Daffy Mogwai from Gremlins 2

Jesuit24

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RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
I'm taking my first steps into sculpting and mold making for this project. I have experience with fiberglass, bondo, painting and essentially building realistic props from cardboard, so I'm hoping I can work well with this project.

So, a very dear friend loves Gremlins and her favourite is Daffy, the messy crazy eyed mogwai from the second film. I plan to sculpt a life size version, get it molded, cast it, paint it and then fur it. Quite a tall order, but as my first real venture into mold making, I'm hopeful I can make back the costs by offering them for sale, which will hopefully open a new lucrative door to this hobby for me.

Reference material:
3371d1335704477-daffy-mogwai-puppet-2.jpg3372d1335704477-daffy-mogwai-puppet-3.jpg3373d1335704477-daffy-mogwai-puppet-4.png3376d1335704500-daffy-mogwai-puppet-7.png

I want to make the head screw on to give some limited neck posing, and I want to make the eyes poseable too by creating a base mold for the face and then a detailed mask that slots over the eyeballs allowing them to be free moving.

I've started work on the armature. The lighting is pretty bad, but next time I won't take them at night.
Sculpt #1.jpgSculpt #2.jpg
The arms go from fingertip to fingertip. I used aluminum mesh for the ears. The centre wires will act as veins, although I think I'm going to have to remove the wire I threaded through to keep it secure as it's way too thick. Next, I'll cover it in foil and masking tape to pad out for the sculpting clay.
 
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I'm glad to see there's interest. I was unsure a Gremlins props would get any.

I've bulked him out with foil and masking tape, along with finishing the ears. I also thought I'd position him with a better pose that fits the character. I went with this as reference:
$_57.jpg

Sculpt #3.jpg
I used a Coke bottle top for the neck screw on method. I'm hoping the mold and the urethane resin I use will keep the thread sturdy enough to hold up to being screwed and unscrewed. The neck looks long, but I plan on building down into it with clay for the mouth area. Also, his legs are too long, which I'll remedy by bulking his crotch a little lower. I made space for the eyes, seeing as they'll sit too proud of his face if I don't accommodate for them now.

This is about as much as I can do until I find a cheap pasta machine and wait for the glass eyes to arrive.
 
Ok, I lied. Staring at the sculpt and sculpey, I figured, why do I need a pasta machine when a rolling pin will do? And glass eyes? Rolled up balls of blu tak will give me eye templates. So here I am after a couple of days work.
Sculpt #4.jpgSculpt #5.jpg

My first time using super sculpey and first time using clay seriously. I really like how the ears came out, and the colour of the sculpey helps make them feel alive. I'm struggling to smooth everything out and it's getting to the point where when I smooth one section out, I find I've roughed up the other side from where my hands have been, so I'm thinking I'll bake it and give it a sand for final smoothing. One thing I may have shot myself in the foot though regarding baking, I used a plastic coke bottle top in the build. That's going to melt, isn't it, and I have no way of removing it from the sculpt without destroying half the work I put in. Is there a way to protect plastic in the oven? I've heard mixed thoughts on aluminium foil.

So I'd like opinions please. How am I doing? What can I improve upon/tweak? I'm not sure the boobs are needed and if the legs should blend so seamlessly with the body like that. Thoughts?
 
The Sculpy Firm is much easier to work with. That kind is so soft and hard to really control.
 
I bought some sculpey firm online that I'm expecting in the next couple of days, which will sort me out for the hands, feet and a face mask.

I've trimmed down his thighs. I makes him look fatter and presents a much more accurate silhouette for him. It also gave me a little bit more sculpey back seeing as I pretty much used the entire lb on him. I also made his ears bigger by stretching them downward. Since they now extend past the metal mesh I put in place, they're quite floppy. Hopefully they'll survive the oven.
Sculpt #6.jpgSculpt #7.jpg
I guess the question I have now is how do the ears look? I'll probably smooth out the top ear ridges with firm, but I think I'll stop messing with the main section now, unless anyone can offer critique before it hits the oven. I don't have much in the way of reference material for the backs of the ears, so I kinda just winged it. I imagine it to be lumpy/crinkly which is what I went for, but I don't know if it just looks messy more than anything. I guess they're like rabbit ears, but I've never seen the back of a rabbit's ear without fur.
 
I originally intended to sell a finished figure, but I might be persuaded to sell an unfinished kit.

