AIRDRY CLAY
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This post is a little bit different, because it's mainly about why I chose to use Polymer Clay instead of Airdry Clay.
Ironically, Airdry clay is the first clay that I tried to use, and I remember how annoying it was - unfortunately 😅
DISCLAIMER: Now, I'll be honest, I only used air dry clay for about two or three times. Therefore, I don't really have the proper experience and did enough experimentations. But this is how I feel about Airdry clay in general and if I do get any info wrong, do let me know!
I'll be doing a lot of comparison against polymer clay too, since it's an article about why I prefer polymer clay right? 😀
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT AIRDRY CLAY
1. It dries up by itself as soon as it's exposed to air
PROS: There's no need for you to buy an oven
CONS: If you don't make sure you keep the clay properly or even while you're using it, it dries up anyway, leaving you with a clay that doesn't mold perfectly...
To store it, you have to put it in an air tight container and put some wet towels inside so that it retains the moisture.
It was ridiculously difficult to use air dry clay for me to be honest, because it kept drying up EVEN WHEN I placed them in a container with wet tissues (to make sure they will retain the moisture). AND when you want it to dry, it takes quite long for it to be completely dried...(at least 24 hours?)
My oven was 2nd hand and only cost me $30...you don't need a crazy expensive oven for you to bake your clay piece! And I'd rather know that my clay piece is baked completely after 30min rather than 24 hours to be sure 😬
I also feel that you need more space to be able to use air dry clay, just because of how you have to place paper towels and cover the unused ones while working on other parts etc...
2. You can "revive" some type of air dry clay with water
Yes, it's possible when the clay is semi dried. But it will never get back to smooth texture it was compared to using fresh airdry clay.. Imagine having tiny bread crumbs in your clay - it kinda feels like that to me, some parts just can't be "revived" you know?
Water is also used as a "gluing agent" which helps two parts of clay stick together.
3. When it's dried, the clay WILL shrink a considerably amount
I think this was the turning point for me, and I immediately bought some polymer clay to use instead 😅
I just can't deal with not knowing how much it'd shrink - how am I suppose to make other parts for it then? 😱 Especially since I wanted to make miniatures from the beginning, a tiny bit of shrinkage affects A LOT!
4. It's SUPER SOFT and gentle on the hands
Especially when compared to Polymer Clay. But like I said in my Polymer Clay article, I prefer my clay to be a bit stiffer so I can sculpt and retain the shape better. Which reminds me...
5. It's REALLY DIFFICULT to sculpt air dry clay
Especially if what you're making is miniatures! They just kind of pops back especially when it's drying up - which tends to happen because it takes time to sculpt..
Hence I concluded that (certain) air dry clay is more suitable for bigger scale projects, and it's better to add on clay instead of sculpting on one piece. The shrinkage wouldn't be that obvious for bigger scale projects too, and might work well!
6. Airdry Clay is NOT sticky
And that's why you can use plastic or wooden tools like this without having anything sticking on them! I can't use these tools on polymer clay as it will just get tainted with the polymer clay colours and get stuck 🙃
Also, these tools tends to be really big too ahaha.
TYPES OF AIRDRY CLAY
The types of airdry clay is very important, as it can dry soft or rock hard.
I did not know about this and was actually surprised when the first air dry clay I used dried up soft and squishy. I guess it's good and fun for certain stuff, but it wasn't what I was looking for!
When I was reading up on air dry clay, it was always compared to polymer clay. None of them talked about how there's PAPER air dry clay which dries squishy and super lightweight (like paper!), and RESIN air dry clay which dries rock hard and quite hefty like polymer clay.
PAPER CLAY
This Martha Steward Airdry Clay Starter Kit was the first ever clay I tried, and I even wrote a post about it hahaha.
It includes:
5 colors of clay (white, 3 primary colours, brown)
2 detailing tools
4 silicone molds
floral tape
floral wire
Instructions.
The thing about air dry clay is that because it's so soft, it's really easy to mix colours with it - therapeutic even!
