Fimo or sculpey which is better

This may just be the ticket. This set from the glitter folks, is adorable. Is Professional the same as Classic? Will it work well for caning? I am just starting to do canes. The first ones, I did with Sculpey and…. I am trying some with Kato Clay. Much better, but the white and yellow are still a bit soft. Hi SHerry, from what I hear, the Fimo Professional is the same formula as Fimo Classic… plus they added the new true color line for better color mixing.

As far as caning goes, Kato and Fimo Professional will be good choices. You can use Premo though… I do for all my canes, but you may need to leach the clay to firm it up a bit. Staedtler Fimo Professional. For years I used and taught using Living Doll by Sculpey but, because of safety, they removed the phthalates and it became unusable. However they did retain the formula for Premo and I now swear by it.

Thank you so much Jamie for coming in here and sharing your sculpting formula and tips with us!! I just checked out your site click on his name to go there and you do very beautiful work.

I am in awe of people who can sculpt like that… You are a true talent! Thanks for popping by! Thank you for your tests Cindy they are so insightful and I love your site and youtube videos. I use an oven thermometer to check the temperature is correct and baked for an hour but the pieces I made snapped in half easily strips of 1mm,2mm and 3mm thick. Do you have any suggestions what could be wrong?

I used clay from one of those multi colour packs. Perhaps I should try the individual blocks instead? Even a very thin piece baked at the right temp for an hour should not break without a lot of severe bending back and forth. Try a new thermometer and see if that helps. Good luck! I would test it though… that is about 35 degrees higher than it is supposed to be baked at so there is a high chance it could burn.

Try it out on a scrap piece and see how it does. Let us know how it goes! They both seem to do well in strength but I was just wondering, does the color in the clay change after baking by any chance? Personally my favorite is Premo, Kristen. I find it much easier to mix colors than with Fimo and I like that it can do anything that I want it to do.

Premo also has less color shift when baking than Fimo does. I have some videos on what Premo and Fimo looks like after their baked that you will probably want to check out. Most of my models are scratchbuilt, not kits, but sometimes based on kits. Here is a link to the finished pictures on the Railroad Line Forum web site.

Oh my gosh Tony your work is amazing! I am really impressed with your attention to detail. I would love to start doing miniature work and your work is very inspiring! Each clay is suited for different applications.

Some of the clay are stronger, some are translucent, some are softer and stickier and some are drier and firmer. I have some information on this blog about some of the different brands out there.

There are also several airdry polymer clays that may be suited for your larger projects. Thank you so much for popping by. Make sure to take a look around this site and use the search box to find lots of cool info that you can learn more from.

Did you even bake the thin strips that long? Not one of my clays recommend baking that long. Premo soft says to not exceed 30 minutes. I want to make totem figure totem figures. Hi Cindy, yeah I even bake the thin pieces for an hour.

I realize that non of your packaging of any of the brands will say to bake for that long, but as a professional that has been doing this for years, I know that baking longer makes for a better product. There are tons of baking videos on this site that will go further into detail on the hows and whys of longer baking which you can find by using the search box above.

Have fun with your beautiful box of clay! Hi I just wanted to say thank you for doing this experiment. I have read all the comments and advise on this site and I am hoping that now I can make a better product after all this wonderful information. Thank you so much Aubree for taking the time to say such kind words! I am so delighted that our content is helpful for you. Hope to have you around for a long time more! Just received my first sculpey living doll clay.

Is this normal? Regret not staying with premo but kind of stuck with it now. Absolutely the last time I use living clay but will need to use this up. I am molding babies for the most part. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. I really enjoy your tutorials. Hi Donna, that sounds very interesting!

So many brands…. It sounds like you have figured out a work around for yourself though. If anyone else here has worked with the clay, perhaps they can help you out better? I have an urgent question. I used premo for 1 hour on the first set. They are flexible with no breakage on the fins and arms which are very small and vulnerable.

But I did not like the beige color, it came out too dark so I tried the beige kato clay. After four times, the kato just kept snapping into pieces when bent. So I went back to the premo clay and did 3 mermaids. One in translucent, it seems to be strong with no breakage.

One in pearl also seems to be strong. The third in white with glitter snapped into pieces very easily. They were all baked together at for an hour.

SO should I try to do them in a liquid polymer clay? And can I tint that with color? Or do I need to get another form of clay that will be more flexible without breaking? I did not think this was going to be a big deal.

I have never made anything so small before so I have not had an issue with breakage before. Please let me know what i should do. I appreciate any advise so very much!!!! Thanks as always. So I understand that nail polish straight on top of the polymer clay will eat it eventually. Then put the nail polish on top of that and then seal it with top coat nail polish.

I have holographic nail polish that is really perfect so I would love to be able to use it. What do you think? The Kato clay probably needed to be baked hotter, it is a very strong clay when baked at a higher temp.

