second go at a doll - critique welcome please!

thanks aneemal and japanda

 

thanks Joankagami, I am thinking about ordering silicon now, very exciting!
thanks Aliciiea!

 

thanks armelia for such generous comments it has been a long journey, but all the help here has been wonderful and inspiring to see others work and ideas...

 

very excited yesterday - made my first plaster mould and cast a wax replica from it! Now I just have to work out how to make wax smooth!!!, I ran out of plaster pretty quickly - was only able to cast the body so also will have to get a lot more plaster. and I have ordered my silicon and resin I got smaller amounts of different types of silicon to try different ones out. I will continue to sand the sculpy pieces also but wanted to try and learn moulding a bit before I used the silicon and resin in a cheaper less permanent medium

 

Thanks KW I cast her in wax first because Martha did! but also because I wanted to learn a little bit about moulding, and perhaps do some modifications to her in wax and also because I thought it would be easier to get smooth. But its not - lol there is no shortcut to the sanding! I thought plaster would be less stressful than silicon, but found it is not as the risk of damage to my master when I did wrong things was high. I damaged my master a bit several times trying to get it out of a lump of plaster that was like a solid ball. The fear!

I will take some pics of the wax castings this weekend. My torso was good, the head was a bit fail because a lump of plaster on the side of the nose stuck to the first wax cast and plaster stuck all over the head. The torso and headcaps were epic fail. This time I let the plaster moulds dry for a week, then failed to moisten them before casting. Consequently the wax cast stuck firmly into the mould and I had to throw the lot away. Sigh. I am casting them in the only wax I could find that seemed to fit the bill - I think it is the same wax you are using - victory brown microcrystalline. I added a bit of paraffin to it because I read that Martha had paraffin.

Its all an experiment! I wouldnt mind also trying porcelain casting later but I have no access to a teacher, kiln or anything so that is unlikely and I will probasbly stick to wax and resin for the moment. I am lucky enough to live close to Twigling who is a fantastic sculptor and who helps with advice

 

Just popping in to say I tried my first silicon mould today - twice lol. Forgot the release agent on the first one, and the second one is curing the second part as we type. fingers crossed. I did the head first, as Kaye Wiggs has a nice easy to follow tutorial on making a head mould on her forum "Resin Cafe". The experiements with plaster moulding did help to give me confidence. Sorry didnt take pics but will take some for future mouldmaking. Just wanted to try one first.

Silicon doesnt go very far!!!! one uses a lot for one mould, I have found.

KW, thanks so much for your encouragement and interest - I hope you post lots of pics on your progress on your blog and here so I can learn from your experiences. I actually have Martha's book, its very good but not so detailed. I have beeswax and parrafin so will try to approximate her recipie when I get back to wax casting, but thanks for replicating it here. I think I will have to get that book you mention when I can bring myself to try plaster moulding again after my first learning round wounds have healed!

 

thanks twigling Weeeeelll <drum roll> the first one was just all fused together, so I did another one - so have plently of junk silicon to bulk up other moulds Here are the results... lots of air bubbles along the headcap, and I am not sure what do do with the ears - will need some help from you I think - the ears had big bubble holes, even though I diligently put the vents on them like Kaye shows. I also obviously had a couple of little lumps of klean clay on my master that I didnt wipe off well, so had a couple of those sort of showing on her forehead. Also the pouring sprue was way too chunky I think and hard to get off. Also I put a tad too much flesh colour into the resin so she looks a bit sunburnt lol.

Otherwise it went well! (the second time!) But I see a lot of flaws I want to fix - ears, nose, inside head smoothing, and not happy with the lips as they got a bit featureless with all the sanding, so want to build them up again to look more natural. But she looks ok Its really exciting to see what she looks like in person - its a bit hard to tell with grey primer. I cant wait to fix the flaws I see and cast a proper one and the rest of her. But it takes so long! This took all weekend !

Here she is with all the resin bits attached





and with eyes wig and some light colour

 

He thanks guys - I am making moulds today (took day off work! couldnt wait till weekend to see her whole!)

 

thankyou. end of day results:-
mould boxes done - 2 (arms)
torso sanded - 1
master head modified - 1 - lips, face symmetry, mouldmaking scars.
master head eye destroyed? 1!!!!!
spent most of the afternoon trying to recreate her eyes when one crumbled as I was trying to clean out the inside of her head. wah. Thank *goodness* I made a mould before cleaning out her head!!!!! I decided to try and fix with apoxie since sculpy is so fragile. Its very difficult, and my apoxie went hard before I was able to get the eye looking reasonable. I think I will have to carve it. So she looks a bit differentt ah the joy.

 

thanks KW - its the weekend yay so I can get some time on her and finish moulds (hopefully).

 

Most parts except feet, hands and headcap are first part moulded. I ran out of pinkysil silicon, so used 2 other types - banana skin and another that takes 48 hours till demould. I must say, I much preferred the pinkysil to the banana skin silicon - much much easier for me to work with and faster to cure. Banana skin was a bit gloopy and sticky and bubbled much worse than the pinkysil.

