Next, I sculpted the waves in another layer.
For this, I didn’t use Magic Sculp but Super Sculpey Firm. Like Magic Sculp, it is one of the most popular sculpting materials in the figure modelling world, especially on the fantasy side. But it is very different from Magic Sculp: it is not an epoxy putty but a polymer clay.
The biggest practical difference: it doesn’t harden by itself but stays soft for as long as you want, until you bake it at about 135°C. The big advantage: this allowed me to take as much time as needed to sculpt the waves. I could also go back to areas I already finished a week earlier and adjust them or redo them.
I first applied a layer of a couple of millimetres all over the seascape, and redefined the seas with a smaller spoon:
Next, I impressed waves with a cheap round-headed sculpting tool. I rolled the tool a little each time to get oval shapes, and I made sure to vary their size and depth:
Next, I added smaller wavelets by going over the entire surface again with a smaller ball-headed tool:
I worked in limited areas at a time.
Why did I first sculpt a layer with Magic Sculp before this, rather than doing everything in one thick layer of Super Sculpey? A thicker layer would be a little more difficult to bake, but most importantly I wanted firmly defined recesses for the ships that wouldn’t move while sculpting the final surface.
After finishing the entire surface, I went back to many areas to improve them a bit further: introduce a bit more ‘irregularity’, shape some seas more to my liking, etc.
This sculpting took a lot more time than I anticipated, close to 20 hours, spread over two weeks of free time. I could easily sculpt an entire 1/35 scale figure in that time (at least when using commercial head and hands)…
Luckily, it was really fun to do! And I love how controllable this technique is. It could be used to create very different kinds of seas too.
I filled the recesses for the boats again a little and used their plugs again for the final shaping. Left is finished, right not yet:
I also sculpted recesses for the large pieces of floating debris: