Monday, May 4, 2009

Mould making: Flat soles with Sculpey Mold Maker

I am going to make some moulds for doll shoe soles. There is some info on my home page, but I'll go into more detail here. Also, I know a lot more now than I did when I wrote those instructions.

I'll start with flat soles for Baha Cat's boots. The boots will be similar to the ones I have made earlier with cork soles for a lot bigger doll.

First I drew a pattern for the foot. Then I cut one piece of foam core and several layers of cardboard using the pattern.


I glued the cardboard pieces together, cut a heel out of that piece and glued it in place to the foamcore sole.


Then I drew a pattern for the sole in the rest of the multilayer piece, cut out the pieces and glued them to the foam core sole.


When the glue was dry, I painted the sole. I used gloss acrylic paint and applied several coats.


Now I had the model ready and it was time to make a mould. I used Sculpey Mold Maker, because that is what was available. There may be other clays similar to it.


See the instructions in the package for making the mould. I noticed that it is easier to make the mould, if you cool the clay in the fridge for some time (after shaping it to suitable size) before pressing the object into it.


Bake the clay in the oven according to the instructions in the package. When the mould is cool, mist it with water and press a piece of polymer clay into it. As you may guess from the amount of water, I didn't actually mist the mould, I just put it under the tap and then shook off the extra water. It works fine that way.



After making the desired amount of pieces, bake them in the oven. I used red clay to get better pictures. The actual soles are going to be black or brown, but I do have some red leather, so maybe the Baha Cat is going to get red boots as well.


This mould was easy to make. I'm also planning on making moulds for casting plastic soles for Sybarite's shoes, but more about that later.








Finnish post is here.

9 comments:

Discount Cards said...

This plastic sole was quite an impressive post. The way you are explained all the things which are appreciable. Keep writing like this.

cazielyn said...

I am very intersted in learning about the plastic or rubber soles have you tried this yet? cazielyn@yahoo.com

The grandmommy said...

You are so good at this!! Do you think you can make a higher fashion type heel for a flat footed doll? I know that is asking a lot. :-)

Tarja said...

I don't quite understand what you mean. A flat footed doll needs flat soles or the doll will stand in a very awkward position. The only thing that comes to mind are the fake heels I made for a Living Dead Doll and even those were very low: http://fashiondollshoes.blogspot.fi/2013/02/shoes-for-living-dead-doll.html

Anonymous said...

You'd have to make a platform piece for the pad part of the shoe to accommodate the heels.

Debra said...

Hello, do you have the pattern available for the sole in the rest of the multilayer piece? Thank you

Tarja said...

This was a one time thing as I was making a master, so I didn't save the pattern.

Lori Bester said...

Ok I love them good job. My question is I would like too make these but I would like too make a mold too keep as permanent mold and add different colours of hot glue would the clay mold work too release the hot glue mold after it dries..thanks Lolli

Tarja said...

I have no idea how hot glue would work. You can never be quite sure how different materials work together, so the best way is to make a test piece and see what happens.