How Much Does it Cost to Make a Concrete Statue?

Making your own concrete statues and decorative items can be a fun and rewarding hobby. There are quite a few different ways to make things out of concrete and mortar - molded, sculpted, solid concrete , lightweight concrete, and more. In this video, we will be estimating the cost of materials used for making a concrete statue about 34 inches long, 15 inches wide, 8 inches tall, weighing approximately 50-60 lbs.

3D sculpture using a styrofoam core wrapped in galvanized steel mesh for structural support and a vertical climbing surface. A mortar mix made of sand, portland cement, PVA (white glue), and water is applied about 1/4"-1/2" thick. The cured statue is painted using watered-down acrylic paints and then sealed with a water-based concrete sealer.

Some of the materials for making your own concrete statues can be found for free, like the styrofoam, or at discounted prices, such as paint and damaged sheets of steel mesh. Buying in bulk, if you have the option and room available, could save a lot of money as well.

Total materials used are approximately 2-3 feet squared of styrofoam, 1/4 sheet of damaged galvanized steel lath, a handful of roofing nails, one foot of tie wire, roughly 35 lbs of sand, 10-15 lbs of cement, 25mL of white glue, 10mL acrylic paint, and perhaps as much as 1/4 cup of concrete sealer. It took a total of about 6 working hours to complete this sculpture from start to finish.

For less than $10 worth of materials and a little bit of time, this large, lightweight, DIY concrete statue is formed, sculpted, painted, and sealed. You can make all kinds of cool and useful items with a little bit of concrete materials, a little bit of effort and very little money. Working with concrete can be a really cost-effective hobby.

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[Aristotle_GED]

Dude, I’m loving this channel. Learning a tremendous amount .

[FEWCHURDAKING]

Can you make a Lava Effect (Seafoam) planter with perlite?

[debbiebaron]

Can you please show us the making of the foam and lath armature

[coryingman]

The Easter Island head looks kinda like Ronald Reagan. I don't know what it is. I think the mouth and brow combo gives off Reagan.

[cchemmes-seeseeart]

This low cost factor is a #1 reason I'm going this route. If I wanted to spend a massive amount, I might build a shed & get special wiring for a large pottery kiln for pottery sculpture. Although, maybe not, because you can also make concreted lightweight, for indoors, or massive heavy strong with rocks & sand, to build on location & have the low material costs as 'Specialty items: so true that you can earn more on such items. In my own purchases, I pay more for things like a special hardware item, otherwise overpriced in terms of actual materials to make it, because you don't have many options to get a specialized item. That is a great point to remember for pricing your work.... "The most expensive part = the styrofoam:" I've had people just give me a stack of huge 4' x 8' panels of styrofoam. People do have a disposal problem with massive styrofoam, due to not being recyclable & how much space it takes up. I've even found thick panels, right along the city sidewalk, lying alongside the road that I washed & covered with a primer [to protect myself from it : ) , not knowing where it's been]. I save styrofoam blocks in packaging, to combine into larger shapes. Even if you had to buy styrofoam, Menards sells large 4' x 8' panels, 1.5" thick, for only $16, & you can cut & combine it into shapes, & glue pieces together (or use acrylic gesso) to make a larger block. (You can also gesso the whole thing, to give a sand like grip on it, to help adhere outer coatings of mortar, etc, along with the lath).