Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien)

Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Personally I like the wide tendon a lot. Here's a thought, fellas. If you don't like it, or it's wider than your personal preference...cut it. Leigh's going to be casting this in silicone. It will not be remotely difficult to trim individual castings to taste. Much easier to trim what is provided than add what isn't.
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Nwerke said:
Personally I like the wide tendon a lot. Here's a thought, fellas. If you don't like it, or it's wider than your personal preference...cut it. Leigh's going to be casting this in silicone. It will not be remotely difficult to trim individual castings to taste. Much easier to trim what is provided than add what isn't.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's certainly an option...but I personally wont do that to this. Ultimately whatever Leigh decides to go with...tendon or not...I'm in 'as is'. At the end of the day he was kind and humble enough to ask our opinions on this...but, his work on this thus far has me 100% sold on it however he decides to finish it off. It's such a minor detail, but a current focal point because we're addressing that single detail. In the overall mix of this finished sculpt it'll fit in I'm sure.
Yes, I prefer without but I'll be just as happy with if that's the direction he takes.
Cheers!
David
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

I'm very grateful for your feedback & the kind words Guy's, Thank you :)

OK, I started experimenting with this, trying out different options & testing whether some things will work.

The Vertical tendons will have to be cast separately from the rest. If the mouth is to be able to open, the bit between the upper & lower lip should stretch. The top horizontal tendon comes from the back of the top lip & is anchored to the back of the jaw. When the jaw is opened this tendon will move down a bit. If its cast to the vertical tendon it'll stretch in a different way & wont look right when the mouth is open.
The other advantage to casting it separately is the personal choice when it come to assembly :)

As I said above, I've tried all the options I can with this & this is what I'm happy with:
691.JPG

692.JPG

693.JPG


The only bits I've not re-made, re-sculpted or altered are the chin, the bottom lip & the two chin tendons either side, everything else has received some attention. I'm really happy with the extra tendons on the top lip, these were inspired by the Rambaldi head & also the cover of the book Giger's Alien. The other tendons have been re-made thicker & I feel they look better, they'll also cast easier I expect :)

Overall I'm happy with how this looks now & I just need to knock up a mould :)

Thanks again for your thought on this :)
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

That's looking really nice. I think the separate vertical tendon is the way to go.

The builder can achieve either look that way and the movement will be cleaner as well.
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Are you going to have 'open mouth' tendons and 'closed mouth' tendons, or is the goal to have them stretchy, so that you'll be able to open and close his mouth and they stretch/retract accordingly?
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Clutch said:
Are you going to have 'open mouth' tendons and 'closed mouth' tendons, or is the goal to have them stretchy, so that you'll be able to open and close his mouth and they stretch/retract accordingly?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm hoping to make this set stretchy enough that the jaw can open mostly. At the very least this set should stretch enough to expose the teeth on the tongue as a static display.
I'm going to have to make one or two more sets at some point. There'll be a closed lip set at least, but I may have to (reluctantly) use Latex to get the full movement. For the closed lip set I want to try to make it so it can be wired for articulation but I probably wont start on that until the rest is finished :)
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Thank you :)

A little update:
696.JPG


Getting ready to make the mould :)
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

I'm really curious how your mold is going to work. Can't wait to see your approach!
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

nick daring said:
I'm really curious how your mold is going to work.
Click to expand...

Me too :lol

I honestly don't know where I'm going with this & I haven't got it properly straight in my head but I think it might work :wacko
697.JPG

698.JPG


:)
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Guessing here... you are going to make the mould over this area, then remove it, scrape away the tendons, fit the mould back over the top, then pour in your casting material, the face of Bob effectively acting as the back of the mould? If that's so, it might work, but there are some iffy areas, and maybe trapped air in the thin tendons?
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Alaneye said:
Guessing here... you are going to make the mould over this area, then remove it, scrape away the tendons, fit the mould back over the top, then pour in your casting material, the face of Bob effectively acting as the back of the mould? If that's so, it might work, but there are some iffy areas, and maybe trapped air in the thin tendons?
Click to expand...

