Pred Beads

[Lflank]

The recent threads here have inspired me to try my hand at casting my own pred beads. Since my clay-sculpting skills are virtually nonexistent, though, I'm doing them in a different way. I'm using short lengths of 1/2-inch PVC pipe as a base, and decorating them by gluing bits and pieces of foamie to them. Since I have three masks to bead, and I plan on using two different beads for each mask, I came up with six designs:

I've coated them all with watered-down Elmers to seal the foamie.

Now I'm waiting for my Oomoo to arrive from Smooth-On so I can make molds. I'll post more then.

 

[made007]

Take a close up of the facehugger one, its from foamies? Wow! Thats cool

 

[Lflank]

Take a close up of the facehugger one, its from foamies? Wow! Thats cool

Yep, I cut the shape from foamie and then glued it around the piece of PVC, then coated it with a layer of watered-down Elmers glue.It's kind of a stylized version of the facehuger.

Here's another shot:

The tail wraps all the way around, and the fingers wrap most of the way around.

 

[made007]

Thats a nice idea! A++++ for you

 

[Lflank]

Thats a nice idea! A++++ for you

Well it seemed like a workable idea in theory. We'll see how well it works in reality, though, when my Oomoo gets here.

 

[Lflank]

Woo hoo! Oomoo arrived today, molds are hardening right now.

 

[made007]

Dont forget to update

 

[SMOKE]

Awesome! Eager to see the results!

 

[Lflank]

"We need beads--lots of beads".

A set of painted beads:

 

[made007]

Nice! Can i see how you made your mold? Nice work

 

[Lflank]

Nice! Can i see how you made your mold? Nice work

I didn't take any photos of the molding process, but I did it like this:

I cut a circle of posterboard about an inch wider than the model bead I was molding, hot-glued one end of the bead to it so it was standing upright, then taped a strip of posterboard about half an inch taller than the bead all the way around, to make a tube. Then I mixed the Oomoo and poured it in slowly until it covered the whole bead and filled up the tube to the top. When the mold hardened, I peeled away all the posterboard, then slit the side of the mold so I could get the bead model out.

To make a cast, I wrap the empty mold with a rubber band to hold the slit together, then pour the Smooth-Cast mixture inside and let it harden. It pops right out, and I file the rough edges off the ends. I have juuust enough time to fill all six molds before the SmoothCast starts to set. So I can pop out a set of beads about every half hour. (I've now run out of Smooth-Cast and have ordered more--I need about 50 each of four of the beads and 100 each of two of them.)

I get occasional small air bubbles in the cast, from filling the mold too quickly--I probably should have used a different SmoothCast with a longer setting time. But the bubbles are usually pretty small so I can live with them. And they make the beads look kinda used and dinged up anyway.

 

[Lflank]

So the "glue some foamies to a piece of PVC pipe" theory seems to work pretty well in the real world.

I did have the mold pull off some pieces of foamie from the model, and had to clean those out before I could start pouring casts. No big deal, though--they came out easily.

 

[Lflank]

Finished beads on masks:

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out.

I still have to do another set of the copper-colored facehugger beads to match my modified Rubies mask to this bio.

 

[made007]

I enjoy seeing people doing their own stuff, nice work, what resin you used?

 

[Lflank]

I enjoy seeing people doing their own stuff, nice work, what resin you used?

I used SmoothCast 300.

 

[made007]

Ok, the end result looks fantastic, inask because i had a bad experience with another brand of resin, thanks

 

[Lflank]

Ok, the end result looks fantastic, inask because i had a bad experience with another brand of resin, thanks

I had minor problems with the SmoothCast 300 -- it starts curing within about 15 minutes, so I had just barely enough time to pour it into all six molds before it started getting thicker, and occasionally I ended up with some small air bubbles in the piece. I could have solved the problem easily just by using a different SmoothCast with a longer cure time, but it wasn't that much of a problem, so I just lived with it.