal, think about using an OF that’s already armature-ish because it’s pre-“skinny,” or more "skeletal" or “bony.” Like if you’re wanting to create a “deserty" Arabian, don’t use a PAM, CAS, or even a CAM. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but nope — use a Touch Of Class! No joke! In fact, you can use the TOC for all sorts of breeds since there’s so little to her, you can do a minimal amount of plastic removal to get where you need to be to then just build her up. It’s a lot less work and and loads less wear and tear on your hands and nerves, and a lot less mess and noise to boot. It also helps to mitigate carpal tunnel syndrome which some folks can get from excess use of a moto-tool.

Speaking of which, if you don’t have a Dremel, you can use a hacksaw to cut up your model. It’s more work and awkward, but it can be done. Just be sure to use the butcher’s glove on your model-holding hand though and a face mask!

The big mistake many folks make when customizing is to sculpt the plastic or the cured epoxy putty with a Dremel, thinking they can leave that as the final form to just sand it later. Absolutely do not do this! You’re just setting yourself up for a subpar result and lots of needless sanding you really shouldn't be doing. Rather, Dremel away the offending area in preparation to adding fresh epoxy on top, sculpted properly, detailed, and smoothly. This also goes for mane removal on necks and tail removal on legs. For this, just remove a bit more than you need to and sculpt the neck areas and the leg areas back in with fresh epoxy, smooth it out well, and voilá...no awful, fiddly sanding at the back end trying in vain to truly smooth what you carved with a Dremel bit. Why do I it this way? Because you can fully blend the epoxy edges better to minimize sanding later, but even more, all the fleshiness and boniness you install in the fresh epoxy is light years better than anything you can carve in with a Dremel. Like epoxy sculpted wrinkles are always better than Dremel-carved wrinkles. The two are not the same. So don’t even try to do sculpting with a Dremel as the results just aren't as good as actually sculpting that area back in with fresh epoxy. And who wants to do even more sanding to smooth down all those Dremel marks, ridges, and gouges anyway? And along those lines, this is how I do my distal foot sculpting. That's to say, I don't Dremel in the frog, clefts, hoof wall, and all that. Instead, I hollow the area out to sculpt it all back in with fresh epoxy later. That's how you can get so much detail, precision, and realism in this area.

Similarly, another big mistake I see many make is the reasoning, “I’ll just sand it later.” Ack! See, here's the thing: If you have to robustly sand something later to make it smooth, you've made your life needlessly more difficult. The trick with working with epoxy clay is to blend it immediately flush when you first lay it down and then do your sculpting to then fiddly futz with it as it cures, polishing it smooth with rubbing alcohol and brushes. If you’ve done your job right in this regard, there should barely be any sanding at the back end. So invest the time and attention on the epoxy as it cures to smooth it well and you’ll save yourself a lot of sanding headache later. Plus, this way it’s not only a lot less work and hardship on your hands and joints, but you preserve all the fleshiness, detailing, textures, and other sculpted qualities you’ve worked so hard to create that sanding would just mar, even obliterate.

It’s smart to plan where you’ll place your epoxy clay on the model to scuff up those areas well with coarse sandpaper to distress the surface for some gripping “tooth” to it. This way your epoxy clay can really grip onto the plastic well, helping to ensure longterm durability and stability. Don’t do this all over your model, of course, just only where that epoxy will be going. On that note, many customizers drill a hole in a discreet place to allow the passage of air since plastic is said to expand and contract with heat. However, it’s uncertain whether this helps or not as I have many Vintage Customs here in pristine condition without holes which have endured plenty of temperature fluctuations in their lifetimes. So make of that what you will.

If you need to add an armature for a tail or free-floating bits of mane, this is what I do (on a 1:9 scale model as an example). First, I Dremel holes with the tile cutter bit about 1/4” into the crest of the neck for the mane, one hole for each supportive tendril (be sure to use all PPE). If the mane is to be particularly extravagant, perhaps every 3/4" to 1” apart will do — it’s up to you. Then I take 12 gauge aluminum wire and cut it to the lengths I want for the mane, adding 1/4” inch to the length to compensate for the depth of the crest hole. Then I press in “cleats” up to 1/4” up one end of the wire with some heavy-duty wire cutters so the wire can "grab" the glue. Then take 5-Minute Glue, mix it up and pop that into each of the holes. I wait a little bit until it’s starts gum up at bit then I push the cleat end of each wire down into each hole and give it a little twist to really lock that glue around the cleats and to push out any air bubbles. 

After it stiffens up a bit, I make small adjustments then let that cure completely overnight. After all that, I arrange the wires how I want them then sculpt on an epoxy clay armature to provide more structure. I let that cure then refine with a Dremel and then proceed to do my actual epoxy sculpting. So yeah, it's a process that's done in stages, not all in one go. As for the tail, I use that tile cutter to punch right though the body then use the same wire-gluing technique to attach a 12 gauge aluminum wire into the hole (don't forget the cleats). You don’t have to punch through if you don’t want to, just make sure you’re in there deeply to provide those cleats with a lot of gripping power. The last thing you want is for your mane or tail to detach because it wasn’t on there solidly enough! Remember, the chances that your sculpted mane or tail will take a knock or pull are high so you really want them on there. 

