Ok, I sculpted a clay creature and now plan to make a plaster mold for it. The plan is to make a clay sculpt, then make a two part plaster mold of it. Once the mold is made, I will clean out the clay (destroying the sculpt in the process) and put the two halves back together. I then plan to pour some latex (mold builder) in the mold, swish it around, then pour out the excess. I will let that dry, then repeat a few times until the latex skin is thick enough.
Then I plan to pop open the mold, and have a great latex skin of my sculpt. I will cut maybe between the legs so I can slide a metal armature inside, and then fill it out with some cushion foam (like from a seat cushion) to form the muscles.
I will post more as it progresses. These pictures are the torso only. I will sculpt the limbs and head separately. The sculpt right now is about 5″ high. I started with a lump of clay around a pencil which is held upright with a hole in a piece of scrap wood. The creature is a big scaly creature with leather straps holding on a quiver of arrows.
1 response so far ↓
Pram // June 29, 2008 at 5:44 am |
Hey, this is like a flashback to the trouble I had with the puppets on Barrier. FOUR different versions of the armature, and three designs for the actual sculpts later, and I had something just good enough to fall apart after the very last shot (which it did- one of their faces split right down the middle from the neck wire).
I can only imagine the heartache of releasing your molds and finding that the design didn’t work. Of course, the silver lining in this is that you won’t tend to make the same mistake twice. Trial and error, man- a great way t0 learn the ins and outs before you’ve got a deadline thrown under everything else.