Chair and Desk!

I made a tiny table and a tiny chair. Made with balsa and basswood. I did a fake stain with a brown paint wash.

A Few Pictures

...fun.

Okay, here's some pictures of how clean I got my hands and feet. I did this with a toothpick and some Qtips. There's still some brown clay, and that's okay. If you start damaging the mold, that's really bad. I also put the mold in the fridge for a while to harden the clay and hopefully make it easier to remove. I don't know if this actually helped, but it helped my psyche.

The Reveal! Demolding and Clean Up!

He served his purpose. Took one for the team

James Joseph Brown listening Fun!

Here we can finally see what we've done wrong. That's the scariest thing about making molds. You don't know how well you did until the point where you remove the sculpt.

This was one of the most terrifying part of my process. I walked up to my mold, excited and anxious. I tore down the foamcore walls (of oppression.) Removes the glue that was used to seal up the walls against the first half of the mold. Then I grabbed both sides and pulled... and they didn't come apart. I was terrified and ready to jump out a window. I did not put enough vaseline on, and I put a good amount on, I thought.

Luckily my friend Blake was there to calm me. He got out a hammer and flathead screwdriver. I chiseled into the area of the mold with the largest distance from the sculpt. As I did Blake noticed that the rest of it was coming apart and we carefully pulled it apart!

The two sides of the mold were completely fine, the keys had broken at a few places, but most of it was preserved, which is fine. The sculpt is in one half and the other half looks really good. I'm looking for signs of air bubbles, and there are couple but they're small and easily fixed.

Now I have to get the sculpt out, which completely destroyed the sculpt. It was an honorable and valiant sculpt, I'm proud of its accomplishments; it's served its purpose. With the sculpt out I have noticed clay left in it, especially around the hands and most of the feet have stayed. This all needs to be cleaned out. Carefully, with my trusty tool, the toothpick, I got all of the clay out. I used a toothpick because it is made of wood, which is less likely to scratch and damage the mold.

Once all the clay is removed you need to make your armature, which I will explain in the next post. It's a process.

What I've learned: USE PLENTY OF VASELINE!

1/2 Reveal and Prepping for Second Part of the Mold

Naked shoot out fun!

Okay.

The mold has been poured and now we wait. I waited about 5 hours, but I'm paranoid. The box says the hydrocal will set in 1 hour, and my professor who has a great deal of experience says 20 minutes, when the hydrocal is warm, it'll be hard enough to remove and the clay will come off easier. But, I waited 5 hours.

When you're content, pull the foam core walls off, you can tear them and destroy them if a want, but they could potentially be used a bit later. The walls are gone, now flip the mold and foam core (that's on the bottom of what used to be the box.) Carefully remove the foamcore. Now you will see your sculpt (which should be exactly in the mold still; if it has come out you're screwed and will never get it perfectly registered again) and the sculpt is surrounded by the green Klean Clay.

Carefully remove the green clay. Try to get big chunks and pull from them. Make sure to not remove the sculpt with the green Klean Clay. Once you've removed the big chunks there'll be little bits still on the mold and right next to the sculpt. Some of these bits are very important to clean. Try to get as much off as you can, but if there's any touching or close to your sculpt you need to get that off otherwise your cast could have something wrong with it. Also if there is some near the key you need to remove it, but with a large key it shouldn't be a problem if there's a little left.

Also remember to take the bolts out. I had to screw them out, I couldn't just pull them out. This is fine. When you are have the bolts out cover the hole with some klean clay. Make sure there is a seal, nothing can get in. This is so that in the unlikely event that the liquid hydrocal for the second part of the mold gets down to the side of the walls, it wont fill that hole and harden.

I left the green klean clay that was by the neck on and added some more. I want there to be a pour spout on the top of the mold.

Okay, once all of the green clay is gone we need to prep for the second part of our two part mold. First you should make the walls, but do not attach them. Make them the same way, measuring the sides and cutting. Eventually we will attach them with hot glue and seal up the sides and cracks with hot glue.

Now, we need a releasing agent for the mold part that has now hardened. For this we need Vaseline, or any kind of petroleum jelly. Very generously lather on vaseline to the hardened hydrocal. Do this not only on the surface that used to be touching the green klean clay, but on the sides as well. This is so that in the unlikely event that the liquid hydrocal for the second part of the mold gets down to the side of the walls harden and attach to the first part of the mold. Make sure to vaseline the edges and around the key a lot.