So I made a temporary glove part of the head and torso with the banana skin and cast in easycast, very fast setting resin so lots of bubbles. This time I tried tapping the mould on the second cast which worked better, so when I cast in smooth on I will try that trick.

I had to rework the face because one eye crumbled <curses sculpy) and while trying to fix it, when I did the mirror thing to look for evenness, I gasped and reeled back in horror! My lovely face was completly wonky! So I reworked the face quite a lot.

The new face is a bit more even. The torso is nice but bubbles are a problem in the shoulders. I think I will try the traditional lying down mould vs the cup mould next time. Anyhoo. at this rate, I should have all pieces junk cast by... oh... 2012.

She has freckles because I think I didnt mix the colour well enough



With wig


with a little bit of faceup. I made her a redhead because of the freckles!


Her head is stuck on with a bit of sculpy because my respirator hasnt arrived yet and I dont want to drill the stringing holes in the resin without proper respirator




I am learning a lot. I would like to make the final moulds drill free with straws, but I think you need to do the traditional mould method to achieve that.

thanks for looking and as always, honest critique is very welcome and helpful. It is easy not to see the flaws anymore when you have sanded each part for the billionth time!

Looking at the pictures, I am going to work her upper lip a little...I seem to have lost it in translation.

 

Thanks Maggs and KW

 

I am not sure Jphobia. I realised I had put 2 drops of pigment in 60 mm instead of 100 mm of resin, so I quickly mixed up a bit more resin and added it to the first lot. This stuff is hobby stuff and fast curing, so either the pigment wasnt mixed or something happened as I added the second lot of resin, a bit of curing perhaps.

In any event, after seeing v3 of the face in resin, I want to rework her ears and lips....

 

Am struggling through the moulding and casting. Moulding is much harder than I envisaged. The most successful moulds have been using twiglings method of casting upright and cutting the mould - I did this for the torso and head and it is much easier. I have made many mistakes. My new reins (smooth on 305) is much less bubble prone than the other one I was using.
1) not using gravity. I made flat moulds (like a book) and put the pouring and venting in the top broad surface (the title page in a book) instead of at the top. So I got large vacant spaces where the resin did not fill, so I had to hold the mold upright and awkwardly fill at an angle to fix that. This is my second lot of silicon moulds, and so far I dont really have one yet that is reasonable to cast from.
2) I am trying the no drill method by putting a straw in that is made as part of the mould. This works well when you seal the ends of the straw, so resin cant get in. I got one leg which has a hole through it. The other has a straw filled with resin. Having just drilled out the torso, I am a great fan of not having to do that. very dusty and nasty drilling the resin (although I use a respirator) I tried this for the torso / hips, but I think I will have to cast a two part mould for that, it didnt work at all.
3) dont rush. one always makes mistakes. I tried moulding all the parts, in prep for casting and found I had made a lot of mistakes. So now I am doing one at a time. Now I am just doing a little bit each day. Mould, pour, cast. learn. fix mistakes for next mould pour cast. learn etc. I am not very good at detail, but you need to be as careful and tidy and precise as you can, I have found. In rushing I have a) forgotton pour vents and bubble vents b) mould release c) keys . those are the main things.


I am going to go back to the no seam cut mould method but will have to put in a reminder around where the master is, as last time I damaged the masters cutting the silicon. I have also got a much sharper exacto set of knives to try and make it easier.

I am using pinkysil for silicon, and I like it very much.

Pictures.


I am redoing her face as I am not happy with this one. Here is the new face, based on the first cast I did, with modifications


side view


very bad hand cast and wax feet. I am liking wax to work with. This is a sort of recipie similar to KWmelvins - candle wax, microcrystalline, talc and parrafin. This lot was a bit soft as I used too much candle wax I think, and not enough talc.


the torso/hips are cast from this wax version as rats or possums stole the master! I left it ouside with some clean klay ready to mould and they seem to love the clay, so took the torso as well. luckily I had a plaster version so could make another wax master. They also stole my feet! hence the wax feet.

 

thanks Maggs I am going to research some other peoples casting wips before attempting any more... did you post any casting wip pics? <runs to rummage in husbands toolbag for pliers>

 

that would be great, thanks. I am going to post my casting steps from now on to try and get some help with it. Also thinking about getting some leggo.

 

Thanks armelia, your comments are so encouraging. I must say i am *loving* wax. its much easier to get detail in than sculpy - its firm, but carvable, and you just have to put a hair dryer on it if you want it a bit squooshy.

I have just reread through all your moulding casting posts (so helpful, thankyou for posting so much!) and now am thinking Perhaps I will stay with the cardboard/ purchased mould box/pvc piping approach then. I, too am feeling traumatised by leaking silicon *and* leaking resin. a lot of leaking resin. sigh. Thankyou so much for the tips and tricks, too.

