first try at resin head - merlady added too

I finally got the courage up to try to do a resin head, mold and all. hope this thread is ok with the mods - from what I read, I think we are just supposed to post the thread, and they will check it and if it is ok - will let it show up. If I've read this wrong - I apologize - and please delete this -

i'm seeing some truly incredible sculptors here - and so many beautiful dolls getting created. This guy isn't beautiful - but he has character

I picked a fairly human head on a fairly human body to start with (he is pretty dorky, but this is just for fun) - and bought some really basic supplies



I picked a head that was about the size of a chicken egg, so I could cheat and make the mold in a plastic drink cup - instead of building a mold box of some sort.

I wanted it to be hollow - but forgot that I build the inside differently for the polymer clay heads I've been doing - so the inside plug was really hard to pull out of the poured head. so I've started removing the polymer clay mound in the inside of the head, and smoothing it out to make another mold that will work better for resin.

I can really see in the mold where there are things (like the thick eyelids, and lips - which photograph much larger than they look in person) that I want to change, so now i'm playing with casting various things like modeling wax and other clays to see if I can get a head that I can modify and redo the molds - I bought the wrong kind of chavant (it has sulfur in it and that will keep the silicon molds from setting up properly ) - but it feels like the best clay to be reworking in. So I'm going to go buy some more.

but anyway - here is the first cast - has an air bubble in one eyelid, and the other eye was too thin - need to change the inside of the head abit before re-molding



this resin is very opaque and a kind of whitish tan color - but i'll worry about the resin after I figure out how to do the molds

here the head is on the polymer body



and this shows what the first molds looked like :



this is a lot more fun than I thought it would be!!!


hopefully i'll have pics of the second mold and resulting head - and then maybe i'll try to do the body.

thank you everyone for all of your wonderful advice and tutorials - its been so much fun to read all the threads and learn so much....

 

just wanted to post his first faceup too... lucked out and got Darkmothflame to do a very cool "scruffy goth" faceup and he turned out looking about 3 days dead....... but pretty!!!! awesome!

(by the way - the proportions of head to body are strange because he is going to have long thin legs and arms - he is not quite human...... and the missing head cap makes the top of his head look pretty funny - but overall, i'm pretty happy with him.....)

 

cool - Golem was sort of what i was going for, (wasn't in the mood for pretty right now - "strange" is a little more interesting at the moment)

don't know if he would ever have hair - gave him a mohawk last night and he looked a lot like Flea from red hot chili peppers (anyway - Flea 3 days dead... )

this particular resin is very opaque - i rather like it on him, but love the translucence of the french resins for other kinds of skulps - will keep looking - thank you for hte info

 

I'll take a quick pic of the way the mold was created - but short answer - I built a clay pad - then lay the head upside down, so the head cap opening was blocked by the clay pad. he is now staring up at the sky and the the clay makes a large circle on the plate that the back of his head is resting on.

now i take an about 8 oz clear plastic cup - cut the bottom off of it - and set it upside down over the head, pressing the rim into the clay around the head. make sure that there is at least 1/4 inch clearance all around it ---

I use the mold release (the spray can stuff in the first picture - Mann Ease Release 800 - spray the head once, brush all over the head and into the nooks and crannies - spray again (panic and brush again and spray again - but it warns not to over spray the stuff)



mix the mold material - pour some in, and twirl and tip the plate so the head gets totally covered, then pour the rest in until it covers the head up and there is an extra 1/4 " or more above the nose...

now watch the mold stuff leak slightly out of the various leaks ---- it gels in about 45 minutes to an hour - but isn't to be unmolded for 6 hours...

 

some pictures - should make more sense than my words

1. make a circle of non-sulphur clay on a plate of some sort - i'm using some polymer clay i had sitting around. I made my mold container out of the shorter of the 2 plastic cups in the back - but whatever fits.




2. lay your head, open head cap down, with all openings into the head sealed, on the clay - patch around the head so you have a liquid proof seal - but without covering up any of the head that you want molded.





3. cut the bottom out of the cup, then fit it over your head, whichever way it fits best - my head is biggest around the ear area, so i have the cup upside down so the wider rim is around the widest part of the head.




