Making Moulds: The Hands

It's time to move on to something a bit more complicated. The hands.

To clay up the hands I used a water based clay, the benefits of using this is that it is extremely malleable and can be easily smoothed. Also adding water to the clay washes it away. This will help later when I will need to remove the clay from the first half of the mould.

The purple keys, have been added, as when I have poured two halves of the plaster they will act as registration keys to ensure the mould fits together correctly and does not slide around!

Same goes for the circular holes, I used a round sculpting tool to push in to the clay, these are just another variety of keys which will help both halves of the plaster mould line up.

The claying up process wasn't the best but I believe it will do a good job. In my next project I hope to allow myself more time to clay up, in comparison to this project.

On to boxing in..

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The same was done, as the leg boxing in, I took foam board, and appliedaround the edges and used hot glue to secure the whole thing together. Now it was time to pour the plaster and play the waiting game....

First half worked how I wanted it! Woohoo! 

Now it was time to add more plasticine on to the plaster. I did this to limit the amount of surface area the second part of plaster would touch on my already existing plaster. The benefits of doing this is that it will be easier to prise the two halves apart later. Also doing additional keys right on the edge creates a gap on the side to put a screwdriver or end of a hammer in to, to prize both halves of plaster apart.

I then had to box the half of the mould in, again to pour the 2nd half in. This time I used corrugated platic to box the mould up, this was because this is the material I had on hand at the time. It's a little less sturdier than foam board but works just as good. 

I then coated the plaster in vaseline...

Tip of the day! 

Always vaseline the first part of the plaster before pouring in the 2nd half!!! 

Most valuable information to soak in, when mould making!

The vaseline acts as a protective barrier, when the 2nd half of the plaster is poured. As plaster will adhere to itself, the vaseline stops this. If you forget the vaseline step, say hello to having nice sculpted hands incased in a block of plaster!

When the 2nd half set I could remove the two halves easily and I was left with my hand mould!

2 moulds down, 2 moulds to go.

And with that, off I go.