Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Raphael (Thoughts, suggestions, criticism welcomed)

[Alpha Proto]

Thirty pounds sounds about right.
I was amazed at how much clay I used making my helmets and masks.
I think WED clay is a good choice. Just make sure you spray your sculpt with water and wrap it in plastic when you need to leave it.

 

[Egon Spengler]

Well, I hope this works, but in order to make sure the mask can fit my big head I made a duct tape head, filled it with padding and then plastered over it with several layers of plaster bandages, as you can see here:


It is not a perfect representation of the shape of my head, but the height and the width, are correct, but there are a lot of odd bumps here and there caused by the duct tape under the plaster.

Once the plaster dries, I might go over it again with duct tape.

I hope its strong enough for the clay to be sculpted on. Maybe I should just carefully fill it with plaster completely.

 

[Egon Spengler]

Well, see that wonderful head shape I made? Gone. Mixed up the plaster and poured it in and everything went to crap. Long story short, the plaster didn't mix right, or I didn't mix it right and there was too much water, not enough plaster, so I added more plaster into the head and it flowed out with the water. I screwed it up so bad and I'm not blaming it on anyone but me. Should have done the plaster differently and not messed it all up. Well, back to making a duct tape head now so I can start this all over.

 

[NightBat]

The live action turtles rock! Hope everything works out!

 

[Alpha Proto]

I wish I would have commented before the plaster incident. I was going to recommended filling the armature head with expanding foam.
I am not sure that would have been a good suggestion in the long run. When all the clay is applied to the head the weight may have caused the rod to smash through the top of the armature.

 

[Egon Spengler]

Thanks Nightbat!

Thanks Alpha! I decided to go with expanding foam anyway, but just had the pole go only half way into it and have a support for the neck at the base so all the weight isn't sitting on the pole. It seems like it'll work.

I mad a new duct tape head this morning, filled it with expanding foam and it's ready to go now, but one problem is the head is a little distorted. I don't think that will be too much of an issue though as the turtle head is larger than the human head of the person wearing it anyway.

I want to start sculpting tonight, the foam head feels solid, but I'm concerned it might expand more so it might be best for me to wait until tomorrow around 4 to start sculpting anything.

Should I go and buy molding materials right away, or will the sculpt be good for a few weeks or more as long as I keep it wet?

 

[Alpha Proto]

Happy I could help

 

[Egon Spengler]

Soooooo glad I still havent started sculpting anything. Why? Because the expanding foam head just happened to SHRINK!! WHAT?!

 

[DakotaFury]

I've been thinking about sculpting a TMNT for years. Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants to try this. I plan on going with the original 1990s version. The new ones are too space alien looking for this build IMHO.

 

[Egon Spengler]

The new ones would never even fit down a real sewer. That's the thing that annoys me.


Anyway, I went to Wal-Mart yesterday and picked up a 6ft folding table to use as my work area for sculpting the costume parts. I'm going to sculpt the head first and then move onto the upper body, etc.

Instead of just starting out with the full sized head I've been working on a smaller scale head, no details, no bandana, just the shape of it for Ralphael. This way I can avoid wasting a lot of clay figuring out the shape of the head. It's also a fun way to get a feel for the clay. I've never worked with WED clay before. It's a lot of fun.

I tried sculpting the bandana onto the small turtle head but it really isn't necessary and it was a bit of a pain. I had it looking pretty good but on such a small scale it was hard to keep the bandana from collapsing on itself at times when adjusting it.

As far as I have seen it looks as if the original heads didn't have the bandanas sculpted right onto the masks, at least in the reference images I've seen without them.

Here are some images.

What do you all think of the general shape? I think the chin might need to come in a lot more toward the bottom

.

 

[Alpha Proto]

I have seen the bandana masks sculpted onto the heads. The final heads then have the fabric glued over the sculpted bandana masks. That way they keep their shape.

 

[Egon Spengler]

I've seen photos of some without the bandanas sculpted on too.

I started putting clay onto the styrofoam head i have today, but I removed it all. The head is way too small compared to my big head and I was using a lot of clay to build it up. I need to find a head that is closer to the size of my own to sculpt on.

I tried making a cast of my head and filling it with plaster but I messed up the plaster and it turned to garbage.

On the subject of plaster, do you all recommend for budget reasons making a plaster mold or do you recommend going with some sort of silicon? I want something i can reuse incase I want to make more heads.

What do you all think of the general shape of the small sculpt, for Raphael?

 

[GodsAdvised]

For the general shape I think it's a good start. I'd bulk up the top half of the head a little. I think it's too small in proportion to the lower half. Id also fill out the lower portion on the back of the head a little more too. The back of the head just looks a little flat. Keep sculpting...you'll get better and better the more you work on it.