 

oh thanks maggs & crowtree for your kind words and tips! Twigling <guilt> I still have your book, I must come and see you!!! and return it, esp before xmas! I have been so busy and slack. will pm you thankyou so much for the offer

 

Not too much in the way of news on the doll, but after help from twigling, and seeing her moulds, I made a relativley succesfull drill free cast of lower leg. The only minor changes I need to make are better positioned air vents as there was quite a lot of bubbles on the top, otherwise yay! I thought it might be helpful for people if I showed the steps

I used pvc piping cut with small saw to length

and cut down one side in curves to make it easier to match where the piping should meet up - again, with a small hacksaw. this was a lot easier than I thought it would be

I put a straw through the stringing channels

then clayed around the openings for no seepage

then directly onto the surface made a clay sprue and 2 air vents (note I need better air vents arrangement still, there were still too many bubbles

then lowered pvc pipe over the arrangement

then cut straw to length and plugged with clay at both ends

then put plasticine around bottom and on the cut

I am using pinkysil silicon

put part b into part a

stirred

poured - it looked like a yummy pink cake

I dont have a picture of the cutting, but will try to take this next time with the next leg. But I cut the mould down the side, very carefully with a sharp sharp exacto knife and didnt damage the master. I had to cut a little accross the top to extract the master. Next lower leg I will do a layer of clay to make it easier to place the sprue and air vents at the bottom (pouring top) of the mould, and make the point at which they touch the master a bit finer.

 

wulfae I decided to post like this because I have made SO MANY mistakes and maybe this will help others avoid them....

it is summer here! glorious weather - we have been spending a lot of time at the beach.... here is where we went for holiday over christmas - (sorry for OT)


kw - the pvc is great for cutting down on the leaks - it does hold the mould together, especially as I made only one cut, so it grabs the silicon mould. The other thing I think cuts down on the leaks is that you dont have to cut the silicon mould all the way down, so the silicon itself maintains integrity. Also that means way less seams. Your idea is a great one - about a clay space and plaster - that would definitly be less expensive. I noticed I think one of the french artists used that method to reduce silicon use. I will keep it in mind for when I feel more confident - at the moment, I am just trying to get one good mould and part!!! I am redoing everything except the torso, which turned out ok (I used this kind of approach with it.
Slicon is expensive, yes. I probably should have gotten thinner pipe for these small moulds. I tried to reuse silicon from wasted moulds but it ended up creating defects via air getting trapped.

More pics and learnings from today
Here is the leg part I cast from the last mould above. You can see under my thumb a defect where air got trapped from a chunk of old silicon. I think you have to have quite large moulds to reuse it safely.


This time I left a cap gap at the top. This made it easier to place the straw and air vents. As it turned out I didnt need the cap I poured


Here is what it looked like when set


For my second pipe mould I tried a wavy line to key the mould better


But that didnt work so well for getting the master part out and I broke it


I poured a lid but it wasnt neccesary. I also made the pour spout way too small - the resin just wouldnt go in on the first pour, so I had to pour through the hold meant for the middle straw, and then push the straw in through the setting resin to make the stringing channels. I will enlarge the pour hole for the second time around (the 2 parts I made today are still in the moulds)


This was a much better way of keying for the third mould. it made it almost impossible for the mould not to fit back together properly.

 

thanks for your comments KW - your suggestion about a first layer then chunks is brilliant. Of course! that would fix the problem!

I was made of fail when I tried to make 2 part moulds - I had resin pouring out everywhere and it totally traumatized me! I think I didnt do what I did on this one, which was to make a little moat sort of thing to stop resin leaking. Still, the one part mould means it is virtually impossible to leak, especially with the pvc piping. However for torso and bottom I will have to do 2 part to make them hollow and not have to drill.

But update - those moulds made good, drill free parts, especially the last one, where I made those two curved keys. Even the one where I had to stuff the straw into the mould while it was setting the resin made a good part.

By good, I mean good for me But I have bubbles, so many bubbles. I am resigned after doing some research to getting a pressure pot for the final moulds and casts and have started researching the best and lowest cost one. It was for this reason I wanted to try porcelain or the sort of slip that kw is planning to use, and I may still go that way since a compressor and pressure pot is likely to be unrealistic for my current work area (which is a table outside on our patio!) unless we are able to find our dream home by the time I get to that point.

 

Well I went out and bought myself a pressure pot and compressor - I needed to redo my moulds because they were epic fail and resin poured out of them, so I found a really good deal on compressor at super cheap auto (for those in Australia) - $89. And it works a treat - no more bubbles. And not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be. Just pop the mould in the paint pot, connect the compressor and off you go. My paint pot only holds 3.2 bar and then the safety valve pops, but it seems to be enough so far...

So here is an update for my junk cast of bottom. A lot of work still needed, but I have a mould that doesnt leak! and is bubble free. Next step is to drill, grind and refine the two torso pieces so they fit nicely, as well as sand the legs and fit them nicely. Also to create a headcap connector (probably magnets) and cast the headcap and head.

Here she is with her torso , bottom and upper legs cast. The legs have a lot of apoxie to fill bubble holes and have to be sanded back. The knees are still wip.

and to show her body shape from the back


I redid her head quite a lot and am much happier with it

 

thanks Kw and armelieia for your kind words. I do update every time I finish something, but I am terribly slow!!! My 15 year old stepdaughter is coming to live with us in a week, so I fear progress may become even more treacle like.....