"new scultping method, and its brilliant" Topic

I Think I have a NEW Metthod of sculpting, from HOT GLUE, it does not stick to grease proof baking paper, so I thought cut moults into xps foam, line the moulds with baking paper, fill with hot glue, then stick pieces together. you can create clay moulds or use plastic shaped bottletops etc. I seen someone sculpt out of hotglue on youtube but they were basic and did not think to use moulds, and were very hard to control the sculpt, so i thought about it, and i think i have come up with this. you could press shapes of actual figures into clay or xps foam. its not goint to have detail because its lined with baking paper but you can add detaik, so hope you like this idea and give it a try? let me know

Show us some of your results, please.. and is it good for 2mm figures?

im sure the having baking paper lining would not show 2mm detail, . maybe you could soak the baking paper, then line the mould and let it dry before pouring glue.

Well, really, this is *not* a sculpting method but a casting method. You use hot glue instead of plaster or resin.

So the "sculpting happens by cutting a mold out of XPS foam which strikes me as very difficult, as you have to sculpt in the negative. And then you have to line the mold with the paper – how do you get the paper to stick to the mold?

But if you make a silicone mold it could be used to cast. Resin is messy and fussy. But hot glue is (a) fast and (b) we probably already own one. The glue is pretty cheap too.

There was, several years ago, a couple of videos on YouTube, where the maker was Hot Glue casting Army Men figures. I do not remember what he used for molds, but I remember the results were not too bad.

I game with Army Men figures. I use Mine Sweepers to represent Combat Engineers. I wanted/needed more Mine Sweepers figures, and the people who were selling individual figure types, had gone under. I approached Tim-Mee USA, and I was told they only sell complete sets (1 Mine Sweeper per set of 20 figures…).

I searched, but could no longer find, the Hot Glue casting videos. I managed to get a sufficient number of Mine Sweeper figures, but having the ability to cast specific poses of Army Men figures would be rather nice (HMG figures were hard to find, at first, but I eventually ended up with more than I need).

It worked well enough for 54mm Army Men figures, but I do not know if you can get enough pressure injecting Hot Glue into a mold with a Glue Gun, for smaller figure scales. Cheers!

you dont need to use a glue gun, just heat the glue sticks. i shall look for thoses videos thanks.

the silcone moulds i did not think of, i was thinking of casting parts to glue together in open top moulds, like posed leg or something .

YouTube link

here is how to do it, using more hot glue as a mould, and coating what you dont want sticking with vegtable oil.

and playdough YouTube link

the one mistake all the hot glue sculpters are doing is asuming the glue after its used is no good, as long as you can remelt it, you can repour it, thats cost effective.

ok, this is my very first try,I did a 28mm horse scale , I tried to do the same half twice, but they did not fit, so had to do the other side again, I used really crappy clay, its kids clay and I think the quality of clay is what makes the model, I realised after my clay was to soft did not hold detail, and it just deformed so easy, so if your going to try this I would recommend decent clay, and I think id let it harden first, I used bits of wire to strengthen it, and I thought it may be possible to pose the model if it had wire inside, but the crappy clay meant some fell out, si would have the wire ready to go in mould , pour glue first then quickly put wire in, I used olive oil worked great, but second half I pulled to soon and some clay stuck, so let it dry. and surprisingly the model is very hard, easy compares to plastic.

I wanted an easy life by doing horse in separate halfs, this I belive is best but not with unsymmetrical models, so best sculpt one for this purpose, but for an experiment it told me a lot about the process. it def will work, its oily messing with it, so keep a rag or gloves, use a model suited to casting, use good clay and let it be hard, or don't casty a model sculpt a mould for your own purpose. spray paint then paint with PVA to seal and made it easy take paint etc…

its very fast to do this, but you have to be setup, glue gun trays oil, cutters wire, rag plyers etc…