Now put on the walls that have already been cut. When I did this, I put on the vaseline before i measured and cut the walls, it created a messy annoying problem.

So you have vaseline on the 1st mold (don't put it on the sculpt.) The walls are up and glued to each other and the foam core base. There are probably some gaps between the wall and the hardened hydrocal mold. Fill this crack with either clay or glue. I used hot glue because it's easy.

Okay, draw your fill line on the interior of the wall again like I did in the first pour and mix/pour again using the same techniques.

A List and Short Explanation of Molding/ Sculpting Materials I've Used

I figured I needed a picture...

Today I was at my internship, where I makes things for stop motion sets. I decided to make a list of the materials I've used and a short description so I know for my own purposes.

Silicone GI 1000- Molding material. Mix with 12% catalysis by weight. Mix together with power drill mix, then de-gas in a vacuum chamber at 80 psi.

Smooth Cast 300- Hard plastic casting material. Mix two equal parts by weight. When casting in a silicone mold with this you "break the surface tension" to make sure that you don't get air bubbles. You do this by pouring some of Smooth Cast in and then either pushing your finger, wearing a glove, into the mold and rubbing all the interior sides of the mold so that the material is pushed against the side, or by using a stick, if the area is too small for a finger. It sets up by changing from a clear liquid to a white, hard plastic. Side note, when stirring don't stir to fast, the heat will cause it to set quicker.

Magic Sculpt- Like plumbers epoxy only you have about 3 hours of working time, not 5-10 min. Good for sculpting and letting sit to harden. I used it for the hair in my characters for "A Plan for the New Tomorrow."

Oomoo 25- A simple silicone mold material that doesn't need to be degassed. 1 to 1 by volume mix ratio.

Chavant P40 Sculpting Clay- Shavant is the brand, P40 is the type. This is the clay that I would have liked to use to sculpt, I'm very interested in it. You need to heat it up to sculpt with it and when it cools to room temperature it's hardish.

Cold Foam:

Flex Foam (5 and 10, also 10 is called "X")- This is a casting material that grows to either 5 time or 10 times its volume, respectively. The difference is in the density of the foam when done, 5 is denser than 10. Also, it's sticky as all hell when it's expanding. Used for many things, including a filler for a latex-skinned puppet.

Rigid Foam- Another type of cold foam. Works the same damn way except it aint flexible ya twad.

There's obviously a ton more materials that I have used, but these are the ones with the names I can't ever remember.

Allen Toussaint

This is an unrelated post to everything. I just love Allen Toussaint so much.

Pouring the mold pt 1

Jesus crucifying fun!

Okay, it's time to make one half of the mold. First thing we need is hydrocal, our molding material for this project. I got my hydrocal at Blick, they have it at art stores everywhere.

The hydrocal comes as a powder and you have to mix it with water. There are measurements and ratios to judge how much water to hydrocal, but no one in the world uses them. Before you mix, make sure to draw a pour line on the inside of the wall. This should be about 1/2 to a full inch above your highest point on the sculpt.

Mixing hydrocal is just like mixing plaster.

To mix the hydrocal I needed a plastic mixing bin. I needed to make a quick judgement of how much molding material you'll need. Pour half that amount IN WATER in the bucket. It's very important to pour the water first. Also, I made sure that there was more than enough room left in my mix bucket for the hydrocal.

I started by quickly sprinkling the powder into the bucket, by using a small paper cup. *Once you start putting in the hydrocal powder into the bucket, do not move, mix or shake the bucket* I kept doing this, evenly, until the powder stopped sinking to the bottom. I look for what has been described to me as the "dry cracking desert" look.

Yeah, that, only with hydrocal. Once this happens you will start to mix, which is done with your hand, so that you can feel lumps and mix them in better. Before you start mixing, make sure you have everything ready to pour, you don't want it to set up on you before you're ready to pour. So, you're ready. Roll up your sleeve and mix. This stuff doesn't have a lot of working time, so mix quickly. Once thoroughly mixed, you can begin to pour.

Pouring is a scary and dangerous. This is because of air bubbles. You need to make sure you don't get any air bubbles on the sculpt surface because it will result in a "zit" in the final cast. There are a few different pouring techniques to avoid air bubbles; I used a combination of them. One is to paint on a first layer, so you get all the intricate details. I did this on a few areas, like the arm pits, shoes and hands, that I was a afraid of getting air bubbles on. I did this very quickly. Then I started pouring at a medium and steady speed in a corner far away from the sculpt. I let the hydrocal move into the cracks and crevices. Once one part is pretty full, I moved to the other side.

