What are surfaces that you've tried that worked and did not work? I'd love to know.
If you care to read the reason I've decided to ask this specifically, you can see below. If TL;DR, that's ok, I really just want to see what everyone's used to sculpt on.
I drew my fluke design on tracing vellum, and when I attempted to sculpt on that, it of course didn't work. The clay would not even begin to stick, so to speak, everything just slid around. The vellum I was using is not the traditional 'made from skin' kind, it's a cotton/paper blend that I had a roll of from making my child's Halloween costume patterns.
So I acquired a piece of Lexan large enough to cover the design, and sculpted over the design this way. Sculpting on that went great, because the clay sticks very easily. I could also make a scale and lay it on the Lexan, then lightly nudge it down, and when liquid resin or plastic was poured over it, it stayed put.
However, once the resin or liquid plastic was poured, the Lexan warped. My second go (after my first fluke mold was a fail due to the resin cracking, nothing to do with the warp, really), I weighed down the Lexan and the mold seemed to stay flat. Edit to add: the Lexan returned to a normal, flat shape once the mold was removed, and wasn't warped itself. So it seems to me now that it wasn't the heat that did it, it was the mold itself.
But it didn't; the Smooth-On Smooth-Cast produced enough heat that when it was all done, I had a mold which was bowed up in the middle. I've poured a test, and even evening out that section is not going to work. Dealing with liquids, it of course needs to be even.
I've thought about using a piece of tempered glass over the drawing, but glass being what is is, I'm not fond of that margin for disaster.
I know a lot of people use cardboard, which I didn't want to do because transferring my fluke design onto cardboard leaves so much room for error. But it looks like it might be my best shot.
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