Sculpting Advice

Mirren

I need a little advice
My husband is going to kill me as I take on every form of crafts I see and then want to try - currently my craft room (aka our dvd collection room) is full of jewellery making, card making, digital, traditional, painting, polymer etc materials and now today seen a great artist by the name of Steven Richter who sculpts amazing busts.
He uses monster clay and wed clays then casts them in silicone but I am miles away from this.

My question is, with his original sculpts in monster or WED clays, his “thing” is next project recycles the clay by demolishing his previous sculpt and creates a new piece.

I however, just want to sculpt. I have only dabbled in air dry and polymer but the pieces I wish to make are too big/thick for polymer to bake to set and I’ve not had the best experiences with generic (DAS) air dry as they often crack or do t work well when doing intricate facial work.
Could anyone give me some advice on an alternative to monster or WED, I’ve never used a wax/oil based clay before so would like to experiment and £40 a block is a little steep but don’t want to have to bake to set

Is there any reasonable clays to experiment with so that I don’t waste money if I fail and hubby won’t have a hairy canary because I’ve ruined expensive clay 😂

Also any books or videos to check out would be great!