Looking For Step By Step Guide For Sculpting Please

loanreaper

New Member
Hi All

I checked the pins topics and had a quick search but may of missed it so sorry if i did.

Im looking for a guide for sculpting, i have never done it before but i would like to create a mask for the costume i am making.

Any links to threads or ideas on where to look would be really grateful.

Thanks in advance.
 
best thing for sculpting is to get some good tools and develop a tactile sense of what they are capable of. Then learn how to rake, because that is how to refine rough forms, 9 times out of 10. Basically, you have three stages of sculpting: rough in, refine, detail.

Everything is more or less specific to the sculpt you want to to do. Email me. I have actually written a whole chapter on this for my book.
 
Wicked, i have been gathering print outs of pictures for my prep work so i know what head i would like to go with my costume, i also was going to purchase a polystyrene head but wondering the best way to get it so its the size of my head, as at the end of it i want to wear it see.

What would you say the best clay to use would be ?

And as this will prob take me a while to do the best way to keep the clay moist and not dry out as im making it?

Thanks for your help
 
if you mean a styrofoam wig head, then bad idea. If you are casting it in latex, it will shrink at least 10-15%. I suggest building a true mask form, like Don Post uses. These start with a lifecast of your head, and then you raise the neck up about 1cm or so, and then you add about a 3/16 layer of soft oil clay over the whole thing. Then you make a silicone jacket mold of it. Then you cast a solid resin head from that, or an ultracal and burlap hollow head from it. Stand that up on the work table and sculpt. Since you doing the head, not the body, use Chavant NSP medium. You will get far better detail, and it will never dry out.

I hope that helps.
 
To save spending a fortune on casting your own head, ( which is totally irrelevant for a pred sculpt anyway ) just buy one of these.

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item20bc40196d

I have 3 of them, and have used them for all my sculpts, a pred head is WAY WAY bigger than a human head so there will be no touble with size.

as for clay use Chavant SOFT, i used medium for years and although it is excellent, due to our UK temps being cold, the Soft variant of chavant is easier to work with and will hold any fine details you throw at it easily.

If you decide to go with the medium, shout me i will be selling all off my Medium chavant on next week, i have in excess of 40lbs of it. and i will be selling it cheaper than the UK shops.
 
mannequin heads are OK for masks. I generally dislike them for something like this because of the weight. I would suggest drilling a hole in the bottom and filling with a dense polyfoam, and then securing it well to a board, a wide one.
 
mannequin heads are OK for masks. I generally dislike them for something like this because of the weight. I would suggest drilling a hole in the bottom and filling with a dense polyfoam, and then securing it well to a board, a wide one.


They are already filled with foam, and i have had no trouble with them needing to be secured to anything. and ive made 8 pred heads using them.
 
Right ok,

So one of those heads and just add the clay direct onto the mannequin head. With the soft clay once i start it should i be covering the head with anything to keep the clay moist or does it not really matter?

Do you have a picture of all of the size heads you have made?, i know i will need to create a new helmet which isn't hard, as the first one i had i paid for so its a replica one and then i made one doing pepakura which i made a little big lol.

Thanks for your help i can now start to finish my suit off now, only need the mask and skin sorted - hoping to have it all done for February for the comic con tel ford.
 
Those are MAD, really good work there, working on the mannequin how did you manage to guarantee that it would fit over your head or is the size of the mannequin about right size. And while working on it did you need to cover our work with anything or is the clay just that good it lasts for ages.
 
The mask when you make it is hollow unless you foam fill, so is plenty big enough for a human head, you can either foam fill it or use some foam sheets to make it fit your head.

i use oil based clay which does not dry and need to be coverd like water based clay.
 
There arent any hardware stores in Puerto Rico?
What yu can get on the cheap are a couple of cans of expanding foam, used to fill cracks in walls foundations etc. A large size aresol looking can with a straw attached to the top. Try to find some of that.

When you are filling with this stuff, do it in stages. Simply emptying the entire contents of the can in a hollow object usually results in huge air pockets and defeats the purpose of filling the item solid.

Maybe someone else has some tips with the canned foam stuff?
 
I use the canned expandable foam that is used to seal cracks on plumbing work. I use it to foam fill my shin, foot, neck, and forearm armatures. Like Meangene mentioned, you want to do it in layers and let the layers harden first before you spray more on.

For example. In my first shin armature, I sprayed the entire can in. The top of the foam hardened, but the underlying foam stayed gooey. Basically, my shin armature was about 19" high. When I sprayed it in, it came up to about 9". The top 2-3" hardened but the bottom 6-7" stayed gooey. What I ended up doing was cutting slits in the duct tape dummy to allow air in to let the foam harden.

Only spraying in a bit at a time and let it harden, then keep repeating it should work out pretty good.

There might be some other methods out there or different products, but this is what works for me.

Good Luck.
 
There arent any hardware stores in Puerto Rico?
What yu can get on the cheap are a couple of cans of expanding foam, used to fill cracks in walls foundations etc. A large size aresol looking can with a straw attached to the top. Try to find some of that.

When you are filling with this stuff, do it in stages. Simply emptying the entire contents of the can in a hollow object usually results in huge air pockets and defeats the purpose of filling the item solid.

Maybe someone else has some tips with the canned foam stuff?


oooops!!!! i have one bottle already, LOL, i thought it was other thing, sorry and thanks
 
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