It's been a long time since I posted any projects here, so I figured I was about due.
I'll say right off that this was not about 100% accuracy. I gave myself a fixed timeline for the project as an exercise, and got it as accurate as I could in that time.
With the disclaimer out of the way...
I wanted to make a Death Eater costume to wear to the final Harry Potter movie. This seemed like a great time to play around with a face cast as well.
This is the mask I decided to go with:
I had a friend come over to do the cast. Neither of us had done it before, so things didn't go fantastically. We learned the value of not putting straws in the person's nose. One of them got driven up into my nose, resulting in a LOT of bleeding. Ah well, suffer for my art! We also used about 3x as much alginate as was needed...
Despite all that, the cast came out serviceable:
I cleaned up the defects then started packing on clay. I was using Chavant Le Beau Touche HM for the sculpt.
For the "teeth" I made a stamp so that they would all be uniform. Just a piece of 1/8" thick styrene cut to shape and pressed in. They'll be cut out of the final mask, so they only need to give me the appropriate guides.
More lines carved in:
The colder the clay is, the firmer. So, I stored it in the freezer when not actively working on it.
Fast forward through several nights of carving lines and smoothing clay.
I didn't take pictures of me brushing silicone onto it. That's not very interesting.
I used leftover plaster bandages from the head cast to make the support shell, and built in little bumps so that it would stay level on the table when I was casting it.
The mold captured the details of the carvings well:
First casting:
I painted up 2 of them. One was a quick prototype that I painted with a matte silver paint and did a bit of black acrylic detailing on. This was just to make sure that I'd like the look.
The second was finished with rub & buff and a more detailed paint job with a copper color around the eyes and some weathering.
I still have to cut out the teeth so that I can breathe and talk.
I've got the outer robe and wand done too, but don't really have any pics yet.
I'll say right off that this was not about 100% accuracy. I gave myself a fixed timeline for the project as an exercise, and got it as accurate as I could in that time.
With the disclaimer out of the way...
I wanted to make a Death Eater costume to wear to the final Harry Potter movie. This seemed like a great time to play around with a face cast as well.
This is the mask I decided to go with:
I had a friend come over to do the cast. Neither of us had done it before, so things didn't go fantastically. We learned the value of not putting straws in the person's nose. One of them got driven up into my nose, resulting in a LOT of bleeding. Ah well, suffer for my art! We also used about 3x as much alginate as was needed...
Despite all that, the cast came out serviceable:
I cleaned up the defects then started packing on clay. I was using Chavant Le Beau Touche HM for the sculpt.
For the "teeth" I made a stamp so that they would all be uniform. Just a piece of 1/8" thick styrene cut to shape and pressed in. They'll be cut out of the final mask, so they only need to give me the appropriate guides.
More lines carved in:
The colder the clay is, the firmer. So, I stored it in the freezer when not actively working on it.
Fast forward through several nights of carving lines and smoothing clay.
I didn't take pictures of me brushing silicone onto it. That's not very interesting.
I used leftover plaster bandages from the head cast to make the support shell, and built in little bumps so that it would stay level on the table when I was casting it.
The mold captured the details of the carvings well:
First casting:
I painted up 2 of them. One was a quick prototype that I painted with a matte silver paint and did a bit of black acrylic detailing on. This was just to make sure that I'd like the look.
The second was finished with rub & buff and a more detailed paint job with a copper color around the eyes and some weathering.
I still have to cut out the teeth so that I can breathe and talk.
I've got the outer robe and wand done too, but don't really have any pics yet.
