Thermomorph

I was recently asked to review a new product on the market, its not something Mark and I would usually use as we don't do any modelling, but I thought I would give it a try.

Thermomorph is a plastic product where you can melt it and mould it into any shape you want, its a relatively easy process that I am sure with practise could be utilised in many different ways.

It comes in a tub which is filled with thousands of little white plastic balls, you then have to put them in a bowl of boiling water for 2 minutes until it turns clear and looks a bit like frog spawn, using some tongs or a spoon you then fish it out, after a couple of seconds its cooled enough for you to then mould into different shapes, you have a reasonable time to mould it before it starts to set and turn white and harden and I am sure to an experienced sculptor this would not be a problem and if you go wrong you can pop it back in the water and try again.

The good points about this product are that it is very versatile and could be used for a number of different projects, it is quite easy to use, you dont need very much of the balls to make something, they go a surprisingly long way, it sets very quickly so you dont have to hang around for ages before you can then paint it and you dont need masses of special equipment to make something.

The bad points we found were that because we are not in any way skilled at modelling, we found it difficult to make anything of any quality in the time we had and we did find because the water cooled quickly we had to keep boiling the kettle and changing the water, however both these points could be overcome, firstly learn how to make models and secondly keep the water heated on something.

My son and I had a lot of fun using this product, we tried to make simple things like hearts and stars using cutters and then we finished off using it to make pillars and a cave for his school project (landscape in a box) unfortunately he whisked the finished project off to school before I got a chance to photograph it (I will try and post one later when he brings it home again).

    

However as I dont intend to go into modelling I wont be using Thermomorph again, but I can see it would be a very good product for people that like to make little figurines etc which they then want to paint afterwards (we used Mark's acrylic paints which seemed to work well).

I will give this product an 8 out of 10, I am sure in the right hands some one could work wonders with it.