Fixing The Theropod Wobble With Sculpey And Apoxie Clays

[Over9K]

If you have more than one theropod dinosaur figure, you probably have one that doesn't want to stand up. There's always heating, bending and cooling, but I've found that many figures simply return to their warped ways after a while.

Coins, tiny stones and BluTac mounting putty are just a few of the myriad of things I've stuck under dinosaur toes in an attempt to get them to stand up straight.

For a while now I've been making display bases for my topplers. My first few bases were done using Sculpey III, Oven-Cured clay. The material comes in the entire rainbow of colors, and is super easy to use, just knead, shape and bake. You can add naturalistic texture with a stone from your driveway (I actually stole mine from Chik-Fil-A), add paint, or foliage, but I tend to make mine plain, because I like to be able to put my dinosaurs into different dioramas.

Here are a couple I made with Sculpey III. They were textured with a stone, and then dry brushed with crushed pastels, to make the details pop. These baked at 275°f for 30 minutes.






Last year, I made the switch to Apoxie Sculpt air-cured clay, mostly because it does not require baking, and the clay itself is somewhat adhesive. It is, however, much more expensive.

Apoxie is a two-part epoxy style clay. You mix equal parts of two components until they're one solid color, and you can immediately begin to work the clay. For the first 2 hours the clay is super soft and easily shaped. In the third hour, the clay is still workable, but is firm enough to retain crisp, deep detail. The clay is fully cured after 24 hours.

As with the Sculpey, a plethora of colors are available, and you can add paint, plants, and scenic details to cured Apoxie.

Here are a few examples of Apoxie bases I've made lately. I was especially pleased with how the bases turned out for the REBOR Grab-N-Go T.rexes. The feet on those two are waaaaay crooked.














Recently, rather than make a base for a figure, I have tried adding small clay "shims" under the offending toes, similar to how I used to use coins, or bits of BluTac. I just make tiny clay "sausages", and place them under what is usually the inside two toes of the front foot. I have half a dozen figures from REBOR, W-Dragon, Papo and I-Toy that I have fixed this way. These figures went from toppling-wobblers to rock solid stable.

[ceratopsian]

The "shims" are an excellent unobtrusive fix.