Hi folks,

2012 is gonna be a banner year for both music and animation on this blog.

First things first: I got the clay just the way I want it. It's so simple, it's silly.

Basically, you mix the Van Aken Claytoons with stikki wax. I started doing this about two years ago, but stopped because of the issue of not knowing how to smooth it. My tools stuck to the waxier clay.

Well, one thing you can do is add a small amount of paraffin. That reduces tackiness, but could make the clay brittle. The formulas are pretty sensitive to becoming off-balance.

What I found to work for both smoothing the clay with a brush and smoothing it with tools, is 100% petroleum jelly. At first, I was wondering why it would smooth it and then it hit me- both petroleum jelly and stikki wax are made of microcrystalline wax (just different hardnesses). The reason you use mineral oil to smooth modeling clay is because it has a lot of petroleum jelly in it. Mineral oil thins petroleum jelly, Using that logic, I found that petroleum jelly thins microcrystalline wax. To get rid of fingerprints, you only need a tiny amount of petroleum jelly on your brush. So, there's that.

Now, the brush you use to smooth modeling clay with is important. I thought nylon was a good choice, but when I talked to a painter today he informed me that the difference between nylon and Taklon brushes is the nylon bristles are going to be slightly rough. You can't see it, but the reason for this is that nylon brushes are designed to carry paint. The rough structure of the bristles allows them to do this. The probelm is, nylon bristles are too rough for modeling clay. However, there is a solution:

Taklon. Taklon bristles are very slick, almost like glass. With them, you get almost no brush strokes, and they glide across the clay surface, mending it instead of tearing it up.

Also started making music again, after studying the way my older software worked.

So, I'm excited! It will be a new year soon, and everything's in place for a high creative output in 2012.