Not Every Mold Has to be Pretty!

In this post I'm going to show how I made a one part mold for the eyes and eyebrows, plus how I painted the head but first molds. I didn't want to use my foam board as they were going to be very small walls to build around the sculpts and I wanted to test to see how simple a wall for a mold could be.
,If your just getting started in molding or don't have the money to get the materials, hopefully it can show you that you can mold things very simply.

To begin I sculpted the shape of the eye (Note he has eyebrows in the photo below, they are not the ones I used, they were quickly brake and roll up sculpey so I can see roughly what he looks like!).
I was going to sculpt the other eye but then thought why waste time. I decided to bake the eye and use that eye as a master sculpt. I would then mold that and be able to cast multiple eyes that would all be identical!

Time Saving! 

Now on to molding the eye. Again this is not going to be a pretty mold. I just needed something quick!

I constructed a wall around the eye out of plasticine.  No real reason for using plasticine it was just what I had lying around at the time. Once it was rolled around I began pushing it to the surface ensuring there were no gaps that silicone seep out from.
By the way I'm doing a silicone mold and casting the eyes in fast cast.

The silicone was then poured in and once cured I could then remove the plasticine.

As you can see below the mold is not that pretty however it did the job it was intended to do, and that was to cast eye's.

the same was done for the eyebrows, however this time the mold was going to be fast cast and the eyebrow silicone. I chose to use fast cast as a mould as using plaster would have taken a while to set. And seen as it was such a small mold I didn't mind using my fast cast.
You can use fast cast to create bigger mold, however I have to purchase fast cast, whereas the uni provides plaster.... so Im going to use that for big molds!

I poured the fast cast and the mold was done within 10 minutes! A very good benefit of using fast cast as molds!

I don't have a photo of the cast eyebrows... whoops... but you'll see them on the finished puppet in my later posts!

Painting the Head

On to painting the head. to do this I used Montana Gold spray paint, specifically the colour 'Bone' for the head. 

I chose to use a spray paint over painting it on with a brush as I could get an even coat with no streaks while spraying. Also the colour is always there I dont have to worry about mixing the exact colour if I were to hand paint it on and needing to do a re coat.

This is how the spay paint turned out!

I really liked the colour and liked the spray paint! it give an even coat and has no streak marks or any form of paint building up in one area. The next step was to get the dark tone around the eyes. To do this I will be using chalk pastels. As you can see I have scraped off shavings of a black chalk pastel. With a brush I will brush on small amounts of chalk on to the centre of the eye socket (the fast cast eye will not be in place) and working my way out so it fades as it gets closer to the edge of the socket.

1 eye down, 1 to go...

Once both eyes were brushed with chalk pastels I sprayed the chalk with mat finish clear coat. This will stop the chalk from wiping off of the sculpt. 

You can now see with the darkened eyes, in my opinion, it makes the eyes stand out a lot more!  

With the hair I decided to brush paint it with acrylics as I wasn't to worried with having brush marks here. 

I also decided to add a darker tone within each gap of hair with chalk pastels and clear coat the hair. 

Mold Making and Casting Hair!

Now that the hair was sculpted and baked I could now start the molding process.

Again, I am making a mold and going to be casting the hair out,  to cut as much weight from the puppet as possible!

The university ran out of water base clay at this point, probably due to everyone claying their own sculpts up, therefore I had to use plasticine. Plasticine is not bad to clay up in, but the reason I usually use a water based clay is, when the clay needs to be removed from the first half of the mold I can just use water and brush the clay away from the sculpt without worrying about the sculpt melting away as I usually use a oil based clay to sculpt with. However if I were to use plasticine to clay up in, it will be harder and more time consuming for me to remove the clay (haven't tried it before, but thats my thought process). But my sculpt is baked this time, therefore I can used lighter fluid to remove the clay after and my baked sculpt will be A-Ok! 

I started by blocking up plasticine around the hair

Once I had it to the mid way point I began levelling it all, and started smoothing the plasticine.

Lastly I used a ball tool and made half circles in the clay for 'keys' so the 2 halves of the silicone mold can link together later. I also put a 'squiggle' down the sides to act as a alternate key. 

For some reason I don't have an image of me boxing this up, only when pouring the second part I have a boxed in picture.... any who you know the process I box in with, from previous mold making posts. 

Foam board + Hot glue :)

I left the silicone to cure for 16 - 24 hours and the next day I came back and opened my mold.

The first half turned out great! 

It was now time to pour the 2nd half. 

You can see my set out below, the most important item there is the vaseline. 

Vaseline was put on to the first half of the silicone mold to act as a release agent when the second half gets poured in. If this was not applied silicone would just fuse to the first half and incase the hair sculpt in a big block of silicone. 

Vaseline was also applied to all sides of the mold just incase any silicone spilt down the sides.

When pouring my molds I will always pour from a height and to the sides of the box. Pouring from a height can help pop air bubbles trapped in the silicone caused while mixing the silicone and catalyst. 

After waiting 16 - 24 hours to cure I could then open it

As you can see silicone did creep down the sides but as I vaseline the all sides of the first mold the silicone could easily peel away. Any excess silicone is cut away with a scalpel to make the mold look a bit cleaner :)

Now comes the problem of removing the hair! ...

Removing the hair was quite difficult, due to the shape of the hair, it wrapped around the silicone therefore I had to cut into the silicone to prize it out. In the process of removing it some pieces broke off.... 

Finished Mold!

Now on to casting the hair and hoping it doesn't snap when removing!

Casting the Hair

As the casting was a very quick process there's not much to say. 

Same with the head I casted the hair with fast cast resin. 

Although I forgot one thing before.....

Somewhere to pour the fast in when the mold was closed!! 

It's only when I was at this stage my thought process was just .... Ah ...... 

Never mind it's all learning! I know for a fact I wont make that mistake again. What I should've done is place a syringe in the mold making process. Then once the mold was set, remove the syringe and I would have a had a perfect hole for a fast cast filled syringe to pop in and fill the mold up...... but the reality is I don't, so I have to find another way.

The only way I thought and still have the hair cast in the next 10 minutes was to pour the fast cast in the 2 halves, once the fast cast began to thicken I would then, at that point, close the 2 halves as the thickened fast cast would give me more time to close the 2 halves than it would if the fast cast was still liquid. Once the 2 halves were then together I would do a whole lot of praying in that 10 minutes for the hair to work! 

So that's what I did,

and ....

It worked!! 

And as for the hair breaking, only the front flick broke off and that could be sculpted on after once the hair was on the head!! 

Crisis averted! 

A lot of experience was gained in that process, and every mistake made there will not happen again!