Once I poured it there was nothing I could do but wait. It says that it sets fully in an hour, but I'm extra paranoid and I left it sit for about 5 hours. The hydrocal sets in about 20 minutes and gets really warm, I've been told this is the best time to demold. MOTL

Mold is poured!

Best Lifedrawing Day EVAH!

Ignore the giant head and bad head proportions, body is good.

SO!!!! It seems all that sculpting, in which I used reference photos and really tried to study the shape, paid off in my drawings. I'm really not that good at drawing, but I've been trying. I'm really happy with this, I did it in lifedrawing class.

I think once I really started to shade the drawings, which has always scared me, it helped me get proportions and reference points.

Prepping for the Mold Pour!

Walls made from foamcore
Clean edges against the wall

Screws in shoe so there will be a hole in the mold for the tie-down

Terms reminder:

Sculpt: The original sculpture (That I spent 14+ fucking hours working on)

Mold: framework or shape used to make an object of complementary shape from a pliable material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_(manufacturing)

Molding Material: The material the mold is made out of, in this case it will be Hydrocal (more to come on that)

Cast: The final product; what I will have after the mold is created and I’ve poured the casting material into the mold as a liquid and allow to solidify (more on this later), it will have the exact shape of the sculpt.

Casting Material: What the final puppet (at least the portion that comes from the mold; you’ll notice the head is not being molded) is going to be made out of.

Releasing agent: Something put on to the sculpt (or anything) with the purpose of making the de-molding process easier, so that when the molding material has hardened it will be easier to take the sculpt out.

MOTL: More On That Later

Key: Part of the mold made to register the two sides of a two part mold.

OKAY!

Ball kickin fun! There are a lot of things that need to be decided early. The first is what is my casting material?

I have decided to cast my puppet in L-200 Casting Latex. I'm using latex because it's a good rubbery flesh like material, but most importantly because it's free to me through NYU. (The L-200 part is not essential, I've just decided to put it in so people can look it up and so I'll remember myself. You're welcome happy people!)

The latex will be mixed with acrylic paint in a 60% Latex, 40% acrylic paint ratio. (More latex than paint because I'm tinting the latex; and if you put too much acrylic in the skin starts to crack with too much stress and movement.)

Because I'm casting in Latex and need a molding material that will allow the latex to set and dry. I've made a ton of silicone molds, they're beautiful. However, latex will not set up in a silicone mold. It needs a porous material to dry, otherwise it's like it's in an air-tight container and will never dry. This is why I've decided to use Hydrocal, a plaster like material. Hydrocal is better than plaster for molds however, it's harder and heavier. There are many disadvantages for hydrocal (versus silicone) and I will probably never use it again. I used it because it's cheap and because I needed it for latex (which I used because it's free to me.)

Okay, I had to make walls for the mold. First, I cut the green klean clay with a removed OFLA blade. They need to be straight, hard edges. The walls were made with foamcore (I was also informed that lego's would work, and I really wanna try that some time.) I used the flat factory edge of the foamcore for the bottom, then I just measured the lengths of the edges and cut one side of the foamcore, so that one side is preserved and the other side is cut (obviously the preserved side is the side facing the clay.) This way I have a clean piece of foamcore paper all along the edge, making an open box. I used glue gun glue to secure the edges of the wall, both to each other and the bottom foamcore. The hot glue is really good for sealing the walls.

You'll notice that the green clay is right up to the edges, I had to add more clay at those edges to make it a clean, straight, level edge.

At this point I sprayed everything, including the green clay, again with crystal clear, so all of the clay would release easily from the mold when done.

I also put the screws so that there would be an open hole so that when I'm ready to pour the latex there's room available for the screw needed for the tie down.

The Clay Up Process!

rough clay up

rough

rough

rough clay up done

Rough line around sculpt can be seen

clean edges

clean edges!!

clean edges!

clean level edges!

clean level edges

The Clay Up Process!

First off, let’s get some key terms down:

Sculpt: The original sculpture (That I spent 14+ fucking hours working on)

Mold: framework or shape used to make an object of complementary shape from a pliable material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_(manufacturing)

Molding Material: The material the mold is made out of, in this case it will be Hydrocal (more to come on that)

Cast: The final product; what I will have after the mold is created and I’ve poured the casting material into the mold as a liquid and allow to solidify (more on this later), it will have the exact shape of the sculpt.

