Types of Clay - Pros and Cons (ceramic, plastalina, polymer)

hello today I'm going to be talking about different clay types and their pros and cons so here I have an example of the different clay types these are kind of just the primary ones like this is the polymer clay this is the plasticine clay or plastilina clay it's a harder oil-based clay and then of course the ceramic clay which is a water-based clay and I don't have a lot of experience with the polymer clay but I do have experience with the ceramic and plastiline so let's get started the first clay I'm gonna talk about is ceramic clay this is the clay I use for most of my projects in my opinion it's the better clay but I'm gonna go through the pros and cons and talk about why I prefer this type of clay first Pro is this is a water-based clay which means it's easy to smooth with water or make softer with water which makes working with it easier doesn't require chemicals it also comes in a lot of different varieties so you can experiment with the different types and choose one that works best for you my only suggestion would be to choose a low grit clay that's easier to work with for fine detail another pro is this clays easily to manipulate I can push my thumb all the way through it it's not too hard it's easy to make large shapes and general designs without having to heat the clay or that sort of thing another pro for this clay is that has varying levels of hardness while drying which enables control over your sculptural work such as carving and detail in that sort of thing and the last pro for the ceramic clay is it can be reclaimed and reused so once this dry you put it into a bucket of water and you let it soften and then you can bring it back out and reclaim it and use it again ok now for the cons the first con for ceramic clay is it does contain silica which is glass and when it's dried and in a dust form is really bad for you to breathe in the second con is it can harden too quickly if you don't cover your piece or keep an eye on it it can get too hard and then it makes the consistency really difficult to finish sculpture or to do detail in it also has the possibility of drying too quickly and cracking or breaking and that's also true if you're combining pieces and that sort of thing so there are some structural things well as drying this is avoided easily by just making sure it does not dry too quickly last con is for mold making specifically because this is a water-based clay there are some rubbers that do not mix with water and will not work so you have to make sure that you know what the chemicals are or what the warnings are for your mold making materials before you use a water-based clay and that's it for the ceramic clay now I'm going to talk about the plastiline clay here is the plastilina or plasticine clay and it is a oil and wax based clay which means it doesn't dry out so if you're someone who spends a long time on a project this might be a good clay for you something else I want to mention about this clay is pretty important and that is is you want to get a sulfur free clay when making molds sulfur can inhibit curing with some silicone rubbers so it's an easy fix just make sure your clay is sulfur free so quick over the pros and cons the pros are is oil and wax paste so it does not dry out and it has a hard consistency which is great for detailed work some cons are it's sensitive to heat and needs to be heated to make it more workable and because it's oil-based you will need mineral spirits or a paint thinner to smooth out your detail which can be harmful to breathe the last con is they do come in rather small packages I think I paid $15 for this at Hobby Lobby so if you need a lot of clay or you're doing a bigger project it could be expensive all in all this is a really good clay especially if you take a lot of time on a project or you do a lot of small fine detail next I'm going to talk briefly about polymer clays which is basically your sculpting clays now I didn't make this handle this is something that my mom had and then just needed something for a visual Palmer clays are really really popular there's tons of information online about making projects and that sort of thing I don't do a lot of polymer clay work so I'm just going to go over a brief pros and cons in my small opinion first Pro and best thing about polymer clays is you can bake them so there's no need for a molding process or a kiln so you can make original pieces with basically your kitchen table and an oven which is really nice another Pro is it comes in a variety of colors and brands so there's lots to choose from as tools there's tons of tutorials out there endless hours on YouTube so if you're interested in doing polymer clays there's no end to your project list a couple more pros are the consistencies good for detail and because it's small packages of clay they store really easy and the clay doesn't dry out a couple of cons for polymer clay is it can be hard to blend and rubbing alcohol is needed to smooth out any Nixon fingerprints and that sort of thing another con is price especially if you want to build bigger items sculpting clay or polymer clays can be expensive and if you do want to build bigger items they usually require some kind of armature and the last con I'm going to talk about is the market is pretty flooded with sculpting things and so you really need to be on top of your game and unique in what you build if you do want to do markets and stores or selling online all in all polymer clays are great fun they're great for beginner sculptors and like I said there's tons of information out there on it and that's it for the pros and cons for these three different types of clays obviously there's tons of different options out there at least three aren't the only three these are just some of the main ones that you would pick up if you went to the store or tomorrow Hobby Lobby or Michaels or whatever they all have good pros and they all have cons so it really just depends on what you're going to do with them and what your preferences are my suggestion would be to try out just a few different kinds and get a feel for which ones work for you and I would stick with that particular clay because it's easier to build your skill when you're working with something consistently these pros and cons were really just my experience with clay building of course there's a whole bunch more pros and cons for all these different kinds of clays but that was just from what my experience with them was I hope this video helps somebody out there who's looking into different kinds of clay for sculpture if you like this video please like and subscribe thanks for watching

Channel: Christal Motter

Views: 164,917

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Id: xmgt8Is95wk

Length: 7min 14sec (434 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020