Painting sculpey

[barkel]

I read in a thread recently that sculpey does not like to be painted. Someone said that painting with acrylics causes the sculpey to get goopy.

I\'m doing a diorama that is extensively sculpey. I\'d say 75% of it is this. I\'ve baked it so that it is fairly hard and I will be ready to paint it soon. But I\'ve put too much effort into this to let it get goopy!

What kind of paints work well with sculpey? What have YOU used that worked? Do you have any tricks for painting sculpey that can prevent this mystical goopyness? Please help.

barkel.

 

[supervike]

I made some stuff out of sculpey about a month or so ago.

I primed it white after baking it and I see no signs of \'goopyness\'.

I wonder if they were baking it before they painted it. I am sure it would get goopy if not baked.

The little pamphlet that came with my sculpey says you can \"paint is without goopyness\" (ok, I admit, it said nothing of goopyness, but it did say you could paint it)

 

[barkel]

cool...

That gets me to thinking, how hard should the sculpey be if properly cooked?

I made some gravestones out of sculpey once and then cooked \'em real good. Too good in fact. They got brown and warped REAL badly, and they were an even thickness all the way through.

In my current scene that I\'ve built I have thicknesses from an inch to a millimeter. I know that because some of it is an inch think I\'m supposed to cook it for an hour. But I\'m worried that the thin parts will get fried or worse, catch fire!

I already smoked a pizza box in my oven this year, how will I explain to the fireperson that torched a tiny cavern in my oven?

I cooked the pieces already and they seem pretty solid. If I press hard with my thumbnail it will make an indention, but if I lightly tap it no mark is left. Am I good to paint?

barkel

 

[Impernouncable]

A few years ago I was reading up on sculpy in reference to action figure masters. IIRC you can get around some of the warping problem by baking it longer at a lower temp. No clue on what temp and how long, but if you look you will probably find some info on the web.

 

[supervike]

When I have used it, I started just cooking it at about 275 degrees for twenty minutes.

I checked it after and it didn\'t seem hard enough, so I popped it in for another twenty.
There was a visible color difference once all the moisture evaporated.

I placed all my sculpey stuff in a glass oven safe dish, so no pizza box fires here.

Remember though, that even out of the oven, the sculpey still continues to cook as it cools.

I have made a variety of items ranging in size, from a six-inch tall treeman to individual pieces of popcorn (in 28mm scale!)

 

[kittykat23uk]

Hi I made a sculpey dragon:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/img3dd63bea668b5.jpg

Things to note with sculpey:

1. cook at less that 100 degrees Centigrade for several hours

2. you can paint it using acrylics once hard with no ill effects

3. use a very strong armature if sculpting dragons- mine broke quite a lot when I was painting it and I thin this was possibly due to the armature not being strong enough and also the sculpy seemed to be brittle in places.

Regards

Kat

 

[Evonine]

Sculpy will still be a little soft directly after you pull it out of the oven. It gets harder as it cools.

 

[Kitchenwolf]

Sculpey accepts acrylic paints well. The only times that I\'ve had the \"gooey\" issue come up is with spray sealer. I suggest sealing with Ceramcoat brush-on matte sealer (a form of PVA) or gloss varnish. Polyurethane also works well for a durable gloss finish.