What type of material did the artist use to carve the bronze statue 'Shiva'?

Answer 1

Soft clay most likely; Bronze statues are cast, not carved. There are several steps to doing this. For life-sized statues, life-casts can be made of a living model or the actual person being honored. This is done much as they do these days with movie prosthetics using plaster of Paris and cloth. then oil is painted on the inside of the lifecast and soft clay is pushed into it. A form of skeletal structure is also used to give it rigidity. the component pieces are assembled and secured and the artist fills in spaces with additional clay, smooths it out and fasions it until the desired form is finished. Next a box is constucted around the clay statue. If several castings will be made sectional molds will be used. If not the mold can be made with a single pouring. Once the mold is set, the clay can be washed out and the skeleton broken up and removed. It is important to ensure every bit of clay is remove, if not, the entire process may need to be repeated. Next, molten bronze is poured into the cavities. and the mold is pivoted and turned to ensure the bronze finds it's way to every portion. Solid bronze statues of course are more expensive to make than hollow figures. So this is a consideration. Once the bronze has hardened, the mold can be broken away to reveal the statue for inspection. If it passes, the artisans fill, file, and sand down any imperfections. They will move from more abrasive to finer finishing methods until all that is left is to polish out minors scratches.