How to make simple Silicone Molds at home!

1. Intro: I am super excited to be recording on another video for you guys. I have so many video ideas that I was kind of hard for me to decide which one to do next. Then I remembered that whenever he used to share de moulding videos like, You know, when you pop something out of silicone moulder flexible OLED remember getting plastered with questions like, How do you make it? Is it a hot glue gun? How can I do this? I want to do this so badly. So I was like, Hey, that's a great idea. So I kind of back Bernard, all the other ideas to make a how to make a cheap at home old. Now I actually have two different types that I'm going to share with you one. Both are very attainable, very reasonably priced. One is a bit easier if you already have the sculpting supplies. You already have the supplies to make a multi. The other one just requires a little trip to the local hardware store. Still very reasonable now. Some people have a stigma against molds. Spoiler alert. I'm not one of them, but some people say you know if it's not hand sculpted every time from the beginning that it's not a one of a kind of item and all that stuff. However, as a sculptor, there are some elements to work that would be significantly easier or a streamline your work low. If you could make easy molds easy copies of, for instance, you could make a simple version, a simple base scoped, make a mold of it and then, uh, customized off of that. It will save a chunk of time to get to that same similar based design every time. So you can really focus your efforts on customization. Adding extra colors, extra sculpted details, extra eyeballs. It depends on what your sculpting, but it takes out a chunk of unnecessary time, something you've already designed so not only doesn't save you more time. It helps avoid burnout as an earnest, because you aren't making the same base designed over and over and over and over. Instead, you're giving yourself more time to focus on the unique one of a kind aspects of your sculpture, which is really satisfied. Also, consumers get a positive because you don't have to charge as much because you aren't spending this much time every time you have to do a base, sculpt your just spending this much time the customization. Anybody obviously see a lot of benefits. Of course, molds should never be used to duplicate another artist work that should go without saying. But I need to say it because, you know, from making it to total and have to make molds. I need to say that I don't use this tutorial to coffee, other people's work movies. Gonna pretend I didn't need to say that, though. So, yes, this is for your work as a sculptor to make your artistic process easier, more streamline all that good stuff. So in this class, I'm going to show you a number of things. I'm going to show you what type of sculptures these two molds work for. Best I'm gonna show you ways to make two different types of simple, affordable molds without having to buy, you know, order and a bunch of stuff, or to part morals, or needing to about de gassing and all that stuff. No, these are very simple, very straightforward, very reasonable. I'm going to show how to design a simple based sculpture that lends itself well to both using with moulds thes molds and also lends itself well to customization Later. And then I will share a few suggestions of more pricey mold materials that I have found useful. Um, for those more complicated sculptures that won't necessarily work with these two types of bolts. So I'll have you covered either way. So let's get to it. I'm gonna show you what supplies you'll need to make both types of molds. And, of course, you can pick and choose. If you want to, just try and one of them, that's fine. Next video will show what supplies you need to follow love. 2. Supplies: Let's talk about supplies. So I'm going to be showing you had to make two different types of molds today. A polymer clay, ble based mold and a silicone flexible mold. This is my personal preference, but I'm gonna show you both because both do have their uses. This one is much quicker, much easier. If you want something that simple, like I did here, I'll explain later what this is if you want something fast, simple, easy to use without getting too messy. The polymer clay is the way to go. But if you want something more detailed, that's gonna last a lot longer. And also it's kind of way more functional in general and you have the time to do it. Silicone mold is amazing. So first, let me show you the the supplies that you need to make this polymer clay mold. You will need polymer clay, which you probably already have some sort. If you are a sculptor, personally, I will be using super School p for this. It is cheaper for me. So I don't mind using it, uh, for making a bunch of molds and stuff like that also because it bakes so quickly it's easier, faster to use. You don't have to wait as long. It's great. It is quite soft. So it gets the impression of your sculpture very nicely. And, uh, yeah, that's pretty much it. This is what I will be using for both sculpting today and also making them bolt. Now. I never used this. If I am doing it for an actual sculpture that will be kept because this is very fragile. I use primo polymer clay for this sculpture that will actually be used worn. Looked at this case. This stuff is so fragile that can't even be looked at. No, I'm kidding. But for for sculpting, um, a base sculpt that will be molded. I don't mind using the stuff. Besides that, what you'll need is your sculpting tools, whatever you personally like. I'm just going to be using these two tools and my fingers today. If you want to see a more comprehensive list of different tools I've used in the past and sculpting, you can check out my other videos. Um, going to use corn starch and also paintbrush for dusting