Sculpting First Mask - First Pull Done.

troggs

New Member
Hi, my wife is just about to try her hand at sculpting her first pred mask, but a few things are puzzling us at the moment -

When you've got the shape blocked out, how do you keep track of exactly where the eyes are? With the constant refining/reshaping, could we end up with the eyes out of place?

Can the sculpt be used first to make a silicone mould for casting resin, then used to make a plaster mould for latex casting?

Usurper - you mentioned in your journey thread that you cut the ears and nose off the mannequin head to make it easier to get the head out at the end. We thought that the 2 part mould would come away, leaving the clay to be peeled off the mannequin head.

I have looked for answers to these questions, no luck, or maybe I'm just looking into it too deeply?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers folks.
 
The eye are soemthing that really do not change location ( unless you screw up badly )

Yes you can take a silicone mould from the sculpt to make resin copies, prior to making a plaster mould for latex ( or simpler, you could just make latex copies from the silicone mould, you would need to dry the layers or it would take a fair bit longer than a stone mould to cure though )

With chavant it sticks really good to the mannequin head i use, and as the clay and head will not just come out on one peice on a stone mould, not having ears to dig clay out from behind makes it easier to dig the clay out of the mould then remove the head , with the nose, i remove it incase the nose is not very deep in the sculpt, i would not want it to push down and possibly damage any detail in the mould ( again plaster, silicone would not take any damage )


hope this helps.
Lee.
 
Thanks Lee, that's great, it all makes sense now, should be able to start the sculpt in about a week, cheers, Derek
 
Thanks, I've been following yours and Lee's threads, they've been a great help, I will post up pics once we start the sculpting, the head has been strapped down ready to start.
 
hi guys, back with one more question before we start, I already have a P1 mask I was going to use for measurements, but should the sculpt be larger than this to allow for any latex shrinkage? Thanks
 
Shrinkage is a problem we all face!

The latex will shrink when you make your final casting, when the water leaves the wet latex it will shrink. How much depends on alot of things. Sometimes the latex mixture from the factory, the amount of dry time, the mold material.

I have gotten buckets of latex that have shrunk alot! and then another bucket in the same mold which shrunk very little.

The one thing that is certain is it will shrink some.

So yes definitly make sure you account for that.


I am curious to know exactly what the full plan is?

What clay are you using? What mold material? etc?

Seems to me you are serious about this and I want to help in anyway I can, maybe give you a heads up on any mistakes I have made in the past along this same journey.
 
Thanks very much any advice would be greatly appreciated, my wife hasn't decided exactly what style of mask she is going to sculpt yet, the plan is to have my P1 mask next to the sculpt as a size reference and sculpt it a bit bigger, She will be using Klean klay, as this is what I used for my bio sculpt. Having read as much into moulding as I could, I thought Ultracal would be the stuff to use, using metal shims and water based clay to make a 2 part mould, hoping to start sculpting tomorrow, cheers, Derek
 
I finally got around to stating to block the shape out, I couldn't post pics from the very beginning my internet slowed right down, I couldn't do anything with it, it seems to be ok now, so here goes - first thing was to fill the neck out to about 20 inches

s2.jpg



Then I started to block the shape out, I'm using my P1 mask as a rough guide to the size
s3.jpg


I had left the eyes uncovered to give me a reference point, but I discovered now that this was a big mistake; I couldn't get the proportions to look right, I eventually worked out I had to fill the eyes in to a fair depth, otherwise the eventual mask would have been rubbing against my eyes! this simple mistake caused a fair bit of frustration, but once sorted, this pushed everything forward and it all seemed to click into place.
s4.jpg

I now decided to start work on the bony fringe, I cut some slots in purely as markers, stuck the clay on to the rough shape, since this pic was taken, I've filled in the slots.
s5.jpg

That's as far as I've got for now, hoping to do some more over this weekend, any thoughts/suggestions so far?

A small update, I've worked some more on the main bony fringe to shape it a bit better, started to add the inner fringe and tried to even out the eyes a bit
s8.jpg
 
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Got stuck for a while waiting for some more clay to arrive, now it's here I can carry on, will post more pics soon, i'm thinking of changing the bony fringes.
 
After much looking at reference pics and staring at the sculpt, I finally realised what was bugging me about it, I hadn't tapered the sides of the head down towards the front, so it was throwing everything out of proportion; so I trimmed the temples down and angled the bony fringe down. Next I reshaped the eyes and starte work on the mandibles - now it feels like I'm finally getting somewhere. I was going to have the second bony fringe like P2, but at the moment I've just put my own design in, I'm still not sure yet whether to go for an elder look, but I think I'll try and make the bony fringe look like exposed bone, any suggestions/comments?

sn1.jpg


sn2.jpg


sn3.jpg
 
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Thanks PredatrHunter, I've just been looking at the sculpt again after a break, I think you're right, the lower jaw could do with trimming will post some more pics once I've done some more work on it.
 
I've finally had some time to get on with this, we've had visitors staying over for a few days. I've thinned the lower jaw by quite a bit and tried to even everything out a bit. The mandibles and teeth are just rough for now just to check how it will finally look.
I'm more or less happy with the shape of the head now, but I'm not sure about the bony fringe - I want it to look like exposed bone, I think it looks ok on the top of the head, but I'm not so sure about on the inside where it'll be just above the dreads. Maybe it'll look better when it's painted up? What do you guys think - any ideas/comments?
s1a.jpg


s1b.jpg


s1c.jpg
 
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I've changed my mind about the bony fringe, I just couldn't get it to look right, so now i'm thinking of two rows of spikes which I've roughed out at the moment on one side;

w1.jpg


w3.jpg

My questions are - if I make the spines in clay, will it be difficult to clean the mould where the spines are and would they be difficult to cast without air holes?
I was thinking of casting the spines, tusks and teeth in resin and just making the holes for them on the sculpt. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I feel a bit stuck at the moment, thanks guys
 
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I changed my mind yet again, I was watching a program about dinosaurs and that gave me the idea for the bones/horns I've done, I think I'm finally happy with the design, maybe now I can finally get on with some smoothing and start to shape some of the details.

sp1.jpg


sp2.jpg


sp3.jpg


sp5.jpg
 
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