Re: Immortan Joe Progress Log - 3d Modelling and various other bits.
ahoudini: I use my own FTP server to host the files I offer for download, but you can always throw them somewhere like megaupload, dropbox, jumpshare, or any of the other free alternatives and just link to it on the forums.
Morgenes - Damn good find! I just bought one of those. I still intend on modelling one up for Shapeways, but I appreciate you sharing it with the rest of the class.
Okay, on my own progress, two things. The first is that I garbage-picked a neat thing from down the upholstery shop down the road:
Fabric swatches... fabric swatches for miles.
(In this analogy I am Buzz and my girlfriend is Woody contemplating where the hell I am going to keep this in our tiny house)
I flipped through these quickly and I'm confident I can scavenge pretty much any texture, color, or fabric I need to get my badge ribbons done, so I expect I'll bust out the sewing machine soon and have a go of it.
On the other hand, my mask had some extra scary work done. I used a scrollsaw to cut an MDF divider for the mask and bolted it together so I could start making the hard mother mold out of Smooth-On's Plasti-Paste. I then rubbed the whole rubber mask down with Sonite wax and sprayed it with Ease Release 200 so I could remove the subsequent layers easily.
And then it was time to start heaping that stuff on! Plasti-Paste has a consistency, texture, and stickiness all comparable to applesauce while it's freshly mixed. Kinda gross. Extremely annoying to work with but also gets the job done pretty effectively.
It sets very quickly, and you can apply coats over it while it's still tacky. I spent about an hour and a half getting it all over my clothes, my work surface, and occasionally even the piece I was working on! When it came time to do the final coat, my girlfriend had the bright idea of tamping everything down with paper towels and letting them be the outer surface, because this stuff tends to dry somewhat spiky and hard to handle otherwise.
Then I broke it apart, peeled the rubber off, removed the master, and bolted everything back together!
All things considered, this is probably way overdone for the size of the mask that I'm casting, but this is the first time I've made a mold in this fashion, so I was trying to be a bit overcautious. I immediately threw caution to the wind, though, and started trying to slush cast Smooth-On's 65D, pictured here:
Messy, but I think it's doing the job nicely. I'm going to let it cure for a bit and peel it out and see what I have to work with as far as how the mold went!