Casting the sculpt.

Last time we talked about sculpting, now at this stage we need to move on and cast the sculpt.

To do this you need a few things:-

Plaster of Paris
Mod Rock
Some Water Clay
mould release
Vaseline
more oil/plasticine clay

To begin with, you need to build flashing, this is the plasticine all round leaving a small white rim of plaster showing, all areas that have plaster showing must be flashed.

ensure you leave the keys free as this enables separation from the plaster of Paris.

Now on all areas that the plaster is showing. put Vaseline on, I used a cotton bud and a covered the open areas with a good amount. 

Now build your wall if clay, make it water tight as you will be pouring plaster in to this to create your mould.

Once built you can fill with plaster, then wrap mod rock around the clay to give it added strength

Before you put your plaster on the sculpt check 2 things

1. have you put vaseline on all the white areas?

2. have I sprayed mould release on to the mould!

these are imperative.

At this stage you need to let it set, it is worth noting that your sculpt will undoubtedly be destroyed by the process. 

 then once finished, take a blunt instrument and loosen the edges around to break vacuum, this then releases your mould of your cast. 

I don't have images as I was alone and couldn't take them while getting my mould free.

once free you need to get white spirit and some cotton wool and clean out your cast as well as remove all the clay from your original cast and clean her up too, these will now be used as a mould for the foam latex front and back, meaning, putting foam latex in to the prosthetic appliance mould that you sculpted and pushing the face you cast of your model, ,making it a perfect fit for them. 

Sculpt Again and dropping my cast! oh no!!!!

Hello Again,

In my last entry, we talked about how you sculpt, in this entry I am going to show/talk about all the things I did wrong and how to rectify this. 

I will also talk about dropping my cast!!!!!! That there was a bad day!!!!!!

Ok so, before we moved on to mould making I took my cast in to class it looked like this:

So the reason that is not particularly good for moulding is that the edge of the sculpt is uneven, this would make it hard to create 'flashing'

Ok so now you want to know what flashing is, flashing is a clay line around your sculpt and in any white areas, you leave around a half a finger tip gap between the sculpt and the flashing. 

you need to spray a non stick agent on your sculpt and the flashing, then on all the areas that the plaster of paris is showing you must apply petroleum jelly, this prevents the cast sticking to the plaster, if that happened you would lose your work and inevitable have to start over!

So back to the day I took my cast in to class and discovered that I needed to remove the detail, this means smoothing down with a wire brush, I used a suede brush, you do not use hard or heavy movements, ensure they are light you only want to smooth but at the same time textured, this gives your prosthetic a more realistic finish.

After this, use a cheap powder brush and talcum powder, to finish off nicely, it is now ready for having detail applied! 

Here you can see that I am using the suede brush, in very light circular movements, I am being very light as I dont to scratch to the plaster. 

Talc action across the nose! 

sprinkling more talc this is to smooth. 

All talc-ed up and ready for detail

Detail

                                                                 
                                                                         To make the nose slits I used a sharp sculpt tool
I used shells to get  this detail

you can see here gill like marks they are made from the same instrument. 

Here you can see clearly shell marks the  shell that created that marking is the the one is the picture. 

All finished 

After doing this I had borred a hat box to carry it in, on the way the following to the train station, the hat box flipped open, the cast flew out of the box and smacked the pavement, For a second I couldn't look, then I plucked up my courage, looked down and her chin had a big wedge missing from it, thankfully it was ok else where. 

In the next entry I will talk about how I got around this, what the repercussion's and what the next step is!

This is going up soon so keep a look out! 

Amanda

Mixing and Cooking!

We have now reached a stage where we are using new products and chemicals, the ones I have listed here are a brand there are others and if you use, or find that you have a preference with another make, I am not endorsing a particular make, they are the products in our classroom.

you will need all these products or similar and cheap paint brushes, as seen in the photo as well as mould release.

you also need a weighing scale and a food mixer. 

To make a decent amount of foam latex here is a recipe

300g Foam Base

60g Foaming Agent

30g Curing Agent

Mix these in the mixer on the fastest setting for 4 minutes exactly, its wise to time it. 

then on the slowest setting to refine the mix for a further 6 mins.

whilst its mixing measure out between 30-35g of the gelling agent, get a syringe and once mixed for the full 10 minutes, start to add the gelling agent do this by filling the syringe and slowly add the gelling agent whilst mixing for a further 2 mins on the slowest setting to ensure that the mix remains stable, if done quickly it can lead to the mix congealing and getting lumps this means that the mix is unstable and will not produce a mould should this happen, throw it away and start over, it is worth saying that room temp does affect the gelling agent so always try and work at a balanced room temperature.

The Consistency should be that of meringue.   

Now take your brush and apply to the areas of fine detail after this is done make sure you are wearing latex gloves, place a handful of mix centrally and place your plaster cast of the area in to the mould pressing the mixture tightly and tie it with a rope or ratchet strap. clean off the excess foam.

Now place in an oven that is set to 20oC for 3 hours. 

In the next entry I will show you the practice piece I had and what I did with it, how to apply and further products as well as more about my design. 

Practice Piece.

Hello and Welcome back, today we are looking at the finished prosthetic piece, though now its just a practice piece that is beneath, this is a brief look without each stage, as when I have my final exam, I have all the images and will break down the whole process, I just wanted to wet your appetite! 

My Practice Piece

here is my piece prior to being trimmed, my model was not available so I used my mother ( god bless her) her face is a different shape. 

Here I have mixed aqua-fix by Mouldlife (or pros-aide whichever your prefer) with a white and red acrylic paint that is a standard paint from any craft shop, this prepares the foam latex to be painted on to, as the colour is so white n contrast to skin, I chose this shade as I was using really vibrant colours.

Now I have started to air brush and as you can see the purple makes the pink really pop

I am now shading all crevices to bring the piece to life.

I added some gold to make it iridescent and more 'shell like' 

its worth saying that I have used Cabosil and a tongue depressor to blend edges this is mixed using Cabosil silicon and pros-aide I have attached a really useful You Tube clip, as it stresses the fact that you need to wear a breathing mask and work in a well ventilated area. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufrzLXmLi38

As you see here I have started blending in to the neck now. 

Here is the Practice Piece finished, I added gold on the lip to give the shell look.

This is very rough with a wig that isnt properly finished nor attached

Now you can start to see where I am aiming and also it gives you a little taster of the finished final assessment piece. 

While I was cooking the final piece, the positive( face) cracked and smashed, thankfully my piece was OK, but the face was destroyed this is because the mix of plaster and burlap were to weak, so after a couple of uses it was destroyed. 

To be honest, I as a new starter to this medium, I  simply followed instructions and had help as well from my tutor, so from this I know that I will always ensure that my mix is that but thicker and the burlap is double or tripled, I am also able to see that, perhaps it was over cooked or dry and this made it brittle. 

I also originally made and sculpted tentacles, these failed as the mix for the latex was unstable, this is again an experience I have learned from, I decided to omit them from my design on a basis of  it would take too much time to make them again and that I think you will see that the design it really effective without tentacles.