4. now seal around the base with more clay so it doesn't leak too badly.






so for this mold, I'm pouring the mold in the open bottom of the cup, down over the face, swirling it around to make sure it gets into the ears and the opening for the neck, then pouring more in - pouring the rest of the mold material into the lowest area so it rises up and over the face and covers it.


after the mold sets up - you carefully cut down the side of the plastic cup with out cutting into the mold, and open it up to remove the mold. pull the clay off the head cap opening of the head - and then wiggle the head abit.

to remove this (because of the deeply detailed ears - I ended up slicing carefully - and opening up the mold along the back of the neck, beside one ear to the top of the head, opening up the mold gently, and lifting out the original sculpt. when you cast the resin, you put a little baby powder around the outside of the mold, and slip it back into another of the clear plastic cups like the one you used to create it. this holds the slice together and you get a perfect pour - no leaks.

cut the bottom out of this second cup too - it makes it easier to push the mold and set up resin head out of the cup - then you gently open the mold along the slice, and pop out the head....

very cool!

 

couple things I forgot to mention...

push some marbles of different sizes into the clay around the head - spray them with mold release too - then when you make the second piece of your mold - (the inside the head piece) you will make it fill the holes that the marbles left - and get what Kaye called "keys" --- so you will know how exactly to fit the 2 molds together and get the best cast.
thats what i'm trying to do now - if I can get some good pics, I'll post those too ....

and do make sure to spray the head well with mold release before pouring in the mold material. (and remember not to daydream while stirring the resin - it sets up fast at the end)

i was afraid I would be allergic to this stuff (i'm horribly, face swells up, breathing stops kind of allergic to 2 part apoxy ) so I've been avoiding it - but so far its just been fun. kind of hard on the budget - but I can't wait to cast like 5 of these heads and see if I can blackmail/bribe Darkmothflame into doing 5 totally different faceups for me ---- and some of these guys may have jointed beetle wings on their backs, and some may not ---- opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

hey Verbana!!! I'm trying to figure out how to cast combination musicwire/resin legs - i think those will be cool - I just finished a partly jointed beetle boy and I think if I could make the legs out of resin and wire, they could be jointed too ---

I'm so jealous of you! have you taken any classes from the stop motion department? I just bought 2 books on making the joints for stop motion - and am trying to figure out if I can resin cast some of the bits instead of having to learn metal milling too...

 

Darkmothflame did a merman faceup on one of the resin casts for me - so i'm in the process of making him a jointed body....

a slight dyslexic moment with the first body - it moves great - but the pieces are upside down - they wouldn't work right for him in the water



so i'm going to have to try again - but this one moves pretty neat - wish i had a belt sander to quickly smooth it down and finish it off nice....



ah well - think i'll go work on the arms before I attack the body again....

 

hey Batchix, I need to go thru your threads again --- are you using the resins from Smooth-on? I know a lot of folk use the aluminite (???) stuff - and love how it looks. I wonder how costs compare. You are right - I think I'll buy a gallon. I just need to go sell some things and get some money. I wonder if the mold material and the resins age once you open the containers - and if you have to use them up in a limited amount of time.

I love how the joints are so much stronger than the polymer clay ----

 

hey Hitotsu -
I've got a few pics that show the way I did it - i'm sure there are better ways - maybe Batchix and Kaye and some of the other much more knowlegeable folk can post links to where they've shown how they did it?


after you pour the mold stuff around your sculpt - and it sets up - (8 hours later or so) - flip the cup over, and pull off the non-sulfur (polymer clay) that you made the circle out of, and used to seal off the headcap opening of your head sculpt. pry out the marbles (they are making the "keys" that you will use to line up your second mold with) - and this is sort of what it looks like :



go ahead and make the cut up the back of the mold and take your head sculpt out.

now close up the outside of the eyeholes of your sculpt with more polymer clay, and any other openings that you don't want mold going into - like the hole in the neck opening, and slip the head back in your original mold.


then dust the outside of the mold with baby powder and slip the whole thing back into one of the plastic drink glasses. I then built up the top edge around the outside of the drinking glass so that when I pour the second mold (of the inside of the head) - it can also make a layer about 1/2" thick up on top of the first mold. spray the inside of the sculpt well with mold release, and spray around the top of the first mold well too - the mold release should keep the second batch of mold stuff from sticking to the first mold.

