Reddit reviews G.S Wax Carver Spatula Carving Spatula #7a Stainless Steel Dental Instrument Best Quality

No clay is perfect--each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Which is best for you will depend on exactly what you're doing and your own preferences (both positive and negative). And which you can easily find. This article might be helpful.
Personally, I like Kato. It's tough when baked, doesn't discolor easily during baking, and comes in pure colors for easy mixing. It's also really, really firm so it holds detail well. On the other hand: it's way harder than most people enjoy working with, the color selection is small (you really need to mix it to prevent the "I only have eight crayons to color with" look), and it has a stronger odor than most other kinds. It's great for me, maybe not for you.


As Diane pointed out, what tools will be useful to you depends on what you're making. "Small charms" could mean chibi animals, faux gemstones, caning, etc. All are going to have slightly different ideal tools. I can tell you what I use the most, though. I mostly sculpt little cutesy little animal figurines, and keeping that in mind, I think these are my most used tools:


-Aluminum foil. You can sculpt on top of it, then put it into the oven to bake without trying to peel it off. Making a little tent out of it can help prevent discoloring of the clay from spikes in temperature. It can be used to bulk out armatures if you try making figurines. Even when making something small, a ball of it inside a sculpt can save clay, make it lighter (which makes it less likely to break when dropped), and keep the clay thinner to make baking quicker and easier. The one potential problem is that air expands when heated, so air pockets left in the foil could make the clay bulge in places when baked. Because of that, I like to cover the foil ball in a thin sheet of clay, bake it, and then add more clay to sculpt on top.

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-Plastic baggies for clay storage. I use gallon-sized freezer bags, then inside those small bags with individual colors. Keeping all the blocks in one bag together results in them getting smeared on each other and stuck together. Ew.

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-An X-acto or other sharp blade. I also like to keep a dull knife around--the sharp blade to cut the clay cleanly without denting or deforming it (such as for trimming the bottom of a figurine flat), the dull one to make rounded-off cuts and dents (such as adding a mouth or putting texture on locks of hair).

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-Needle tools. You can buy them, but if you're trying to keep costs down, here's a tutorial on making your own. Good for making holes, but also creases and long dents (such as around pumpkins or the neck of a teddy bear). The ones she shows are all straight, but I like using curved ones sometimes, too. I have some cheap dental tools that work like that, but you can get curved needles or just use a bent piece of wire.


-Ball stylus. Good for making soft rounded dents (inside ears, eye sockets, pretty much anywhere you want to add a depression that isn't just gouged out). You could probably make your own using the needle tool tutorial, but instead of keeping a needle in the handle, you'd glue the pointy end of a pin into the handle's hole after baking it. If you decide you like the hobby, it would probably be worth purchasing sturdier metal ones eventually. There's a good chance that clay could break down the pin's plastic over time, and besides, it's helpful to have a wider range of sizes than you can easily find in pinheads.

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-Dental spatula. Like this one or this one here. I know don't know anything about either of those companies, but those spatulas look like they have my preferred shape to the ends. Mine probably spends more time in my hands than any other tool, because it's good at both cutting and smoothing. There are other tools out there that are probably better at each, but I like the versatility. Not having to stop and a find a different tool is nice.

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-An oven thermometer (noticing a trend with these? lol).

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-Some sort of roller/rod for making flat sheets and mixing/conditioning clay. The upgrade to this would be a pasta machine, but they're more expensive. And unless you're rolling out a lot of clay, they can take longer to clean than simply making the sheet with a low-tech roller would.


-If you start making larger objects, you'll want to look into making armatures. Wire and foil are the main supplies you would need for that. Which wire will depend on your project, though.

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Looking around for free potential tools is a good idea. Along with purchased tools, my kit contains all kinds of random junk...bits of wire, toothpicks (some with ends trimmed to certain shapes), a broken paint brush handle, something intended to do something to nail cuticles, etc. I might not use them often, but if they're free, why not?

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It's hard to say what is useless, because most tools are useful if you're making just the right things. I rarely use my clay extruder or mini cookie cutters, for example, but some people seem to get a lot of use out of theirs. Very little is absolutely necessary, though, even when it is helpful. My first tools were just a toothpick and an old beat up paring knife, and those (plus a ball stylus or my rounded-off broken paintbrush handle) would still be sufficient for just about anything I could want to sculpt. You can spend a ton of money on this hobby, but there's very little you must buy. Everything else is just "Ooooo, that would make this project so much easier!" And you'll know when that happens.