That's the plan almost exactly... however I'm not intending to use the face I'm making it on as the other half of the mould.
My intention is to do exactly as you say upto "top," then I'll make a mould of the face without the lips & tendons & then a rubber cast of the face which will become the other half of the mould.

I've done some research & I've decided I'd prefer to use a shore A30 polyurethane rubber to cast the lips & tendons. From what I can tell the urethane I want to use should be flexible & strong enough to do the job. It should be easy to bond it directly to the urethane plastic I'm casting Bob from & I should be able to use the same paints that can be used to paint the rest of Bob. The only problem with this idea is that I can only find one supplier online that offer's this urethane rubber in clear & that's Smooth-on.

As far as the actual casting goes My plan is to drill small holes through the mould at the inside ends of the tendons to allow any trapped air out. The urethane rubber is apparently very low viscosity just like the plastic, so in theory should cast in a similar way.

I'm intending to add two metal loops, one either side of the mould jacket. With these I'm going to add a length of rope & then if need be I can swing the mould in an effort to use some centrifugal force to help with getting the urethane all the way down those tendons.
The area I think I might have trouble with is the tip of the chin. I may have to drill a couple of tiny holes through the mould there as well.

This is all guesswork of course :lol I just hope it'll work :confused
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Alaneye said:
This stuff, Leigh?

Clear Flex® Water Clear Urethane Rubber Product Information | Smooth-On
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the stuff. It looks as though it'll stretch more than 6 times it's original length & at shore 30 it should be fairly soft as well. So I just need to find a UK distributor. I'm also thinking it would be a good idea to build the mould out of a harder silicone. I could build a solid mould but I'd like to have the option to be able to cast this in hard plastic if I should feel the need to :)
 
Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

Thanks guy's :)

I think I've got to go with polyurethane rather than a silicone product, it really needs to be glued to Bob & blended with paint.

You see, here's where I'm at a bit of a dilemma, Bentley are only offering the 50 & 95 not the 30 & look at the price... £43 for 1.35ltr. MBFG are offering PT flex 20 for £25 for 1ltr. the problem with the flex 20 is that its cream not clear :(

I'll probably end up buying a litre of the flex 20 anyway, there is another part I'll need to cast in rubber & I can use it for running the first couple of casts of the lips & tendons.

I cant believe there isn't more choice when it comes to getting hold of a clear polyurethane casting rubber :(


Update:

I've just ordered the PT Flex 20 & some black urethane tint. At least I'll gain some experience with urethane rubber's & I should get a couple of casts I can use to see how it'll all work :)
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

I really liked this project up until it went all fetishistic on us! :lol

Clear casting products are a relatively new development. Back in the day you had to struggle along with waterclear polyester casting resin and that was IT. Yeah stinky polyester, same as fibreglass...it was good for making paperweights of dead insects or seashells, and that was about the lot.

Clear urethane casting resins appeared a few years back and still seem to be a bit tricky to use, you really need pressure and low humidity from what I've seen so far.

Clear silicones and urethane elastomers? That's still some serious futuristic sci-fi **** to me, lol.

Kids these days... :lol
 
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Re: Bob the Alien (Giger inspired Alien) Sculpting finished page 45

:lol

I just got off the phone to MBFG (my supplier) & they said they'd look into it, I'm not the first person to ask apparently :) They also provide materials for Game of thrones, I think that may be the other person :D They sell Polytek products & seem keen to be able to provide a clear urethane rubber, so we'll see if they can come up with something :)

For the time being I'll see what I can produce with the cream coloured stuff. Don't worry Martyn, I'll make the vertical tendons to fit under this part once I have the moulds built :) I think they'll look pretty good & they'll definitely work better as a separate part.

On some more close inspections of the Rambaldi head, I've noticed there is another vertical tendon at the rear of the jaw. It partially covers the oval detail just in front of the tube mounts, I may experiment with that one as well :)
 
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