DAVIDYR1
Official Licensee
Unfortunately the Fan Expo Convention held annually in Toronto fell on the Dragon Con weekend this year. As a result I wasnt able to attend but did enjoy a great weekend here interacting with the public and collaborating with the Canadian distributor for Smooth-On products and Chavant clay.
Both Sculpture Supply Canada and myself arranged to be both side by side in the convention hall so that we could do regular life casting demos on willing 'victims' as we called them...
...all throughout the weekend.
The life casts were done with Body Double Quick Set...90second working time...and to top it all off the convention was pretty hot so...heat + platinum silicones meant even less working time. Easily done though...small batches mixed one after the other....first ones with a bit of silicone solvent to dilute the Body double and subsequent layers just straight silicone.
The mother mold...being in a convention hall time was important to consider...big crowds around us waiting to see what we were up to, so to speed things up we'd just dip the entire rolls of plaster bandages into our pale and unroll it overtop of the life cast. Not recommended...but rather than cutting up the bandages and applying them one at a time this saved us a lot of time.
In the end...the show proved a huge success. Lots of traffic...never a moment when our booth wasnt practically full of people or when doing the lifecasting for Smooth On the hallway was so packed with onlookers that you couldnt even get by.
It really was a lot of fun...and a great chance to get some instant and on hand feedback to our work.
Once again, Chavant also was represented and heavily promoted at our booth. We had 4 sculptures going, Chavant pubblicity material and free samples to those that were genuanely interested in sculpting. Although the clay bricks were handed out at no charge, they weren't just on our table as free samples for all to just take away. Sculptors of all kinds that were unfamiliar with Chavant were the ones that got to take some with them. We really wanted to promote it to a possible clientell that 'would' begin to purchase and use it after trying it....rather that the 'hey this is free let's take a brick' crowd that would never even test out the clay.
Chavant is a great company and we did our best to ensure they got the best exposure possible for their products.
There were also a lot of union special effects artists at the show....Chavant really gets around in our industry. It was great to meet other fellow mask or costume makers and chat about techniques, clays and different aspects of moldmaking. Those that weren't familira with Chavant got a chance to sample some of the different clays at our booth, see the variety of clays available and take some home with them to further try out.
All in all...I'd say a big success. By the morning of the second day we'd had already given away all of the clay brick samples we had for the entire 3 day event...crowds were always present and the industry turn out was better than I could have expected.
Although I certainly missed being at DC, this truly was a great weekend for us.
Here's a few pics...
This guy felt like he'd died and went to heaven...LOL.....
Some life casting pics...
This was the best part...Removing the body double casting. I would divide the group watching into groups that could get a good look at the mold being peeled off around the eye brows and lashes. They were always amazed to see the facial hair just pull out of the silicone and how the skin separated itself from the silicone.
I'll have many more pics soon. We took some really great close ups of all the stages of the lifecasting and once I get them I'll post some up.
David
Both Sculpture Supply Canada and myself arranged to be both side by side in the convention hall so that we could do regular life casting demos on willing 'victims' as we called them...
...all throughout the weekend.The life casts were done with Body Double Quick Set...90second working time...and to top it all off the convention was pretty hot so...heat + platinum silicones meant even less working time. Easily done though...small batches mixed one after the other....first ones with a bit of silicone solvent to dilute the Body double and subsequent layers just straight silicone.
The mother mold...being in a convention hall time was important to consider...big crowds around us waiting to see what we were up to, so to speed things up we'd just dip the entire rolls of plaster bandages into our pale and unroll it overtop of the life cast. Not recommended...but rather than cutting up the bandages and applying them one at a time this saved us a lot of time.
In the end...the show proved a huge success. Lots of traffic...never a moment when our booth wasnt practically full of people or when doing the lifecasting for Smooth On the hallway was so packed with onlookers that you couldnt even get by.
It really was a lot of fun...and a great chance to get some instant and on hand feedback to our work.
Once again, Chavant also was represented and heavily promoted at our booth. We had 4 sculptures going, Chavant pubblicity material and free samples to those that were genuanely interested in sculpting. Although the clay bricks were handed out at no charge, they weren't just on our table as free samples for all to just take away. Sculptors of all kinds that were unfamiliar with Chavant were the ones that got to take some with them. We really wanted to promote it to a possible clientell that 'would' begin to purchase and use it after trying it....rather that the 'hey this is free let's take a brick' crowd that would never even test out the clay.
Chavant is a great company and we did our best to ensure they got the best exposure possible for their products.
There were also a lot of union special effects artists at the show....Chavant really gets around in our industry. It was great to meet other fellow mask or costume makers and chat about techniques, clays and different aspects of moldmaking. Those that weren't familira with Chavant got a chance to sample some of the different clays at our booth, see the variety of clays available and take some home with them to further try out.
All in all...I'd say a big success. By the morning of the second day we'd had already given away all of the clay brick samples we had for the entire 3 day event...crowds were always present and the industry turn out was better than I could have expected.
Although I certainly missed being at DC, this truly was a great weekend for us.
Here's a few pics...
This guy felt like he'd died and went to heaven...LOL.....
Some life casting pics...
This was the best part...Removing the body double casting. I would divide the group watching into groups that could get a good look at the mold being peeled off around the eye brows and lashes. They were always amazed to see the facial hair just pull out of the silicone and how the skin separated itself from the silicone.
I'll have many more pics soon. We took some really great close ups of all the stages of the lifecasting and once I get them I'll post some up.
David
