28mm in super sculpy

[Alan maguire]

Question.

Im plannig on sculpting 28mm figures of all and any periouds, like ww2 , ww1 , ancient , sci fi , wild west , pirates etc etc .... and wondering if buyers of Greens would be intrested considering the casting process is different ?

[Dewbakuk]

Isn't super sculpey a bake hard putty? In which case it should vulcanise in rubber the same way as greenstuff/procreate. It's less likely to survive the process but most greens don't come out complete either.

[Alan maguire]

Yes it is the oven baked clay. Its the flesh color one im useing. I wasnt aware that it would go through the vulcanizing process so thanks for the info!

[Svennn]

It is my putty of choice too (I just find it does what I expect) but I can also confirm it does not survive the moulding process.  All you will get back is rubble so conversions of original poses is virtually impossible.

[Alan maguire]

Isn't super sculpey a bake hard putty? In which case it should vulcanise in rubber the same way as greenstuff/procreate. It's less likely to survive the process but most greens don't come out complete either.

    Thank you!

[Alan maguire]

It is my putty of choice too (I just find it does what I expect) but I can also confirm it does not survive the moulding process.  All you will get back is rubble so conversions of original poses is virtually impossible.

 
 Thanks! yeah i like super sculpy. normaly i use green stuff but slowly moving more and more away from it as my main putty.

[sundayhero]

Be very carefull if you plan to make vulcanised molds. The vulcanising process is really hot and very, very high pressure is pushed on the masters. Not every putty can survive (=keep shape integrity for a good master mold) this.

It's why some putties are more compatible with RTVsilicon for master molding.

[Connectamabob]

My understanding was that polymer clays like Super Sculpy (and Fimo, et al) would be destroyed by the vulcanization process, and that most manufacturers who accept polymer clay masters do an RTV silicone mold to produce high-temp resin intermediaries for making the vulcanized production molds.

Aside from the cost (though that can be balanced by selling the intermediaries as limited edition HQ resin versions, like what Hasslefree's doing), I'd worry about how that destruction would effect the quality/usability of the finished mold. That is, if the mold would turn out misshapen or badly textured/detailed because of the master being crushed/burned while the mold is forming. I have zero experience with vulcanized molds though, so I don't know if that actually is a risk or not. In either case, a resin intermediary seems like the better idea if only because it allows you to retain the original master for future mold runs.

That sad, I definitely prefer polymer clay as a sculpting media over epoxy. I don't like Super Sculpy so much due to the translucence (also it's a bit soft for my taste when it come to really tiny stuff). Back in the day my go-to was a mix of 1 carton SS to 1 small brick black Fimo classic and 1 small brick white Fimo classic. That yealded a very nice, very responsive yet stiff neutral grey clay.

[Dewbakuk]

As long as the figure is built with a proper wire/metal armature it should vulcanise fine. The extended heat and pressure is likely to destroy the original but the rubber will have taken the shape by then and just be setting up.

I've managed to vulcanise styrene rod before, which I wouldn't recommend, the odds aren't good. It went in as it had been used to sprue up some heads for resin casting and I expected it to be destroyed in the mould. It actually vulcanised fine but there was literally no trace of it in the cavity when the mold was split.

Making resin masters first can be expensive. It can be a good way to go but you are doing the same job at least twice. I've also seen vulcanised cavities 'fail' because of resin casts. The resins were beautiful casts but had air bubbles somewhere inside which meant the resulting metals were unusable.

[Connectamabob]

Making resin masters first can be expensive. It can be a good way to go but you are doing the same job at least twice.

Well, many full production runs start out with making an intermediary mold anyway in order to make enough master copies to fill out a production mold, and as noted the resin castings can be sold to pay for their own production*. To me it kinda sounds like mostly a start-up cost thing. If a caster's only set up to do metal, having a go at some resin will be a disproportionally large investment both materially and skill wise for just a couple extra figures.

I've also seen vulcanised cavities 'fail' because of resin casts. The resins were beautiful casts but had air bubbles somewhere inside which meant the resulting metals were unusable.

I'd ask about the techniques used to make the resin masters in those cases. Unfortunately one of the things I've learned over the years is that gaming mini producers cut corners all over the place where resin is concerned. There are ways to make such castings bubble-free, but going by the quality of resin casting I've too often seen, most gaming mini casters don't know or care to know how to cast resin well. It's actually IMO a big reason why resin is unpopular with gamers: most if not all the resin they've seen has been sub-par, so they assume resin is a lesser material, even though it's really the casters to blame... which in turn doesn't motivate casters much to up their game.

All that said, assuming start-up and skill are already taken care of, casting a figure in resin is more expensive than casting in metal. Any time you see someone offering resin as a "cheap" alternative to metal, you know something's wrong. So I suppose this is all moot outside of collector/display grade sculpts that would benefit from being sold as resin instead of metal from the get-go.

*Obviously though this is only viable for figures that might have a market for that. Hasslefree can do it because they mostly deal in high-quality character sculpts people might want for display builds anyway. A producer who makes pure army filler (or whose sculpting is only good enough for the table) won't likely have many customers who want/care about special high-grade alt editions.

[Dewbakuk]

Yes you can use the resins to make production molds, but in this case we were talking about using the resin casting as a way to protect the sculpt and the only reason for the sculpt to need saving is if the sculptor wants to reuse parts of it. In which case the resins are unlikely to go into a production mold 'as is' anyway as few companies have a need to make molds that only have one figure on it.