I was running short on mold stuff - so I kind of filled in some of the space with more polymer clay so I wouldn't need as much mold foam. then I poured the second mold, filling in the inside of the head and the space along the top of the first mold.




after it sets up - remove your mold from the plastic cup, remove your polymer clay barriers, and then gently pry the 2 molds apart. at first i kind of panicked because mine stuck together in a few places - but eventually it came apart - and now you have the first mold, with the head still in it, and a 2nd mold that is the shape of the hollow inside the head. The perfectly round holes and bumps are the keys that let you set the inside mold back in to the first mold in exactly the right position for everything to line up right.



here the second mold is sitting upside down on the right beside the first mold.

see the 2 funny bumps that look like eyes on the "seal head" ? those are actually the hollows inside your sculpt where you put your glass eyes. You kind of have to think backwards here....


if you are much better than I am - they line up perfectly with the outside eye openings and you get nice open eyes on your resin cast. In my case, I had to do some nice sanding to get them clean.




here I've taken the original sculpt out (on the right) and put the 2nd mold back into place on top of the 1st mold in preparation for pouring the first resin head cast.

I made a slight miscalculation - and forgot to leave an opening to pour the resin in - I had planned on making a "sprue" a little round log of polymer clay that would extend up thru the mold from the edge of the headcap opening ---- but since I forgot, I just drilled a hole in the mold where the edge of the headcap opening was, and poured the resin into that. ended up with lots of air holes in the head cap edges - got to think more about how to do that.....


hope this wasn't too confusing - it makes sense when you are actually doing it.....

 

hey guys,
thanks for kind words - if I were patient - I would be making beautiful refined heads like Nita and Kaye and Diep and Donn and Ashbet and Batchix and more - I just like playing around and making things move.

anyway - I don't know quite how to do the molds for the legs and arms yet. on these tinies, I may just drill them - on larger ones, you could definitely make the 2 part (inner and outer molds) --- I'm going to go poke thru the threads and see if I can see where other folk talk about how they do it.

meanwhile - merman is looking better :

 

hi Ann,


I like the free hands too - I like the way it asks you to interact with the image, to imagine the relationship to the body -

and I love the idea of totally disconnected hands that still act as a part of the whole - kind of makes me think about colony organisms and mitochondria and nifty mindcontrol robots....

thank you for looking at him - he has been fun. now i just have to order supplies for making all those body molds.....

or go pour another head and start on something new! (I've never been really good at follow up - its always way more fun to keep trying new stuff.....)

 

thanks again for kind words - I was thinking of crawdaddies - so lobsters is good! I think he is definitely a freshwater, smaller cousin though ---- my grampa from the ozarks taught us to watch for mudpuppies and crawdaddies - maybe i need to make a mudpuppy version too... it would be cool to make all the tiny little pincer feet for the crawdaddy guy...
I want to sand down and refine the side growths- and see how sturdy they are in resin ---- wouldn't it be cool to have the whole lower edge of each segment of the tail to be kind of frilled with tendrils and finny kinds of things?

just for fun i'm making a female upper torso so the grouchy angel can be a merlady too --- if it works, maybe i'll go ahead and do the molds and cast the bodies to have multiples....

you know, its funny - each of these guys is very much their own person - but they don't tell me their names.... I really envy you guys who have names for all of your folk - maybe thats why so many of mine are grouchy!

oh well - back to the grouchy lady - kind of lucky the car wouldn't start yesterday and i'm stuck at home - baking bread and mermaid parts

(in seperate ovens, really!)

 

for grins, built a merlady torso and tried the tail with the grouchy angel...

she turned out looking remarkably..... urm - seductive? lolita-ish?
must be the whole mermaid mythos or something....







kind of fun to make interchangeable heads and bodies.....