purposes. Um, corn start just great because it's a very, very fine grit powder. Um, Tappy. Yoka Starch is also similar texture if you happen to have that instead of corn starch. But corn starch is pretty easy to get eso. That's what's gonna be needed for the polymer clay mold. No, I will show you next what is needed for the silicone mold. You're going to still need a sculpture, which will be out of polymer clay. However, what you need is to containers that won't be used for food. Later I'm going to be using this plastic bowl and this smaller glass bowl. This is what the actual mold will go in this palm, all of dish soap. Yes, it's huge. I'm saying I shop at Costco. Okay, Can't help it. And a tube of silicone and silicone gun. This is what you'll use toe actually squish it out of the tube. But this is the type of silicone you need. Clear silicone, waterproof, no shrinking, and usually it's used. This mentions window door addict trim flashing. Sometimes it also will mention usable in bathrooms or kitchen or around tile stuff like that. But clear silicone. Clear. Silicone is the most important thing because there are colored silicones, but I find they're not as flexible. Don't know why. This is what you need. I got this at my local hardware store for, like, five or six bucks. Super reasonable, huge amount. If you're making just small molds like this which is really what silicone like this is ideal for you will have plenty to last You 3. Design and two part molds: So let's talk about design what type of sculptures these mould work best with. So here's the two different types that I'm gonna be showing you guys had to make today. This one is made out of polymer clay, and this one is made out of silicone, so this one is rigid. This one, as you can see, is flexible. So these air both ideal for simple, flat backed or flat sided. There has to be a flat side somewhere on your sculpture. These molds are not ideal for two part moulds. So if your sculpture is three d and you wanted to be seen from all sides, there's no flat side that is going to sit either on someone's neck on someone's, uh, Drescher shelf. If there are no flat backs than these, aren't really the ideal, you can still make it work, but it's gonna be more sculpting on your part to make it look good. So there's that. Here's a list of some more pricey mold making material that is very compatible with making two part moulds. In case that's what you were looking for. I would suggest you do research into you these materials 4. Design continued: I forgot to mention that, of course, with the polymer clay mold, you'll need a baking tray of some sort and an oven in which to cure it. But again, if you're sculptor, you already know that. But it still had to mention it. Imagine, let's talk about designing a sculpture that will work well with either of these molds. Let's talk about this non flexible claim old It is, for sure, the quickest and easiest, because you don't have to go out and buy other supplies. If you are already sculpting, you have the supplies to make this. You have the oven, you have everything. The only extra thing that you might need is corn starch. But I always use corn starch in my sculpting to powder my fingers to keep them from sticking from the clay. Too much stuff like that. So if you're like me, then you already have all the supplies needed to make a clean based mold. Here's an example of one that I made. The original sculpt is this lotus seed pod. See frickin, you can see the little details in the center. Now this along tenderly part would be quite difficult to make a good quality mold of However, it's very quick and easy to just roll it out and sculpt. This, on the other hand, took a lot more time to sculpt, But you could save a bunch of time by making just a imprint of the edge. So this is what I did for this one. This is an idea in an example of ways you can use molds to speed up processes that don't need to take a lot of extra time. If you've already spent the time to sculpt this 1st 1 then why I need to do it over and over again? It iss so why don't I show you how to make this? 5. Making a clay mold: Since these Klebold aren't flexible, they are definitely best to use with simple sculptures that aren't too thick, so you don't have to struggle to de mold or unmold it. So once you've already sculpted the original and cured it completely in the oven, it's ready to make a motive. So very simply in order to do this lead cornstarch. I like using a paintbrush, but you can just use your finger and some raw clay. Um, just soften it. Make sure it's all soft, mushy, ready for in printing. Something else I like to do is make sure that none of these creases that you see here is where you're going to be. In printing the peace. Make sure the place where it's going to be squished into it is nice and smooth. No cracks, because that can affect the quality of your mold, of course. So just make a nice little smooth area about the size that you want. You can take a little bit of the corn starch either with the paintbrush or I'll show you with my finger as well. I just want it very nicely dusted. You can do the same for your piece as well, this is to avoid any sticking. Try and get a nice clean imprint now to actually make the imprint. You want to place the rock lee on the tile or baking sheet that you're going to be baking it out because once it's imprinted, you don't want to have to pick it up and possibly squish it, thus marring the details. So grab your breaking tile. I personally put quite a bit of corn search on the actual tile to avoid this, sticking to it as it's baking. And once this is positioned here once it's imprinted, you do not want to move it until it's done. Curie. So take your sculpted piece and line it up straight, so show you side view as straight as possible. I want to go straight down no ankle, because that again can more