Moldmaking Basic molds of a head and a body!

Oooh thank you for this, it's always great to see different ways to do molding XD

 

wow!!! Batchix, this is awesome! I was just about to try to do a waste mold for cleaning up, so I'll try your way...

I was wondering - i'm reading about tin cure and platinum cure, and I haven't figured out what that means - do you know?

I tried Oomoo/Smoothon and really liked them - but my silicon mold stuff mixed purple - so it must have been a different type.

thanks again!

 

That's a brilliant idea for reducing waste when casting 'round' objects! I've been doing the 'found tubular object' thing, and while it technically works, it turns me into a trash-collecting pack-rat and the pieces are still usually either too large or too small to use in most purposes.
Thank you for sharing your technique!

 

Platinum and Tin cure refer to what the silicone is actually made with. Platinum cure is the more expensive, tin cure cheaper, because the platinum cures are stronger (higher tear strength) and last longer shelf wise (And I am guessing platinum is a more expensive alloy than tin).

Ooomoo is a tin cure, but is a very reasonable tin cure in my opinion, it’s great for beginners. I use the 3 hour set because it gives me more time to work and pour it slowly in a thin stream to allow airbubbles to pop and not be an issue (Too poor for a vaccum chamber XD).

My 2 cents on moldmaking - I would NOT reccomend removing the model before pouting the second half of the mold. It may not register back in properly and you could have seepage of silicone in to the lower half, and it will decrease the tightness of registration later on. There is no reason to remove it anyway, you can clean up the clay easily while leaving it in (if you use waterclay, which is what should be used for ease of removal).

 

My HERO!

Thanks so much! This was very helpful. Now I can't wait to finish up "cloud" and give it a try!

 

Oh Bats, this is just in time! I was thinking that I'd have to waste a lot of materials trying to figure out the proper way to make a mold of my heads. Thank goodness you came along! Thanks so much for posting this!

 

Yikes! His candy-hole scares me. *peeps from behind*

Here's a question, what are you using (aside from elbow grease) to clean the waterclay from your original & mold half? Sometimes I use rubbing alcohol and a very soft toothbrush and/or towel. The trick is to prevent breaking the original seal that the silicon has on your original, and I haven't had problems with that except on really small pieces with deep undercuts that required removing from the mold to clean properly. Then again, I use a fairly thick silicon from alumilite that requires degassing before using, so my firm silicon won't give way for the new.

 

You are awesome! Thanks so much for sharing! I found it very informative.

Yia

 

Thank you so much Batchix! I've always valued your opinion very much and this tutorial is wonderful! Thank you for sharing it with us!

 

Awesome! Thanks for the tutorial. I have been dreading casting my heads since the last time I did it I really made a mess and they were difficult to work with lol This will save me a lot of molding time *hugs lots*

 

!!!! No fair!

 

This looks great, thank you! This is very helpful.

 

Cool!! that's super!!XDDD
thank for sharing it I will try some.

 

Ugh I've been looking for an understandable tutorial FOREVER ^_^ thanks so much for the post... o_O I'm glad I didn't try to mold the head before reading this >< I would have wasted A LOT of expensive materials

 

my mom (patl) and i have been sitting here trying to think of things to seal the paperclay before molding, and i notice you make a comment about it - so i was wondering if you've worked in it and have any suggestions on what's a good sealer for it? or does any one have any ideas? i'd really hate to loose the doll i've been working on when i go to cast her ><;;;

 

Actually there is a thing called MR. Resin Primer that you can use to coat your doll before casting in resin

also mr surfacer is a good option too

 

do those work on paper clay? we have some of the tamiya resin primer... maybe i'll try that on a test piece...

 

thanks a lot batchix ^^ i'm still a few weeks away from molding for casting, but you've saved a week or two of testing - plus your wonderful tutorial is going to make it so easy to mold the pieces.

 

Batchix: I am not quite sure if the Mr. Resin Primer sticks to resin. I have not used it yet, but I have a can of it coming in the mail. I can check for you though!

(I think that it does because in the dollybird 9 issue Araki uses something like that to coat the unoa zero before casting, and he made their ball joints our of cast resin, and I remember seeing the joints covered with the spray)

 

That's a really good idea to put papertowel or something similar in as a temporary core under the clay.. I will definitely use that now that I am making a torso mold for Ylisande.. and for several other parts where that sort of thing would come in handy.

 

I used a mixture of liquitex gesso and liquitex modeling paste to seal mine..at least I hope she's sealed properly. I brushed on about five layers and then sanded it smooth. I have my smooth-on casting class this Frdiay and hope to mold and cast next weekend, so I'll keep you all informed on what works and what doesn't. Hopefully I'll be reporting more on what works!! lol!

 

batchix, thank you so much for posting this wonderful tutorial! I am working on sculpting my first BJD and while I don't expect I will mold and cast this one, I know I'll want to do it sometime soon. Great pictures and explanation.

 

Your my hero batchix!

I used your tutorial to make a mold of my unoa headback and a casted a few this weekend! Worked WONDERFULLY!

-bows to your dolly making wisdom-

 

What an amazing process! It's really cool to see the behind the scenes. It's so messy! lol
Is that a sneak peak of the future robot boy???

 

thanks for the great photos on mold making, one day when I get brave enough to try this I will need all the help I can get
barb