In regards to the liquid clay, you could use that, but it will be very rubbery, it is not my favorite thing to use for molded pieces for that reason. If you liked how strong the premo was, but not the color, you can mix some white Premo into the beige.

That should get you a good skin color. In regards to using nail polish, I would stay clay of that all together. There are some great new holographic glitter paints that are acrylic that would be way better that you can find at Michaels. There is also a paint called Color Shift that is very pretty. As a newbie to polymer clay…can i mix Fimo and Sculpey together and if so, what temp do i use for baking as one says a lower temp than the other on package.

I watched your video on baking for an hour and also using cornstarch, etc. I have a tile to bake on and I can tent it with foil if not using cornstarch in a tin. Asking before I ever start to bake anything…again newbie. Love your videos and appreciate your tie to teach! Thank you for your kind comments! I would suggest that you do some test strips first before baking your first pieces. That way you can figure out the perfect setup and not ruin your brand new projects. Detailed review of Fimo Professional's Problems.

All in all I recommend this clay as the best all round clay for polymer clay beginners, and it's a great clay to use if you like to do a little bit of everything.

If you want to get serious with any particular technique, whether it be faux stones or canes , this clay may not be the best option. It will still give you pretty good results, but probably not the best results that you could possibly get if you chose the specific polymer clay brand best suited to your technique. My recommendation for the best polymer clay is to start with Fimo Professional if you want to experiment with lots of polymer clay techniques.

Stick to Premo if you have limited time. Branch out into as many of the different brands as you can if you intend to take polymer clay seriously as an artist. Each one has its own advantages and don't forget that this includes some of the less main stream clays like Cernit, Souffle and Pardo. As a side note: I absolutely do not recommend using Sculpey III or any of the no name brands available.

I use many different brands, sometimes combining more than one in a single project. Just bake the clay for an hour at the average temperature across the brands. Everyone seems to have a fairly strong opinion as to which is the best polymer clay brand. What's yours? Let me know in the comments below and like and share the conversation with your friends. Resins Recommended for Polymer Clay. Leftover Kaleidoscope Cane Tutorial. Midnight Wood Pendant Tutorial. Today I'll be creating a mokume gane polymer clay crackle veneer using plain printing paper to dry out the clay.

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It's easy as long as you follow the tips I include in the tutorial. You can also do the same thing if you p…. Today I'll be creating a polymer clay crackle veneer with kroma crackle and I'll go into details regarding how to achieve color and how varnish and resin will affect the finished result. The tests are…. Today I'll be creating a polymer clay crackle veneer using a cheat crackle cane we made in day Keep in mind you can use any cane for this technique ranging from the simplest bulls eye to a complex….

In other words: Polymer clay is a type of hardenable modeling clay. When the clay is baked it becomes a hard and strong material.

The final look is similar to pottery and at the same time to plasticine. Super Sculpey is very soft and easy to work with and is characterized by its pinky colour which seems like real skin when is baked.

In this case, you can add body oil to the mass and mash it. The final piece has a nice aspect without paint but you can paint it anyway after a primer layer and give it colour with oil paints or acrylics. In my opinion this clay is weak.

If your piece has thin parts they will probably be brittle. Fimo is a brand of polymer clay made by Staedtler. Michaels has the Craftsmart brand of polymer clay. There are any number of un-branded collections of polymer clay that can be found cheaply in dollar stores or online on sites such as Ebay.

Are those polymer clay? Yes, in most cases they are. Do you want to use them? Established and reputable manufacturers create a line of clay to meet certain performance standards. They generally have good quality control that leads to a uniform, high-performing product. It is a lot of fun and extremely versatile, too. Have fun, and Happy Claying! View the Tutorials Shop. I have a project that involves making polymer clay sculptures that are attached to metal bases.

Can I make the sculptures right on the metal items and then bake? And Sculpey or Fimo? As long as the metal bases can fit in the oven with a lot of room to spare, and can be baked without damage, you can bake directly on the metal.

An other thing about the oldest polymer clay. Fimo is mentioned as the oldest still on the market. But here is one very unknowned in the rest of the world. There is a company in Sweden who been making polymer clay since ! With similarities with Cernit you can harden it both in the oven or by boiling. I am from Sweden. About the best clay I only have one comment. I chopped the rest of my big packages in small pieces, baked it and used it as decoration gravel on my potted plants!

This post has helped me a lot, thank you. I want to ask you, have you tried Clayologie from South Africa? I could order overseas, but the shipping takes very long.

I just threw it out. Or is there something else that it would be good for? You could also mix it with a stronger clay, such as Kato.

Thanks for mentioning polymer clays from China sold on eBay and Ali Baba. Yes, I know that Tonja Lenderman did test some. Thing is, these companies make polymer based on what raw materials are cheap at that moment, and the quality of the product changes drastically over time. But the next one very easily might not be. I had been using Kato a lot, but recently Premo has come into my life and I like the softness for some things very much…good to try the different ones!