details, so imprint straight down very firmly. Second, it touches the clay. There's no going back. I'm just kidding. You can easily re squish it cause it's rock click, and then once it's done, you want it carefully. You don't wanna you don't want to pry it out. You don't want toe accidentally mush it around because that again can affect the quality of the imprints. Now, if you notice, you can have a look at this point, This I don't mind picking up cause I'm gonna redo it. As you can see, there's a little ledge that didn't quite capture what I wanted. It wasn't a perfect capture. So really easy. You just mush it back up. Give yourself another smooth, clean edge. Yes, where it's easy. Okay, there we go. There's a nice clean edge back on the baking sheet. Congrats. A lawyer powder and try it again. Him I would push down. I didn't quite push down quite enough. Oh, that fellow really easy. Okay, so one thing that I will mention is it didn't need to with this. But sometimes there will be gaps around the edge where the raw clay meets the cured clay. If there's a little gap and it's not completely squished against the edge where he wanted to While this is still in it, you can just easily gently squish it. Now be careful, though, because you don't wanna squish it too much as I can mar the details that are already imprinted. But it's easy, I promise. So now that you have this? All you have to do is cure in your oven at the recommended time and temperature for super school opiates like to 50 to 75 for like 15 minutes for fourth of an inch. So just figure out whatever's on your package. Do with the do what it says on the package. Now, since I already have an example of this that's all cured, I can show you what my next step is. Um, once it's cured, which this is, you can take your raw clay that you're going to want to make the the copy out of and personally what I'm doing with this one. Since it's going to be long and tenderly behind it, I just sculpted it into a Kunal shape. The head is going to be just a little bit smaller than the mold because I'm squishing into it and it will spread out a little bit. I'm just gonna take a little bit of cornstarch. Cornstarch is your friend with these molds to avoid any any sticking or meiring of details . Corn search is your friend. Now I got to do is take the end and firmly squish kind of if you have ever done wax seals. It's kind of the same principal. You squish it in, you try not to twist it or move it any which way, and then you carefully lift. As you can see, there's the imprint. So for me to get a similar and result, I'm just going to take my hands and gently make it more of a C pod shaped at the end. Like so. Then roll this part out on the original. I made a couple dense here and there. So I could easily do that with this one as well. Think so. Then, once I have it at the length and with that, I want I can, uh, apparently have a hard time. Okay, What direction it's supposed to go. Okay, then you can just make it whatever tenderly, tenderly prettiness that you want. Like so So versus the original. I don't know. 15 20 minutes. It took me to sculpt this one. As you could see, this took all of two or three minutes to Dio and then this could just be cured in the oven , just like the original. And off you go 6. Silicone mold prep: I wanted to show an example of something you can make with a silicone mold. Actually, all of the's orchid flowers I made with the silicone mold, So it seems fairly complicated. And I wanted a very clear definition of the different layers of petals. So what I did was I actually sculpted the first original orchid in three layers. The three pedals you can see at the three background pedals, those air, all one. These two is the next one, and then the centerpiece is another one. I'll show you really quick with clay, so you can see it. I just do this one really quick. So you have to get a little used to with these more finer Find your details. Thinner molds. Um, you have to get used to How much clay to put in? Um, if you don't want to have to trim it, the nice thing is, since it's silicone, you can squish, squish it right in there to get all the details, and I'm not gonna worry about getting it perfect. But here's an example. So, personally, what I always do with orchids is a trim. So I get as close as I can and then I trim off the excess that I don't want. I think that a little bit more here in the center. That and then I must this back up because I know that's how big I want it and then put this back in the world because I know that's the thinness that I want the overall size. And then there's a lot less, uh, trimming and detailing. I have to do next, so I just have that little tiny edge around the side here and here on top, and then that's ready to go. So I would just do all three layers and then stack them one on top of each other. You can put a little translucent liquid school p in between and just kind of gently scratch them together. I usually use either needle tool or a dotting tool to pick them up and put them on the next layer. So that's an example of a silicone mold that I've already made that makes beautiful. They look like each one is hand sculpted, very detailed. This is what you can accomplish with silicon melts. It's excellent. So let's show you how to make one really quickly I'm just going to show you what I'm going to be making today. Um, making the Newbold out of I am going to make half of an avocado. Now, this was actually the perfect thing to show that just because you need a flat back for these molds doesn't mean that the flat back has to be, um, just just meant for sitting on a table or something. It can also be for sliced things or or, you know, anything can have a flat side. Crystals can have flat sides. A slice of an avocado is perfect because it naturally has. Ah, flat section. Um, so I can go through and detailed