Suggestions on How to Mold without Losing his Fingers?

Comments

• TJ makes stuff ✭

  January 16

  Hi, what do you want the final cast to be made of? A lot of maquette makers will cast using a hard plastic material and they will remove the arms, tails ect….and cast them separately. And then   attach them after casting and use a bit of putty model makers use to hide the seam. Another helpful thing after you remove the arms is to add a metal or wood dowel and on the other cut off area add a hole that the dowel will plug into after casting. There is a handy video that shows all of this on Stan Winston’s videos that show how to cast a maquette ( the video is casting a cool friendly yetti character) I hope this helps you.

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• Monika Salter ✭

  January 17

  Hello TJ! Thank you for responding. I DID watch the video set with Aaron Globerman, which was excellent. I wasn't sure if I was ready to cut him up on my first try, but it is probably my best option. Do you have suggestions for hard plastic materials? I've seen silicone, fiberglass and plaster, but don't have any experience with urathanes or resins. Brand/material suggestion would be great!

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• TJ makes stuff ✭

  January 17

  Hi Monika, the video may have a material list. For casting a urethane resin is pretty standard urethane is short for polyurethane…is a two part mix that becomes a hard plastic fairly quickly ( the cure time varies for different products sometimes doing a super small test with a super small amount will give you a idea for how quickly you need to pour the material into a mold.) Smooth on is a good brand …they have a product Smooth Cast 300 that would do the job, it will be a solid white when fully cured that can be painted. It can be confusing when looking through product lists, there are many types of urethane plastics within one companies brand…the differences, are that the resins come in a variety of flexible to very hard,  they have resins that are more durable vs brittle and resins clear vs a solid color. smooth on website will have a phone number that they can help you also. The big tip for using the two part resin is to make sure your mold is free of any water. Any water will cause the resin to foam and ruin your sculpture. I hope this helps!

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• Monika Salter ✭

  January 18

  This is SUPER helpful! Thank you for sharing all this info.

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• Sean Dalton ✭✭

  January 20

  Hi Monika, what type of clay did you make your sculpture with ? It looks like sculpy ? If it is you can bake your sculpture in the oven. If its eyes are plastic you will need to take them out before baking. 
  Good luck with your project. 
  Regards, Sean 

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• Monika Salter ✭

  January 20

  Thanks Sean!
  He's super sculpey so I'll take out his eyeballs and bake him first before I try to make a mold.

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• Sean Dalton ✭✭

  January 21

  Monika, you don't need to make a mold of a super sculpey sculpture. After you bake in oven its done and ready to paint. The Stan Winston School has a course "Creature Design - Digital To Practical" by Casey Love that shows how to sculpt using super sculpey. 
  Welcome to the Stan Winston School. 
  Regards, Sean Dalton 
  
  
  

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• Monika Salter ✭

  January 24 edited January 24

  Thanks Sean! I'll add that one to my viewing list!!
  I ended up baking him, as was suggested and most of it went well, except for a belly crack! I baked 15 minutes and then an additional 5 and he looked fine out of the oven, but must have cracked during cooling. Does anyone have a tip or trick on making sure your sculpts don't crack after baking?
  
  TJ- I purchased the two-part urethane you suggested for mold making and plan to try it out with a set of hands I want to mold for stop motion puppets. Since I need lots of hands, I thought it would be a better test than the ghoul sculpt.
  Wish me luck!! 

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• TJ makes stuff ✭

  January 28

  Monika Salter said:

   Does anyone have a tip or trick on making sure your sculpts don't crack after baking?
  
  TJ- I purchased the two-part urethane you suggested for mold making and plan to try it out with a set of hands I want to mold for stop motion puppets. Since I need lots of hands, I thought it would be a better test than the ghoul sculpt.
  Wish me luck!! 

  I am not super experienced with the polymer clays so was curious too about this.
  this looks like handy info for how to prevent cracks.
  https://www.sculpey.com/blogs/blog/avoid-cracks-when-baking-polymer-clay#:~:text=Fully%20Condition%20Your%20Clay,placing%20it%20in%20the%20oven.
  
  For the mold making… strong work diving into it. Are you going to use silicone to make the mold that the urethane will be cast in?  Like in the Aaron Globerman video. I liked that video too. And look to make a maquette soon and cast it like he did. Very cool you are making a stop motion puppet!

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• Monika Salter ✭

  January 29 edited January 29

  Hmmm...I definitely didn't warm it up an any conditioning machine or kneed it as much as I usually do as I was trying to keep up with the videos. I've seen Jordu Schell use an old pasta machine for this. Next time I'm at the thrift store, I'll see if you have something that could be used! I'll make use to spend more time working the sculpey when I start the next one and see if it makes a difference in the baking. Thank you for the link!
  
  Yes, I have some smoothOn Dragon skin silicone that I'd like to use for the hands with very thin gauge wire to lay into the mold before casking. I'm going to start the molding today so I'll post how it goes!! I'm going to guess it will be a general disaster the first time around, but I'm sure I'll learn something...lol

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