New to forum, Arnold project

Desponds

Well-Known Member
Hi there everyone. I Florian and I am new to this board. Well, I have been lurking around a long time already and was to timid to show myself... chicken me :rolleyes

I have joined since in my country (Switzerland, so don’t blame me for my English), there seems to be absolutely no one who does prop building or sculpting in any way near the quality you people do. The things I have seen here are so amazingly realistic and beautiful that I am just stunned again and again. I have mainly been drawing all my life, and a few years ago stumbled across a website called thesculptorscorner.com. The site, however, seems to be dead. At the same time, I have bought a Terminator Statue similar to the ones they had in the Planet Hollywood restaurants, from a guy called Schwerthelm Ziehfreund from Germany. I studied the statue for hours, trying to find out how it was built, and from then on was hooked. I bought the Stan Winston book and clay, silicone and whatever else was needed.

As many of you guys, I have always been a huge admirer of Arnold. I grew up watching his movies, and following his career in books and magazines has always been a great inspiration.

After having met Arnold in Geneva, Switzerland on the 8th of march last year (he hold a speech there for his R20 company) and getting finally his autograph, I have started with a silicone project (my first one…). I was amazed to see this guy once for real and to stand there in front of him and see him so near and all that. This guy has a tremendous aura, and I couldn’t hardly speak at first… So I wanted to build a bust of him the same way he was sitting there before he gave his speech (that why his head is slightly bent on the pictures). I started out with an utterly crappy recast my brother got me for my birthday years ago. The original of it once might have been a 3d scan of Arnold for T3, but the skin details were all gone, it was kind of warped and with parts crumbling away. So I built my first silicone mould and took a clay cast I started to play around with. I resculpted it where I saw the need for it, and I really started to love sculpting. At the moment I try to learn as much about skin detailing as possible, using everything from a dog brush to my little boy’s toothbrush, toothpicks and so on… Anyway, as you can see from my pictures, I have not yet finished Arnold’s face which I want to look a bit more aged than in T3, more the way he looks in “The last stand”. I need to refine the eyes area with all the wrinkles and maybe even have to put on a bit clay in order to make his face look a bit more hanging. After the clay bust will be finished, I want to build an ultracal mold and then cast the whole thing in silicone.

I have done a vast research already about how to put glass eyes into the silicone in the end and about how to fix them... I seem to be utterly clumsy since I haven’t found anything of much help yet... I have seen some screws in some fiberglass molds where the eyes will go, and I imagine that they hold some kind of replacement bulbs until the silicon skin has cured in order for the real eyes to be put in their exact place. How the eyes will hold in the end (through the resin core?) is yet another mystery to me… I work a lot with the Stan Winston book and the Todd Debreceni book, but I am clueless at the very moment regarding this issue. I would highly appreciate if you guys could help a poor noob a little, maybe there is a thread I have not yet read or a book I should buy?

Florian
 
Damned, I can't upload the photos anymore, it states that I have already uploaded them on the introduce yourself board... I'll try again later...
 
Hey everyone...
I wanted to update, showing a cool silicone cast, but everything turned out a bit different... welcome to the real world, Neo, it's not all that simple, you know...
I have recently bought Arnolds original costume he wore in "The last stand".
I am planning to combine the finished bust (if that's ever going to happen) to a mannequin dressed up as the Sheriff...
So, I prepared everything to be molded, included eye replacements fitted with screws and all. Then I wanted to brush on shell shock from smooth-on. And, well, it turned out that the bust was more like the "incredible melting man" than anything else... Don't know if I sprayed to much mold release on the clay, the shell shock just didn't really stick and hardened incredibly fast... I was shocked, didn't know what to do... my wife saved the day as she just suggested taking the shell shock stuff off while it was still chewing gum like. What an amazing girl... Well, as you can see, the bust is nearly unharmed, but I don't know how to do it better next time... is there anything easier brushable than shell shock? I would really appreciate any inputs here, eg. re the question if a gelcoat would help before putting on the shell shock... Thanks!!!
Flo
 
No, its NSP sulphur free clay medium and the clay wall soft. Maybe the temperature was too, low, since I live in a really old house... I think the shell shock didn't stick since the spray had not cured yet, so the sculpture was kind of "slippery", but then again, that doesn't explain the short curing time. I need to find something more easily brushable...

In the meantime, I will be working on my "young Arnold" bust... lot's of work to do there :)
 
Chances are that the material was too old. I had bought it in 2011, and since I had other projects in the meanwhile, I only opened it this week. The learning curve seems to be constantly increasing... duh... Bought new shell shock today and, to make it chimp secure, also new dragon skin... let's see how I mess it up this time...
 
in terms of eyes , there are several good posts about creating them out of clear epoxy , personally, I would try to buy the best glass eyes I could afford , because you'll be able to match almost exactly with Arnie's own eye colour. When fixing eyes into casts or sculpts I mount then on small posts , measuring the spacing between them , and then mount the posts onto a small back brace , normally three or four tongue depressors stuck together , this allows me to align and fix the eyes as a pair , much easier that trying to fix one eye and then match the other ( it's too easy to make simple mistakes) . I would always take a plaster cast than use any form of smooth on product. ( the old prop's adage ' cast hard into soft and soft into hard' is always useful) meaning cast hard objects into soft material eg statues, objects into latex , alginate and soft faces , rubber items into plaster or fiberglass or smooth-on
for your clay I would use mainly plaster bandage over a wash of thin plaster paste, then slip cast your silicon into that plaster master .
 
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