texture all the rounded side, which will be that bumpy. Um, uh, alligator types, skin fun fact avocados used to be called alligator pears. I think that's genius. Because they have the bumpy skin, the textured skin that look a lot like alligators. No. So what I'm gonna do is the flat side of the slice is what's going to go to face down on the baking tray. Now, I'm just kind of coaxing this into the pear like shape. Have an avocado. Okay, now it's gonna go face down and I'm going to go ahead and use my dotting tool to do the alligator like skin texture. Oh, here, you guys can do an avocado with me, or if you want to choose something else, If you're watching this video, you might. You probably already have something in mind that you want to mould. But this avocado is a great simple, easy way to test out and get used to making a silicone mold. It's nice and simple, but you can still see the level of detail that the mold will, uh, pickup. And also how much you could do with the raw clay while it's still in the mold before you unmold it. So if you want to, why did you grab your plate and sculpt along with me and make a cute little half of an avocado? And I'm also going to take the smaller end and do it if it in the top that mimics where the stem is right there. Okay, this is ready for baking. I'm gonna chuck it in the oven and I'll meet back with you in a second 7. Making Silicone mold: now what you've all been waiting for. I know you've been, like holding out or clicking ahead to get here. Silicone mold. This is very versatile because it's so flexible. You can do very, very detailed because the silicone picks up the details in the place so beautifully. And also, since it's flexible, you can do either very thick or very thin sculpted pieces in it because you can bend it to peel it up and de molded. It's amazing. Wonderful. This will be life changing, I promise. Since the silicone mold is flexible, you have flexibility in its use is, uh okay, but really silicon is so flexible that you can use it not only with Clay, but you could also use it with resin. Amazing. Okay. But I'm gonna focus on the claim today because that's what I gave the supply list for. What you're gonna need is soap dish. Soap is great. Avoiding the greasy nous that did tough tough on grease is exactly what you need. Um, the all purpose 100% clear silicone two bulls won the close to the size that you're gonna want the actual mold I have. This is one of my smallest bowls and being glass, it makes it easier to peel the mold up after it. So this is my go to for the smaller molds. And technically, you could use a stir stick on old wooden chopstick Anything. I'm just using one of these long Q tips. I think it's used for a current eat killing. Um, but if you don't have anything like that, you could always use your finger. This is just going to be for mixing the water and the soap in the large bowl, and you're gonna want to do this either in your kitchen or your bathroom. You need to be a near running water for this because it can get ridiculously messy. I'm gonna go set my stuff up in the kitchen, and I will see you there in a second. So first you're going to fill the large container with water and pump a goodly amount of soap in and then slowly stir it. You don't want toe whisk it, because then it'll froth all up and make it a little more difficult. But you just want toe. Stir it gently until you can kind of see the water has taken on the tone of the soap. This is actually going to be a soap bath for the silicone. Silicone is ridiculously sticky, so this soak bath helps you be able to handle it and kind of make it into a single piece of mold without it just getting everywhere. So now that this is done, what you're gonna do is coat the inside of your bull that the mold is gonna be in in soap because this will help avoid the silicone sticking to the ball when you want to take it out . Just kind of like greasing a baking pan. But a little more liberal. And you can take that soap and coat your now cured clay item as well very thoroughly, okay. And every little cranny as much as possible. Okay, Now, once those air done, you're going to squish the silicone, using this silicon gun into the large bath of water. Like so I don't need a lot because it's such a small item that I'm sculpting, so I'm pretty happy with that amount. When in doubt, make more for it, especially for your first mold, because it could be surprising how much it actually takes. But for my 1st 1 That's what I'm gonna do. So now, at this point, you want to glove your hands with soap, coat them thoroughly with soap because you're going to be actually physically handling this , uh, silicone, and the soap will act as gloves to help avoid it, sticking like glue to your fingers. Now, I personally re apply soap often throughout this, um, as I need it and you can the second you start to feel like it's sticky as opposed to smooth . That's when you know you need more soap. So now what you're going to do is pick this the silicone out of the bath and carefully handle it. Now, I say carefully, just a little tip. Treacy. Avoid squishing it too enthusiastically. Otherwise, it'll stick to your fingers like you wouldn't believe. Don't ask how we know that side note. If it sticks to your fingers and you having problems, getting it off in the soap isn't helping. You combine so with granulated sugar, and it makes kind of a greedy paste. It cleans your fingers. Amazingly, also, don't ask how you know that's so easily, so very deliberately and carefully going to scoop it out of the bath and leave it in your hand. And I kind of do it in a folding motion because my end goal is having a nice, smooth surface to squish my avocado into already. I feel a little sticks. I'm gonna just add It's probably because my hands were wet with water before putting on the soap. And this just kind of have