◆ Plaster
Cast Michelangelo's Dying Slave as a 140 mm statue in plaster or concrete, from a museum scan.
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Michelangelo's Dying Slave as a 140 mm statue: the young figure sinking into sleep, one arm raised behind his head, the other across his chest, with the rough unfinished stone of the block at his back. Michelangelo made him around 1513 to 1516 for the tomb of Pope Julius II; the marble is in the Louvre.
The master is a 3D scan of the plaster cast of Michelangelo's Dying Slave in the Royal Cast Collection of SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark, published by SMK as public domain. The mold is made with the hugging-shell mode of our silicone mold maker, the mode the site's own mold advisor picks for a statue: every fold and limb would lock a rigid two-part mold, and silicone peels out of them.
Cast it in plaster or Jesmonite for a desk or a shelf, or in fine concrete for a heavier piece. The same mold also takes resin, soap or candle wax.
Print the base with the statue fused onto it, the two shell halves and the six clamps that hold them shut (all six are in clamps.stl, no binder clips needed), pour about 213 ml of silicone, and cast in the flexible mold that comes out. The zip carries every printed part, the statue as its own STL, the tool's own print-settings sheet and a recipe file for the generator.
Shown as a 3D render of the printed mold parts, the six printed clamps and the cured blue silicone mold they make, not a photo.
Print the base, which has the statue already fused onto it, the two shell halves and the six clamps (all six are in clamps.stl, laid out on one plate). No supports.
Stand the base on the table. Set each shell down a few centimetres out from it and slide it in over the table until the ridge round the base sits in the groove at its foot, then push the six printed clamps over the wings, three down each seam, so the shell is clamped shut from top to bottom. Steel binder clips work too.
Tape the outside seams or run a bead of hot glue along them, because silicone finds every gap.
Mix 239 ml of silicone in one batch and pour it into the opening on top in a thin stream until it is full.
Once it has cured, take the six clamps off, slide each shell straight out and peel the silicone off the statue. That silicone is your mold.
Before the first cast, read the notes in PRINT-SETTINGS.txt: if they flag air trapped in the cast, cut a thin vent in the cured silicone from that spot toward the opening with a craft knife, so the plaster fills it.
Set the silicone back in the shell to keep its shape, and pour plaster, Jesmonite or fine concrete into it through the opening the base left. Tap it for a minute so the bubbles rise.
Print details
| Cast material | Plaster |
|---|---|
| Printed parts | 9 |
| Size (W x D x H) | 88 x 86 x 166 mm |
| Print bed needed | 91 x 79 mm, 166 mm tall |
| Filament | ~172 g |
| Layer height | 0.2 mm |
| Infill | 15% |
| Supports | Not needed |
| Download | ZIP: 9 printed parts in 4 STL files + statue master (STL) + print sheet + recipe |
| Added | 2026-10-05 |
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About 213 ml, so mix 239 ml in one batch. The shell follows the figure, which is why it takes far less than a box around a statue this size would. A tin or platinum casting silicone of Shore 20 to 30 A works well.
With six printed clamps, all in clamps.stl in the zip. The two shell halves have wings along both seams; push three clamps over each seam, top, middle and bottom, and the shell is closed tight with no gap for silicone to escape. Tape or a bead of hot glue along the outside seams on top of that makes it leak-proof. If you have steel binder clips, a few more never hurt, but you do not need them.
From SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Its Royal Cast Collection holds plaster casts of famous sculptures, made in the 19th century so artists could study them, and SMK has 3D scanned many of them and published the scans as public domain. This is their cast of Michelangelo's Dying Slave in the Louvre. We only cut it flat under the plinth, scaled it and simplified the mesh for printing.
Casting plaster is the easiest and gives the crispest white finish, ready to demold in about an hour. Jesmonite is stronger and chips less at the raised arm. For outdoors use a fine concrete without gravel and leave it a day before demolding.
Yes. They are all scans from the same museum collection, made at a matching shelf size (most stand 140 mm tall), so a few of them cast in the same plaster make a small sculpture gallery for a shelf or a mantelpiece.
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