Unfortunately, since these were in the ziplock bag for more than a year and the wet paper towel I put inside so i could retain some moisture was completely dried out....so were my colours 😐
Here you can see how paper clay is like even after it's dried though! You can easily tear it with your bare hands.
But no clay colours, no problem, because one good thing about air dry clay is that you can mix ACRYLIC PAINT in to get the colours you need! 😱
Polymer clay...might be better if you paint it on after baking 😂
I actually opened a new packet of white air dry clay for this, so the clay is still relatively soft (although I suspect that it was starting to dry up too tsk)
Apparently you should be able to tear the clay apart and it should leave a very nice tear-shaped strand - which is what isn't happening here unfortunately....
This clay is still workable though, but it's not this clay's 100% potential.
The amount of acrylic paint you put will affect how strong the colour will become, imagine mixing white paint to whatever colour you're mixing with!
Again, this is how this paper air dry clay is like after it's dried more than 24 hours! You still can cut it with a pair of scissors if you want to, and it's squishable!
Martha Steward's paper clay is definitely one of the better quality ones out there, and it's perfect to make embellishments with for paper crafts or something, which is what it's usually used for!
RESIN AIR DRY CLAY
If I'm not mistaken, this Modena airdry clay is one of the best out there. Look at how it says it's an air dry polymer clay hahaha I guess it's pretty accurate!
Apparently there's white and transparent white. The packet I have seems to be transparent white! It's basically more like translucent haha.
I realised that resin air dry clay dries up more translucent than paper clay which is more of a matte texture. I made miniature macarons with this clay a long time ago, and it definitely needs different skills and practice!
Unfortunately............even my UNOPENED clay was drying up.. 😫 I really have no idea how to store them when it obviously doesn't work oh my god. I promptly threw it away after this sigh. What a waste of good money.
See, polymer clay doesn't dry up when you don't want it to and I really think that's very very important lol.
The middle part was still workable though...although not 100%
Resin airdry clay is still soft but it's definitely stiffer than paper clay! It actually feels a lot of my mixed clay (shitty + good clay mix).
I used the acrylic paint to mix colour in method again, as I have no other colours for this haha.
I really don't like doing this even though it's convenient though....it's just so messy!
After 24 hours and completely dried, this is how it's like! I can't even cut through although I made an indent haha. Trust me, I used A LOT OF force for this 😆
I truly believe that you can break anything as long as you want to, so of course, I can destroy this if I would like to, but ya it's just more durable is what I'm trying to say hahaha.
Bending another piece that's dried! It's really durable, hard and not squishy at all. Air dry polymer clay indeed!
This resin clay is good to use for miniatures I would think! Many air dry clay artists actually uses this, and it's perfect for flowers or food because of the translucency. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have the patience to work with air dry clay, so I shall watch these artists from afar...
I do want to go for workshops though! Would be nice to see how they handle air dry clay etc.
MOLDS
These molds came with the Martha Steward Kit, and I've never found any use for them...... 😅
BUT, air dry clay IS amazing to use for molds - because they're not sticky and soft, especially paper clay!
I am obviously using too much clay here, and you want to get just the right amount to make it perfect. But you can see how it takes the texture of the gold so easily and clearly!
After letting it dry, I trimmed the sides with scissors haha.
Here's a comparison of the dried piece (top) and a fresh clay (bottom)! Look at how much different they are! (Ignore the thickness hahaha the first one really wasn't measured properly, look at the arrow!)
Can you imagine what a disaster it is to make miniatures with this?? 😱 I honestly don't know how air dry artists do it - major respect!
Alright, that's all I have for air dry clay. Apologies for being quite incoherent and all over the place..it's mostly comparisons and I know I made it sound like air dry clay is very difficult to work with, but everyone have different preferences so what worked for me doesn't necessarily work for you.
You still can make crazy beautiful and perfect miniature pieces with air dry clay like @peiliminiatures and @nunus_house (my first few miniature clay artist I know and look up to) and many other air dry clay artists out there, but it's just not for me! I shall stick with polymer clay 😂