Casting Max's Hands & Feet!

Hello there!
For this project I decided to get my own silicone to cast the arms and feet in. This is not because I used most of the silicone from uni for my mold
Whoops :/
But as I found with making blob, the silicone that the uni provided was quite tough, therefore I wanted a softer silicone to ensure my armature could move easily within it.

I decided to purchase T20 silicone from a website called Tiranti.
I purchased the silicone a couple of weeks before needing it. As it arrived I placed the parcel on my shelf for a later date. When it came time for me to use it. I opened the packaging and

.............

The tin was dented!!!!! 

Not cool Tiranti..... Not cool!

...

Even though the tin was dented, and makes it difficult to remove the lid, the silicone inside was ok. So I just had to get on with it!

I began by pouring some silicone in to a plastic cup, and then mixed some oil based paint together to get a flesh tone that I wanted for Max.
Im looking to add no more than 5% paint to the silicone as this may affect the curing process.

After I had my colour sprayed the mold with my spray was release agent (not pictured sorry). I then painted a layer of silicone in to the mold and then vaselined the mold.
I leave this layer to cure before adding the armature and the rest of the silicone. The reason why I paint a layer is:
1. To ensure when placing the armature in, the armature is not touching the mold. So when the cast comes out the armature should not be visible through the silicone.
2. When it comes to pouring in the next batch of silicone, hopefully it limit the amount of air bubbles that are going to be visible once it's cured.

The next step had to be quick so I didn't have time to take photos but I'll explain what I've done.
After the silicone painted layer had cured I then poured in more silicone, I should say I mixed 5% catalyst with the silicone, different silicone's very (catalyst is the agent which starts the curing process)
Once that was poured in I then positioned my armatures within and then very quickly closed the mold together. To get the tightest seal on the mold I used a clamp to tighten. The tighter the seal on the mold the thinner the seam lines on the hands will be. But don't clamp to hard otherwise the mold may break!

Whilst I was waiting for that to cure I moved on to Feet!
An important step before casting ball joints up in silicone is to wrap the ball joint up in something, I think i've seen people use cling film, but most often than not people use PTFE tape.
This will stop silicone from running in to your ball joints, curing, and then preventing the ball joints from moving efficiently!
So always wrap your ball joints! 

With that step done it was on to repeating the process I just talked about with the hands
and then I had my 2 mold!

Tah dah! 

To clean up the seam lines I began by using a small scissors and cutting excess silicone off.

 Once they were cut I then used a dremel to take excess silicone down smooth. With the dremel I used a stone tool and slowly went up the seam line. To ensure the stone tool would not rip the silicone, washing up liquid was used (vaseline could work to) to reduce friction.

Finished hands 

(Ignore that he now has a body and clothes, I'll explain them down the line)