Archive for September, 2009

So here’re a few more pics. I’m quite pleased with this one. It’s my first serious attempt at doing a puppet in silicon. I’ve tried a few in the past but have only ever got as far as making the mold!

The eyes are only temporarily taped in. I’ve yet to build the mechanism that’ll make ‘em move. I also think they’re a little bright, so I’ve ordered some dark brown ones to see what they look like.

The teeth are sculpted in miliput. These also seem a little bright against the dark skin tone, although I’ve given them a fair bit of brown discolouration. Might try and darken them abit more.

I hadn’t initially intended to give this guy any hair, but I punched abit in to see what it’d look like (and accidentally punched abit into my thumb too – ouch!) and I actually quite like it! Kinda like a clock work Albert Einstein perhaps? ;0) I’ve taped a few cogs in as well to give an impression of the final setup.

Here’re a few more pics.  I’ve now created a fibreglass skeleton and put in the eyes.  These are only temporary at the minute – they will eventually be able to move!

I think I might get some slightly darker eyes – these seem to stand out abit what with the dark skin tones.

I’m still painting, here’s a few more pics:

So here’re some pics of a cast coming out of the mold.

And here it is with the beginnings of a paint job on it.

I’m using a mixture of translucent silicon bathroom sealant, white spirit and oil paints to paint the cast. These seem to be working pretty well.

Next step is to make a fibre glass skeleton to go inside the rubber skin and make some mechanisms to make it move.

I’ve bought a ton of watch and clock bits and pieces to help. These are as much for aesthetic effect as actual use!

So here’s the second part of my mold for the oldroid taking shape. I’ve filled in an area with clay. This will create a cavity in the mold which will later be filled with a plaster core.

So next up is to apply a second layer of resin and fibre glass. First a layer of vaseline is applied to act as a seperating agent.

Once that’s done several layers of resin are applied same as before.

Once that dries you have to slowly seperate the two halves of the mold. This is abit of a painstaking process. You just need to slowly work it apart. A screwdriver is usually the best thing to use.

Next bit is to clean the mold out.

Once that’s done clay is laid into the mold. This represents where the rubber will go during casting.

I’ve also added two cables. This will create channels within the core to allow silicon to be injected and air to released during casting.

The mold is then clamped together and plaster is poured in.

Here’s the finished core. With the clay removed there’s now a cavity which is where the silicon, once injected, will sit.

Next step is to cast up the puppet!

I’ve finally finished the sculpt for my clockwork android, or ‘oldroid’ (0.L.Droid). Here’re some pics:

I’m quite pleased with the way this one has come out and have now moved on to making a mold. Here’re a few progress pics:

First, I’ve covered the back of the sculpt in polythene

It’s then laid in a bed of clay

The edges are lined up with the sculpt and brushed down with water. This is to make the seam lines as small as possible.

Next step is to give it a coat of resin. I won’t go into how to mix it up, but basically you add a set % of catalyst to set it off.

I then dripped the resin all over the sculpture using a brush.

Once that had hardened I got some thixotropic resin which is basically a viscous type of resin that doesn’t drip.

I used this to fill in any gaps and undercuts.

Once that had hardened I added another layer of resin, this time with glass fibre to reinforce the existing layers of resin.

Once that had all hardened I flipped the mold over and started cleaning out the layer of clay.

This is a pain in the arse to be honest, however I found a way of doing it that was a little easier and also (more importantly) risked less damage to the sculpture; I turned the shower hose on it and used a brush to lightly brush away the clay as it became saturated with water. As Chavant is oil based this didn’t damage the sculpture.

This was a lot easier than picking it out with a sculpting tool, although I had to sit in the bath to do it and got soaked, still we must suffer for our art ;0)

You’ll notice there’s still some clay left in the mold. That’s deliberate, this mold is going to have a core, so i’ll be building up some space for that when I come to do the second half of the mold.

I’ve been deforming the embryo I’ve been working on even more than it was at the request of the director.  We’ve now got one arm turning into a tentacle as well!  I’m halfway through molding this now.

Here’s a painted cast of the mask I’ve been sculpting.

Quite happy with the way it’s come out, although I think it does kinda make you look like Joey Jordinson or whatever his name is – the drummer out of slipknot.  The finished version will have a red velvet scarf and sash like this concept sculpt, so it shouldn’t look too bad once it’s all finished:

My glass eyes have finally arrived. Wahoo!  I’ve done my maths and the head is just under 1:2 scale; its about 10cm high. Adult male heads can be somewhere between 20-26cm high with eyes about 23-26mm diameter. I’ve therefore put in 12mm eyes. I dunno, maybe I’m getting abit paranoid, but I thought they may be very slightly too large….

On the other hand larger eyes tend to make things look more friendly while smaller eyes make them look more evil, so maybe that works in my favour (I don’t want this to look threatening).

Finally, I’ve started doing some of the more damaged areas of the robot/automaton/whatever/. I’ve stuck a load of mechanical looking gubbins in the back beneath some torn flesh. These won;t form part of the final sculpt but are just there to represent how it might look.

Here’re a few more pics of my old dude sculpture.  I think I’m fairly certain it’s going to be a damaged ‘automota’ now (maybe a kind of clock work robot perhaps), so it’ll have some damaged robot parts coming out of it’s head.  I was toying with the idea of developing a full body stop motion puppet too, but I may be getting ahead of myself there.