Making Molds of Polymer Clay Sculpture

Make your own molds from your polymer clay sculptures

The wonderful thing about polymer clay is that you can create one of a kind sculpture with it but sometimes you might want to make copies of a sculpture. For that you need to make a mold and then cast in a material like resin, plaster, or porcelain. This lens is all about how to make molds from polymer clay (or any other sort of clay).

Safety First

Most of these mold making materials are hazardous if not used correctly. Always make molds in a well ventilated area, wear gloves and safety glasses. When using powdered materials like plaster wear a dust mask or respirator.

Introduction

This lens is for the beginner learning to make molds of their sculpture but also contains information for more experience mold makers as well.

I'm not going to cover lost wax or other mold making techniques for casting in metal. It's just beyond the scope of this lens and my personal experience.

What To Do With Your Molds?

Basics of Casting Sculpture

So you've got your molds ready now it's time to cast some sculpture. This lens is all about how to cast your sculptures using a variety of materials, polymer clay, plaster, resin, porcelain, and more.

What Type of Mold?

The basic rule of molds is that you use a rigid mold for soft casts (eg. plaster molds for porcelain casting because porcelain is removed from the mold while still soft) and flexible molds for rigid casts (eg. silicone mold for resin casts).

Basic Mold Making Resources

Hirst Arts Mold Making Page: This page shows you how to create your own molds using several different molding compounds.
How to make good sculptural moulds: Advanced tips on how to overcome the problems of how to make good sculptural moulds.

Books on Mold Making

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To Seal Or Not To Seal

Fully cured polymer clay doesn't typically need to be sealed before making a mold. However some mold makers prefer to seal it anyway.

Raw polymer clay, plasticine, and porous clays should be sealed with a spray sealer such as Krylon Crystal Clear. Plasticine containing sulfur must always be sealed before using any sort of rubber mold as the sulfur can interfere with the rubber curing.

Brush on Molds

Brush on molds are some of the easiest flexible molds to make. You brush on layers of latex (or other brush on rubber) and allow them to dry in between.

Usually latex molds require a rigid "mother mold" made of plaster or fiberglass to support it while the cast is made.

Links about Brush on Molds

Latex mold making: This simple tutorial will show how easy and fun rubber mold making is. We start with an interesting rock or other object, This rock is a piece of granite that has some interesting structure.The first step is brushing a coat of rubber mold onto the rock or object to be molded. Make sure you cover eve
Plaster Master Guide to the Making of a Latex Mold: Plaster Master Guide to the Making of a Latex Mold
How I create a Gargoyle: Tutorial by Tamara Dozier on sculpting, molding and then casting in plaster a gargoyle.

Videos about Brush On Molds

How to make a Latex Mold

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Making Molds Using Natural Latex

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Introduction to Mold Making

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Making a Support Shell for Brush-On Mold

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Cutting a Brush-On Rubber Mold

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Brush On Latex from Blick Art Materials

Rub-R-Mold

ArtMolds KreemTex Latex

Plaster Molds

Plaster is a classic method of making molds. Usually for casting in water clays like porcelain because the plaster will absorb the water away from the clay allowing it to firm up more quickly. The clay is then removed while still a little soft.

Links about Plaster Molds

Making A Plaster Mold: Basic Instructions For Making A Plaster Mold
Plaster Casting - Multi Part Molds - Instructables - DIY, How To, art, craft: This slide show is going to take you through the process of duplicating a sculpture using a multi part plaster mold. In this case, it was a clay cow getting duplicated in a soft foam urethane.
2-PART PLASTER MOLD-MAKING: 2-PART PLASTER MOLD-MAKING - PDF file
LagunaClay.com - How to... Make a plaster mold.: The following useful guide to ceramic mold making is being reprinted with the permission of its author, Anthony D. Bulone, a renowned sculptor, designer, model maker and master mold maker for more than 35 years

Plaster Mold Making Video Series on YouTube

Mold Making Tutorial Part 1

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Mold Making Tutorial Part 2

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Mold Making Tutorial Part 3

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Buy Plaster

Densite Plaster

Blick Plaster Cloth

Pottery Plaster No. 1

Rubber Molds

Rubber molds refer to silicone or urethane rubber mold materials that typically come as 2 liquids that must be mixed together. curing of the mold takes place due to a chemical reaction between the two parts.

Links about Rubber Molds

Dan Perez Studios - Mold Making Tutorial: One of the questions I'm most often asked is "how can I mold and cast my sculptures to make model kits?" I've created a step by step tutorial to show you how. This isn't a complete guide, but it should be enough to get you started.
Mold Making: Two Part Silicone Mold - Instructables - DIY, How To,: This tutorial will demonstrate how to reliably reproduce cast objects using a two part silicone mold. This technique, when skillfully applied, can have incredible resolution, effectively cast very complex shapes, and can yield parts that need little cleanup. This type of mold is most useful for parts that are fairly small, and therefore will not consume a massive amount of silicone to cast. To save material on large castings, techniques such as glove molding and matrix molding are often applied.
How to make molds, mold making instructions: HOW TO MAKE A TWO-PART RUBBER MOLD OF A COMPLICATED MODEL
Paint-Sculpt.com- Silicone Mold Making Tutorial: If you're a sculptor you need to learn how to create molds! This tutorial will guide you through the process of silicone mold making. Silicone molds are very flexible and give you a variety of casting options.
Hellboy bust and matrix mold making tutorial - ConceptArt.org Forums: Hellboy bust and matrix mold making tutorial 3D & SCULPTURE
Silicone Rubber Mold Making - Plastic Resin Casting: Make your own silicone rubber molds - Part 1

Rubber Mold Videos

How to make a two-part mold

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Mold Making: Two-Piece Core Mold - Smooth-On

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Simple Silicone Rubber Molds (no parting line)

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Mold Making, Casting: Types of RTV Mold Rubber by Smooth-On

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Two-Part and Complex Mold Making

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Buy Rubber Mold Supplies

Smooth-On Rebound 25 Silicone Rubber

Smooth-On Reoflex 30 Urethane

Smooth-On Plasti-Paste

Miscellaneous Mold Making Links

Mold Making with Jello - Instructables - DIY, How To, tech, food: Have you ever wanted to make a mold and cast something -- but were discouraged by the cost of casting supplies? Have you ever just wanted to make one duplicate -- rather and one thousand? Perhaps you only wanted to make one or two chocolate book marks or plaster casts of an ink jet cartridge
Simple Clay Mold - Instructables - DIY, How To,: This is a very simple and fast mold for casting plaster or epoxy. I'm sure the picture explains it all, but to make things all good and proper, I'll go through it step by step.
My Heap: Your Molding and Casting Resource!
Customizing 101: Resizing Parts!: Wanting to make a 6" scaled masterpiece, but the perfect parts are all way too big? In the olden days, you'd have to tough it out and make do with what was available to you. Now, through the magic of casting and shrinking, you can make your own parts in any scale you desire! Grab your gear and take good notes as ol' Iron-Cow explains the process of scaling down parts for a 6" scale custom. Make sure to spread out lots of newspaper... it'll be messy!