Sculpt the figure, taking pains about it (5)
I believe the answer is:
carve
'sculpt' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the figure taking pains about it' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'about' could be 'ca' (abbreviation for 'circa') and 'ca' is found in the answer.
'it' could be 'e' ('e' can mean 'electronic' which is similar to 'IT') and 'e' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for carve that I've seen before include "Attack the turkey" , "Cut into pieces" , "produced by desire, with a shifting to the left" , "Cut meat with sharp knife" , "Cut meat into slices for eating" .)