Today the Wax carving Pencils found their long way from Shanghai to my Studio. I thought about to build me a do it yourself wax carver out of a soldering iron, but for this time i’ve found a solution about a week ago on ebay. Shipping was free and fast but the swiss customs duty was pricey. The product name is “Dental Lab Electric Wax Carving Pencil SJK-II” and the price was 89$, so i suggested a price of 80$ to the seller and he agreed…maybe you could go even with a lower price…i  would definitively try, if i had to buy another one.

For some first impressions, watch the short slide show movie of setting up and testing the Wax carving Pencils.

The case seems to be cheap plastic stuff but after changing the plug to a swiss conform male connector everything just worked fine. The main advantages of this Waxer are: You get two pens! Each one of them you can set off/on and set up individually at temperatures 50 ℃ to 200 ℃ (Fahrenheit, 176f to 392f). Within the framework of the arbitrary choice of touch-button, the power heated wax knife automatically set the temperature (Fahrenheit or Celsius display), and continued to maintain the temperature control accuracy of ± 0.5 ℃. Once you’ve set the temperature, the next time you boot up the heat-unit your last temperature settings will be saved…and this thingy makes very fancy digital “beeps” and “piiiiips” if you boot or touch buttons, very impressive!

I think first i’ll shorten the exchangeable brass points for the pencils to have a better handling and make me some own custom points. I’ll update this review after i had time to work one or two weeks with these pens. So stay tuned.

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For the time being i’m working on a new series of five critters for a small limited series. It’s a new way to sculpt my creatures out of wax after done a quick mold of the clay prototype. I haven’t finished yet my actual sculpting tutorial on this but i do take hearty work in progress pics, so be sure to check the tutorial section again. Until then, i’d like to share with you some of the finest online resources about sculpting, d.i.y toymaking and molding stuff. Enjoy!

SCULPTING:

Smellybugs Maquette Tutorial
best clay sculpting tutorial i’ve seen so far! just watch and learn

GoreGoreGore
not much to read, but tons of pictures about the sculpting and molding process

SouthernGFX Tutorials
clay / super sculpey tutorials (you have to scroll down the page one section)

AB Sculpting Studio Tutorial
andy is sculpting a bust in 1/3 scale

FigurePunk Interview on mnartists
sculpting tips and how to produce your own vinyl toys in china

Fanboy – Vinyl Toy comes to Life
step-by-step guide to the making of organ donors

BehindTheToys Figure Creation Process
how an action figure gets created

Gremlins in the Garages – How to
work in process articles and how to make garages kits

Willow Products – Demonstration Videos
all about sculpting waxes and tools to work with it

Dave Pressler – Making Stuff
dave describes the process of making his first vinyl toy

MOLDING:

Dan Perez Studios – Workshop
molding / casting tutorials and some sculpting tips

Hirstarts Mold Making
how to make simple silicone and latex molds

James Rogers Sculptures Studio
figure molding, check how they make the air canals into the mold

MyHeap Molding and Casting Resource
process of making molds, casting up to things like making milk plastic

Jumping Brain – flickr sets
flickr prototyping photosets from emilio garcias jumping brain

Tessetoys – Silicone Mold Guide
how to produce a figure using silicone rubber and resin plaster

B9RobotResource – Molding
silicone rubber mold making – how-to guide

Paint-Sculpt – Mold Making Tutorial
mold making step by step

Alumilite – How to
all kind of mold rubber & cast resin video tutorials

Freeman – Mold Making Videos
silicone rubber and urethane casting resin video tutorials

TAP Plastic – YouTube Chanel
video tutorials about their own rubber products

Pity Mold Suply – YouTube Chanel
different techniques and sfx related molding video tutorials

You have some topic related links to share? please drop a comment and this archives can grow, thx. I will add some book references and communities soon…

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