The glass eyes came today, I'll need to paint them. The clay is in the oven right now which is pretty nerve wracking. I'm baking the head first since the base layer is essentially complete. I'll get round to the body once I've sculpted the hands and feet. I'm still concerned about the plastic bottle top melting in the oven, but aside from wrapping it aluminium foil and hoping for the best, I don't think there's much I can do.
 
Sculpt #8.jpgSculpt #9.jpgSculpt #10.jpg
I smoothed out the head and created a flat surface for the face mask to adhere to. I used a combination of bondo and filler primer to remove unwanted bumps, which I'm not sure is regular practice for sculptors, but it's something I'm familiar with. I know I can't do the same with detail pieces like the face or appendages. The eyes look pretty psycho without eyelids, but hey, fits the character. :)

With the eyes being glass, while I love the weight to them, I couldn't drill a hole in the back to mount them to my dremel/drill to paint the pupils and irises lathe-style, so the detail was all tedious freehand. I'm thinking of casting them in white resin, which will give me a few extra options.

Also, I varnished the eyes with humbrol gloss and it yellowed the whites of the eyes pretty badly, and adding clear epoxy resin seemed to create an uneven finish. All a learning curve I suppose. With epoxy, I shouldn't even need to gloss varnish the eyes and I guess I could have gone with a thinner pour of epoxy.

I took down his boobs a bit more. I think they looked better before detail and proportion-wise, but given they're covered in fur, I think they needed reduced to be more accurate to the puppets. I'm not even sure they have boobs.

I'm waiting on doing the face mask before I bake the body as I'm not sure how proud the face will sit from the torso, which may require me to go back and bulk out his belly and chest.
 
Sculpt #11.jpgSculpt #12.jpgSculpt #13.jpg
I went ahead and sculpted the mask. Took some doing, but I'm happy with what I have. It's tough to make a recognisable face, but I kept going back to my reference material, blew images up to full size and scaled everything out. I went with a half closed eye to further that zany look and I prebaked some teeth for the top and bottom gums. He kind looks like Yoda at this stage. The next step is to carefully cut the clay off the base head without warped or smudging anything and baking it. I'm also working on the feet. After originally making a bigger foot, I think what I have now is close to the correct size. The added fur conceals so much and makes everything look smaller, it's difficult to figure out just how much the fur will cover and how big or small I should pack out the clay to accommodate it.
 
Hands were the next stage. I used these pictures as reference material:
5407531f13c4a3e7ad66b53567cb48b8_image_412x550.jpgDAF1_01.jpg

Any mogwai hands and feet would have been invaluable but these also happened to be Daffy's appendages. So sculpting, this is what I've come up with.
Sculpt #14.jpgSculpt #15.jpgSculpt #16.jpgSculpt #17.jpg
They'll need some cleaning up, but I'll do that after the baking stage seeing as I'm once again getting to the point of trading imperfections when I handle it. I cut the hands off after sculpting to bake them separately. The hands look ridiculously oversized when the head isn't screwed on, but it seems to balance out with that massive noggin.

As for the other foot, for simplicities sake, I intend to cast the one I have, make minor alterations to the sole of the foot and then cast that up as the other foot.
 
Fur #2.jpg

A preview of the prototype. The fur needs neatened up and the black bits painted. The painting will be touched up too once I buy more. The legs seem a little long with the feet attached so I think I'll cut the legs down a bit.
 
Final #1.jpgFinal #2.jpg

Finished. This is the second prototype with better eyes and magnet articulation. He stands, although it's untested for how long; he may benefit from having his feet permanently secured and possibly have a base although he seems to stand fine on his own two feet for the moment. I had to secure the eyes; while they were fine for the glass-eyed prototype, the resin casts of these glass eyes seem to be a bit loose, and rather than have googly eyes, I glued them in the arranged crazed look. So as far as articulation goes, the hands and feet and attach via neodymium magnets giving the option for 360 degree rotation (again, the feet may benefit from being epoxied in place) and the head can turn thanks to a casting of a coke bottle top, meaning the head can be completely screwed off (and hands/feet amputated if you're feeling particularly gruesome). As a finishing touch, I used Fudge hair shaper to pat down the fur, so now he smells like caramelly coconut.

Aaaand I can't start a run as a 'new' non-premium member. That sucks.
 
This guy came out amazing! My mom loves gremlins and I myse am planing on doing a gizmo sculpt but mines will be a resin statue so I'll have to sculpt all the fur.image.jpg
 
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