Now if you're struggling with sculpting hair, you aren't alone. Indeed, I actually find it to be the most difficult part of our subject to sculpt! Tougher than heads, legs, necks...you name it. Why? Well, because you have to account for texture, passive physics, composition and harmony, durability, cast-ability, ship-ability, wispiness, paint-ability, and it all has to marry together into something that makes sense and also looks beautiful, but organically chaotic. So show yourself some grace when you struggle with it — it's a struggle more common than you think. To that end then, study a lot of reference photos and videos, do a lot of field study, and study how other artists interpret hair, too. Sometimes seeing how they tackled the challenge can be a moment of enlightenment. And there's an important fact to notice in this: There isn't one right way to sculpt hair! You can approach it in many different ways with great success! For instance, Marilyn Newmark sculpted highly detailed hair, and it looks great! On the other hand, Veryl Goodnight's manes and tails are more implied, and it looks great! Edwin Bogucki kinda had a style more in the middle, combining detail and impressionism, and it looks great! Or closer to home, Sarah Rose sculpted hair in a very detailed way, and it looks fantastic! In contrast, Lynn Fraley sculpts hair more impressionistically, and it looks fantastic! And then Amanda Brock sculpts in a bold, energetic way right in the middle, and it looks fantastic! So find the way that works for your sensibilities and don't get too hung up on what's "right." Chances are your way is right, too! See, I'll never forget a bit of advice Veryl Goodnight gave us during one of her workshops I took with her years ago in Taos, New Mexico..."Remember, people will already know it's hair." In a nutshell then, sculpt hair in a way that makes sense to you and it'll likely make sense to the rest of us, too. Really, you have enough to sweat about with sculpting hair already, don't beat yourself up over this, too!

It’s important to pick nice OFs to do your customizing on, especially if your input will be minor to moderate. That’s to say, the less drastic you intend to make it, the more the inherent nature of the OF matters. So great ones to start with are the Breyer Maureen Love OFs as they truly stand the test of time (this includes the new Stablemate Madonna). It’s still very hard to beat Maureen! But I also recommend the ISH and many others from the Stone Company, and many of the modern Breyers, whatever trips your trigger. So like if you pick a really great OF, do impeccable prepwork and then input exquisite paintwork, you’re well on your way to ribbons in the ring! Yes, the equation can be that simple!

Now if you want to hair your model, go here for my six-part series on how to do that (to get to the next part, just hit “newer post” at the end of each post). And to prep your model, go here for my blog post about that. Then for some painting quick tips, check out my blog post on that here, too. If you’d like some discussion on using non-horse colors on your palette, go here and here and here. To learn some beginner-level special effects in paint, go here for my six-part series on that (again just hit "newer post" at the end of the post to get to the next part). For painting faces, go here. For proportion measuring, go here for that blog post. And I also wrote some blog posts on some down and dirty tips for sculpting ears, eyes, heads, and nostrils, too, so check those out as well. And I wrote a more simplified guide for sculpting the head, too, here. If you’d like some insights into painting a dapple grey, check out Part I and Part II. Or if you’d like some discussion on all dappled coats, go here. And if you want lots more discussion about goo and fleshiness, go here. And go here if you want some insights on sculpting fabulous foals. Phew — that'll keep you busy for a long time!

Now the issue of similarity will probably come up at some point in your career as a customizing artist. When we're all dealing with the same OFs, particularly with the preponderance of all the decades of creativity that preceded us, accidental similarities are inevitable. So for more discussion on this issue with some helpful insights, go here. It's an important read. Why? Because it's critical to follow your original Vision without stealing someone's IP or practicing plagiarism. Yet we are dealing with a finite subject, aren't we? So sometimes even our original Vision is strikingly similar to an earlier work inadvertently. Hey, it happens! Crossover is more common than you may think. What does all this mean? What do we do? So read that blog post as it'll give you some curious notions to ponder on this topic.

On that note, be careful when using anatomy charts as direct references. Why? Well, no matter how incredible the reference is itself, there are still drawbacks we need to be aware of, so keep them off that sculpt-by-numbers pedestal. They should be referenced as guides, deciphered as suggestions, not agonized over as absolute truth, as infallible factuality. Why? Because they aren't! To dive further into this relevant discussion, read this blog post in Part 1 and Part 2. It's another important read that'll help you keep anatomy charts in proper perspective which can often result in better work and more fascinating deeper dives into anatomical study.

Conclusion

Customizing is a big big topic, full of various techniques, ideas, and philosophies, all getting to the same essential place: A beautiful custom model. In other words, if anything I’ve shared doesn’t work for you, no big whoop! Just do some research into other how-tos to see if those other methods work better for you. Quite literally, each customizer tends to have their own way of doing things, which is great! The more creative pathways there are to the same artistic destination, the better, right? Yep! So check out YouTube and blogs for more how-tos, or even better, take some workshops and classes to flesh out your skill set. The point is — don’t stop if you get stuck or if some way just doesn’t jive with you! Simply switch gears. See, it’s probably not you, it’s probably just the methods, media, or materials you’re using, so explore other options.

And that’s important because the truth is the world needs your art! We need more artists at work in our art form — truly, the more, the merrier! Our community and our arts will be immeasurably enriched by your Voice so if you’ve been toying with the idea of starting up, let this be your sign. Right now! There’s a ton of how-to material out there at your fingertips to get you started, and plenty of social media groups exist as a support system. And if the prospect of torking an expensive modern OF just gives you hives, there’s always vintage cheapies for sale, especially in eBay. Hey, I just bought an old Classic Man O' War there for $10 to tork for another painting class!

The customizing arts have a long and storied past, stretching all the way back to the mid-60s when people first bent a leg with boiling water, glued fabric-backed craft hair onto their Breyers, or used Testor’s paint to pinto up their OF. People simply wanted something unique and more life-like from the very start. So while OFs may have been with us since the beginning, customs were close on their heels, our oldest and most diverse art form. So join the happy horde of fellow artists who customize, join this honored continuum that spans nearly all the way back to the beginning of this madcap model horse journey! Lend your artistic Voice to the chorus! Come join us and we’ll all give you a very enthusiastic high five! *Smack* Huzzah!

“I would like to paint the way a bird sings.”

— Claude Monet

High Five 3: My Top Five Customizing Tips