Making Fantasy Miniatures with Cernit

Cernit is a sculpting and modeling clay that hardens to a porcelain like finish and it is very popular amongst collectible doll makers and collectors. It has some distinct advantages for sculpting miniatures and is particularly suited for beginners.

About Cernit: It is a soft clay that stays soft for a very long time which is a very good property if you are a beginner to sculpting miniatures. You have no time limit in how long you can work on your projects. And, when you are ready to harden it you can pop it in the oven, a toaster oven or even use a hair dryer on it or boil it in water. One of the biggest advantages of Cernit is the softness of it. Some people really like this softness because it is very easy to tool and work with. It can get too soft though if you knead it a lot with your hands! Too soft, I guess is a relative term, but for really small miniatures you need to watch you don't get it too soft or the fine details may be difficult to sculpt. (It is available on Amazon.com Cernit Modeling Clay Roll over the link for more information)

Here are some terrific pictures of fantasy miniatures that a web visitor has submitted (Nicholas W.) Thanks Nicholas! You can contact him on Facebook and/or see more pictures of his work on his Facebook page. He gives us some tips on how he uses Cernit in making his miniatures:

One thing I found useful with Cernit was that I could bake it in stages. I would cover my armature with tiny little bits of Cernit (not taking any care to mold them, just make them stick out all over the place), and then bake it, and that would give me a rough surface to build on and stick more clay to. It worked a treat. I used very fine steel wire for the armature, so this initial stage would also add more stability and strength to the "skeleton" of the miniature.

I also found that the white Cernit isn't the best color to use, since it's quite hard to see the details when you're working on it. Red and grey were my favourite colors, but I also tried yellow, as I recall.

And if the Cernit becomes too soft when you're working on it, just stick it in the fridge for a little while and it will firm up. Using the non-white Cernit helps too. As I recall, the white Cernit could become very soft and sticky if you worked it a lot, whereas the colored variants didn't become quite as soft, for some reason.

here are some pictures of some of the fantasy miniatures that Nicholas has sculpted using Cernit:

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Making Fantasy Miniatures with Cernit

Sculpting Fantasy Miniatures

NEW: How to sculpt fantasy miniatures

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