Well, I guess I have a list of pros and cons for porcelain. I was, and still am, excited about it as a medium, but don't think I will be using it much for miniatures. At least not the kind I am sculpting designs into, because I found that it melts! The design does. I only made one carved bowl for the glaze testing, and am glad it was just the one, because you can barely even see the leaf design I had carved, and the skinny top rim disappeared completely!
The "pros" of porcelain to me are...it only took a little over an hour more to fire than usual, it is very easy to work with, and the glazes do more things (fancier), than the low fire glazes. The "cons" are what I already said, the detail disappears on miniatures.
I could also see that my glazing technique would need "tweeking" if I were to use porcelain. Some of the samples had tiny pinpoint marks, and that could have been from cooling too fast, or putting it on too thick. Any new glaze needs to be figured out though, (at least for me), and takes a little adjusting to get the result I'm looking for.
I also got to see where the shrinkage happened with the glaze fire. When I had only done the bisque, it didn't look all that much smaller to me than before it was fired, but after the glaze...it is quite a bit smaller.
So here's what I think.....porcelain (for me) will be wonderful for making ornaments and jewelry, maybe full size pottery if I get around to do some, but for miniatures...only if it's a plain piece that I would just like the fancy glaze on.
Back to earthenware for sculpting :)
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