craftgrrl | Hi, and some questions!

Hi! Been lurking a while, first time posting. I've got a couple of ~~stupid newb~~ questions if you don't mind?

I make little thingies like this out of Sculpey clay-

...but in all honesty, I'm a beginner. My next project idea is a simple jointed puppet/toy (for my own decorative use- not to be 'played with' as I know sculpey isn't strong enough for that). Usually, I sculpt things onto a tinfoil base...

Onto the questions. Say I want a piece to be hollow. I've heard here and there about people using a wax core and sculpting onto that so that, when baked, the wax will just melt and flow out leaving the hollow item. But I'm not sure- will the sculpey just collapse on itself during baking? Has anyone got experience doing this?

Second (and last, lucky you) question: for an unrelated project, I have a broken artist's manikin- one of the cheap unvarnished ones- and was thinking of customising it- as practice and to use up some leftover materials. Can you apply sculpey directly to wood and bake it? (i.e if I wanted to add facial features etc....) I heard something about boiling it instead of baking?

Seems like a nice community, I hope someone here can help me! Thanks!

ETA: Just tested out sculpting over a wax base- it worked perfectly :)