to have patients. You wanna just fold onto itself until it's kind of combined into a blub and you have a nice , smooth surface. Now you can see it's kind of breaking apart. My fingers are gonna put some work stoop on both hands, apparently fold it onto itself. I am pretty happy with this and just do it like this and put it see, See? It's breaking apart all of my fingers. Okay, So, like, this is supposed to be easy. This doesn't look easy. Okay, so I'm just gonna slide this off into here, okay? So reapply some soap. I'm gonna smooth the service to be like So now there's a very nice, smooth surface of silicon that's ready to be imprinted are going to take the, um, clay sculpted piece. Now I'm gonna soap it up a little bit more, and we're going to put it flat side up. And now you want to do the same type of motion as with the claim. Old gonna put it in, squished very deliberately. Turnout toe. Wiggle it too much. And I personally like to gently smooth the area around the edges of it. Make sure there's no gaps. Make sure it's kind of even that the clay is even with the surface of the silicone as much as possible. And that's it. You're just gonna leave this exactly how it is until it cures. Um, the silicon I use, especially in this amount. It's tense to cure. In less than two hours, I found an hour. Usually it's pretty good. The best way to test if you're silicone mold is cured is if you just take like a little toothpick or something. You should be able to puncture it without it's sticking. I'm gonna leave this to mold. If you guys were doing it along with me, I'll see you in a few hours or a few seconds 8. Demolding and using your mold: So now that you're sure that your mold is completely cured, there's no sticking. The dense aren't staying in its springing back. So you know, it's good to go. You can de mold it personally. I usually like to peel it out of the container first. Usually, if you go around and pushed in can break the seal like so Now everything is super soapy, as you can see. So now I'd suggest you going and, um, rinsing everything off in the sink Quite often. At this point, this clay thing will just slip right out, can see underneath the texture. Ed Enough. You can see. I can see that the texture was captured perfectly by this, Um, so, yeah, I'm gonna go take a moment and rinse this off and we'll be right back. So one more word of caution is, as you can see, it's very translucent in the back, which means it's actually a very thin coating of silicone. Before, it actually would have punched right through and made a hole. So it was OK with this. It didn't quite go through. But you do want to keep ah and I on like I could have technically rounded more of this behind it to make it a thicker in the background. But yeah, since since I didn't go all the way through to the bottom of the bowl, it's OK, so I'm gonna show you really quick now how to use your silicone mold. This is probably already obvious. It's very much the same as the clay mold that we already showed. But I'd like to show you a couple neat things about this, so I still like to take the cornstarch and dust the mold. Now, I have, um, a softened. Well, I will re soften it cause it's a little, little hard now, um, softened amount of clay that you already want to put in it. So I chose green because I am going to paint the skin on afterwards. So having the green center is, ah, the smarter choice for me, so I don't have to paint the green center. I only have to paint the outside skin, and then it can also look more realistic because I can get a very thin amount easily on the edge versus it being a little more hard to do the green layer on top. Anyways, these are my opinions. It doesn't really matter how you do it, though. You could do dark ground and then paint the center, Uh, so I got it the same basic shape. Then you just want it. Push firmly. And here's the thing that I love most about these types of molds is the squish element. So I'm squishing it in to make it the right size shape. And while it's still in the mold, I'm grabbing my dotting tool and just hollowing out the center. You could even grab a little bowl of brown clay and stick it in there if you want the pit or, if you just want the cavity, just depends on which half of the avocado you're making. Or you could make both with this mold because they would match perfectly cause it's from a mold. That's another benefit is you could make matching halves of things if you wanted to make like, um, friendship bracelets or friendship. Friendship necklace James have perfectly matching half. You can do a pit in one and the empty part and the other, and when you're done, that's it. Okay, so just making sure that's round enough for my taste and pushing it flat suits still like a slice hand. Next we just gently unmold it and viola. Now you can see that perfect avocado textured skin on the outside, which hasn't been mired by all the squishing and pushing on this side because it was protected on the back with the mold. Is that an awesome way to use the mold? You can keep the texture I find one of the biggest issues as a sculptor is squishing other elements that you want to keep the same. 9. Conclusion: and we're done. I hope that your mole turns out amazing. Of course, air bubbles and funky things can happen. So that's the great thing about using this method is a huge Touma silicone. It gives you lots of practice. You can try a bunch of different ways to do this. I hope it's a success. I hope you're very pleased with the results. And I hope that you share some examples of things that you molded successfully or your actual mold or your sculpture designs. Anything you want to share with me that you got out of this video. I would love to see it, and I think that's it. I think I'm just gonna go and let you. You d mold a whole bunch of stuff and beautiful late. We'll see you next time.