Casting Material: What the final puppet (at least the portion that comes from the mold; you’ll notice the head is not being molded) is going to be made out of.

Releasing agent: Something put on to the sculpt (or anything) with the purpose of making the de-molding process easier, so that when the molding material has hardened it will be easier to take the sculpt out.

MOTL: More On That Later

Key: Part of the mold made to register the two sides of a two part mold.

Okay.

Yay! This takes a long time and it’s very precise work. I am now preparing the puppet for the molding process. I need to start thinking about what type of mold I’m making.

For a puppet like this it makes the most sense to do a two part mold. This means that I’ll have a mold of one half and a mold of the other half that fit perfectly together (cut vertically along the body, back side and front side.)

In order to do that I need to “clay up” the sculpt, but there are a few things I need to do before that.

You’ll notice a shine to the sculpt. After I’m completely happy with the sculpt, I have to spray it with crystal clear. Crystal clear is like a clear spray paint, it’s original intent is for making something either glossy or matte. We use crystal clear as a releasing agent. This, again, is so that after I pour the mold (both sides) it will be easier to take the sculpt out and I wont have to spend as much time cleaning the mold, it will just come right out (more on that later, abbreviated MOTL.)

The other reason I spray the sculpt with crystal clear is so that I can draw the half way line. I draw a line along the edge, between the front and back of the body, with a sharpie. (Obviously, make sure to wait until the crystal clear has dried, like 5 minutes.)

The next thing I need is some foam core (coreboard.) On it I draw a rough line around the sculpt. I didn’t trace the sculpture, I drew the line for where the mold is going to be. You can see the line in the picture labeled “Rough line around sculpt can be seen”

Now we can start the clay up process! I started by elevate the body and holding the limbs up with a few balls of clay. After that I roughly, but very carefully put clay down up to the half line. The clay I’m using for the clay up process is the same type of clay, Klean Clay. I chose to use a very different color so that I could tell what’s sculpt and what isn’t (MOTL.) I would have liked to use a different harder type of clay for the sculpt and clay up with klean clay, but for various reasons I used klean clay for the sculpt and the clay up. I forget the name of the clay I would like to use for the sculpt, I’ll get back with that.

To begin I roughly put clay up to the edges. Things to keep in mind:

1) Make sure the whole clay up is level with the half line, don’t approach the sculpt then curve up or down to it.

2) Try not to touch the sculpt much, especially with your tools. Don’t wanna fuck it up do ya, ya twad!

3) At this point it’s important not to clay it up too precisely. Look at pictures that say rough clay up, that’s how you want it.

Once I had it to the point in the pictures before the picture labeled “rough clay up done” I made the key. The key is that squiggly line around the sculpt. I simply used a sculpting tool and made it squiggly very intentionally. Make sure to level out the top edge of all of the clay up clay, it should be smooth (the bottom edge, the edge touching the foam core, doesn’t need to be smooth at all, in fact it wont be. MOTL)

After that, make the edges very clean. By edges, I mean the edges next to the sculpt. The edges of the clay up clay a should go right up to the sculpt. This will require a tool of some kind. I used a rubber sculpting tool and a toothpick that was cut to have a hard, flat edge. I made sure not to scrape the sculpt. I did the fine tuning last because any sort of smoothing that’s being done on a another part of the sculpture can pull and affect the clean edges.

Sculpture!

Sculpture Photos! I spent hours sculpting this and it’s now in the hydrocal mold and I’ll die if the mold fails.

I had a friend take multiple photos of me from different points of view, front and side. On the front views I held my arms out planning to sculpt it with my arms out. (A few of the pictures were dirtier with me just wearing underwear for sculpting reference. *wink*) I scaled them all in photoshop so that when I printed out the separate views that they would be the same scale.

I used these for proportions references and sculpted it in klean clay. I put armature wire in the body so the limbs would have structure. I left the shoes on because my plan is to make a mold and cast the final puppet in latex. I’m making clothes for him, but I’m not making cloth shoes, so I want those to be made in latex.

The wire is there because in the end my puppet will have a body in latex and a head made out of clay. I will need the wire to stick out of the mold and I will also use it as a pour spout for pouring in latex in the mold.

What I’ve learned: A lot about anatomy and that sculpting takes a long ass time, about 14 hours.

Where I’ve fucked up: Not sure yet.