Q: What sculpting material(s) do you work with?
A I sculp my heads in Premo. It's a polymer clay that heat cures. Eventhough it's the most durable of the sculpey, I always make a mold and cast the head with urethane plastic resin (similar to the ABS plastic used by toy manufacturers). To make additions to an existing body parts, I use Magic Sculp. This is a two part epoxy that air cures. Unlike most epoxies, Magic Sculp has a longer working time (roughly 2 hours).
Q: What type of paint do you use?
A: I mainly use acrylics these days, but if the ocassion calls, I'll use enamels. For most of the heads, I'll airbrush the flesh basecoat using my own Tamiya flesh mix (1 part flesh, 1 part white, 1/2 part burnt ceina, and 1/2 part light pink). I like Tamiya since it has more of a bite and doesn't flake off as often as other acrylics. I've also use Delta acrylics, Citadel and Testor's Model Master for certain colors, but they're aren't as strong as Tamiya IMO. I always seal my customs with 1-2 coats of Testor's Dullcote. It takes the sheen out of color as well as providing a protective coating. For metal colors, there's no getting around enamels. I use Humbrol paint for gold and Dutchboy spray cans for aluminum and silver. I have yet to find a sealer that doesn't alter the sheen of metal so I DO NOT use a sealer for metals.
Q: Why do you sculpt actors for superheroes characters?
A: When I started my Wonder Woman project I wanted to have Lynda Carter's likeness. From that moment on, I became obsessed with using real life likeness for my customs. Sometimes I use an actor that I think looks best for the role and sometime I just pick an actor I like :-). There's very little logic to my casting decisions. Besides, sculpting real human likeness is challenging and gets me away from the monotony of comic book facial likeness. If you haven't noticed, most of the Toy Biz heads look similar. Daredevil and Captain America could be twins and Thor and Mr. Sinister could be long lost brothers. I won't even comment about the FC females who appears to have extra chromosomes for facial phenotype.