Dragon for silicone puppet

[animator]

This is a dragon sculpture taking inspiration from many sources, including Smaug. This will be puppet for my son assuming I can get a mold done.

The arms/wings and ears are different sculptures (for molding). The hollowed out areas will have foam horns (also separate sculptures).

The sculpture is around 21 inches long and made from Chavant hard clay since I heard it is easier to release from EpoxAcast than Monster Clay.

 

[camerafx24]

If you use silver spray on a finished sculpture any clay will almost fall out of an epoxy mold. great sculpture dude.

 

[animator]

If you use silver spray on a finished sculpture any clay will almost fall out of an epoxy mold. great sculpture dude.

I appreciate the tip! I will try that when molding the wings. I'm still digging Chavant out of this mold... that stuff is so sticky!

Hoping to pour a test skin tomorrow in Ecoflex 00-30.

 

[Psab keel]

Get some moisturizer bro!

Seriously though that sculpture is incredible. Whether it stays just a sculpture or becomes a puppet I'm astounded by your ability. That's crazy impressive.

 

[animator]

Getting more parts ready to mold.

Lower teeth and mouth. I plan to cast these with FlexFoam-iT.

Horns for around the jaw. These will also be FlexFoam-iT.

Here is the dragons back I forgot to post earlier

 

[publiusr]

Such a labor of love. My mom did a jaws puppet for me for school—cloth….gone now…Do the Godzilla puppet from the 50’s. It and Shin Gojira were walking hellmouths

 

[revenant]

The detail on this is just superb and must have been an exercise in patience and concentration. I'll look forward to seeing your next update.

 

[animator]

Just got a 3D printer, so I'm working on designing an eye blink mechanism. Also testing/practicing with different filaments. This is TPU and PLA. The TPU was sort of stringy (We don't know what we are doing, yet) Planning to use carbon fiber/nylon for the final version.

Here are the upper and lower foam jaws partially painted. These are a terrible pain to paint.

This is the first silicone test pull from the mold. The colors are all wrong, didn't do any patching and I still have a lot to clean out of the mold, so not all the detail worked. This has some unpainted lower teeth in and few early castings of some of the foam horns. Making progress, but a long way to go. trying to get this ready for my son to take to Dragon Con.

 

[askernas]

Wow... just ... wow. Amazing sculpt!

 

[animator]

Painted skin

Now I'm on to sculpting the remaining horns, tongue and eyes, finishing the interior rig then lights and smoke electronics. I'm really slow at this.

 

[publiusr]

So cool!

 

[askernas]

Looks amazing.
Did you paint it with tinted silicone?

 

[animator]

Thanks!

With the mold open I tinted Dragon Skin 10 and Ecoflex 00-50 and did different passes painting in the scales to define the design and color changes. Then I closed the mold and cast the main part in Ecoflex 00-30 tinted a pink/fleshy color. That way the scales are a little more rigid than the underlying skin and you get a nice basic color depth. From there I painted/airbrushed Psycho Paint tinted with Silc-Pig and thinned with Naptha or Novocs. Some of the paint layers have Pearl Ex colors mixed in for a little added depth and pop.

I very closely followed the Stan Winston silicone painting videos of Jamie Grove, except I only tinted with Silc-Pig and used Psycho-Paint for better adhesion. I used Psycho-Paint to patch as well. I'm really impressed with Psycho-Paint.

 

[Oddmar]

Thanks!

With the mold open I tinted Dragon Skin 10 and Ecoflex 00-50 and did different passes painting in the scales to define the design and color changes. Then I closed the mold and cast the main part in Ecoflex 00-30 tinted a pink/fleshy color. That way the scales are a little more rigid than the underlying skin and you get a nice basic color depth. From there I painted/airbrushed Psycho Paint tinted with Silc-Pig and thinned with Naptha or Novocs. Some of the paint layers have Pearl Ex colors mixed in for a little added depth and pop.

I very closely followed the Stan Winston silicone painting videos of Jamie Grove, except I only tinted with Silc-Pig and used Psycho-Paint for better adhesion. I used Psycho-Paint to patch as well. I'm really impressed with Psycho-Paint.

GourmetPaperMache dragonhttps://youtu.be/3F6q2v8nd3A

Will Cogley on youtube for animatronic eye mechanisms

 

[animator]

GourmetPaperMache dragonhttps://youtu.be/3F6q2v8nd3A

Will Cogley on youtube for animatronic eye mechanisms

Thanks, those are really good links!

Small update.
Blink Lid inserts with eyes.

Head with rough foam cast horn casts. Now I need to cast and paint the final horns.

 

[animator]

I never posted a final put together version. Here he is trying to escape his cage.

 

[publiusr]

Oh—he looks evil

 

[ReplicaZero]

Horns for around the jaw. These will also be FlexFoam-iT.

This is so cool, what made you think to use FLexFoam here? I have done only a couple molds so far and its always been silicone>resin pipeline. I would love to know your thought process to mixing material types.

Edit: I got so caught up in my line of thinking I forgot to first and foremost congrats on the absolute AMAZING sculpt. What an incredible job, your attention to detail and anatomy shows and came shining through the final result.

 

[animator]

This is so cool, what made you think to use FLexFoam here? I have done only a couple molds so far and its always been silicone>resin pipeline. I would love to know your thought process to mixing material types.

Hi, I love to mix materials for both molds and final casts. I also love to experiment with materials. I'm just a hobbyist, so it is exciting to explore different skills.

This was for a puppet, so I was trying to keep it sort of light weight, durable, safe (not anything hard or sharp) and natural skin like movement.

The main dragon body is layered silicone (Dragon skin10, EcoFlex 00-50, backed with EcoFlex 00-30) cast from an Epoxy/fiberglass mold with a resin core.

The ears are EcoFlex 00-50 silicone cast from a Urethane rubber (Compat 45) mold.

The eyelids are EcoFlex 00-20 silicone cast from a Urethane rubber (Compat 45) mold.

The tongue is EcoFlex 00-30 silicone cast from a Urethane rubber (Compat 45) mold.

The horns and teeth are Flexible Urethane (FlexFoam-iT 15) cast from silicone molds (Some Dragon Skin 10 and 20, some Rebound 25)

The eyes are hollow TASK 15 resin rotocast in a silicone (Dragon Skin 10) mold.

The under skull and jaw are carbon fiber pulled from a silicone (Dragon Skin 10) mold.

The puppet box/cage is EVA foam.

Tons of the fun in a project is figuring out what materials and processes might give the best result. I usually end up discovering my choices were wrong but learning along the way.