jclinton
Well-Known Member
Hey everyone. I thought I would share what I did for other people as inexperienced as myself. I got a mannequin for my Indy costume for display in my theater room (aka man cave). You see how it initially looked (pic attached) and I just couldn't have that. I am not yet a good painter and can't sculpt to save my life (yet). So this is what I did and used in the order of events (roughly):
Please keep in mind that I am not a very good painter or sculptor, so the greater your skill the much better looking this could be. I went through a lot of trial and error so I thought this may be helpful for someone thinking on trying this. There are probably better/easier ways of doing this.....but I don't know what they are. lol
- Cut the face off the mannequin
- Fit the life cast to the remaining head to see what else I needed to trim off the mannequin
- Trimmed parts of the life cast off for a better fit and the mannequin
- Cut out the eyes of the life cast
- Used apoxie sculpt to hold the acrylic eyes in place (It cures and hardens like rock within 24 hrs)
- Placed a block of home depot foam in the empty mannequin head part for support
- Taped the life cast in place so it was secure
- Sprayed canned spray foam (It's called great stuff) in the empty cavity between the back of the head and cast. You don't want to spray too much as this expands quite a bit and would end up pushing it away. Also the block of foam I used earlier will stop the spray foam from falling down into the chest of the mannequin.
- The next day I took the tape off, trimmed off any excess foam with a razor blade then sanded smooth. Now the cast is secured to the mannequin.
- I used apoxie sculpt to make the back of the head, hair, part of the chest and neck. There is a lot of sculpt work here, well for the inexperienced (me) it feels like a lot. This was a couple day process as I would go back after it was cured and then make corrections.
- Then I just sanded any rough spots and added more apoxie on anything I screwed up.
- Finally I taped the eyes, primed the head, hands and chest, air brushed the face, hands, neck, chest, then hand painted the hair (All with acrylic paints)
Please keep in mind that I am not a very good painter or sculptor, so the greater your skill the much better looking this could be. I went through a lot of trial and error so I thought this may be helpful for someone thinking on trying this. There are probably better/easier ways of doing this.....but I don't know what they are. lol
