I’m working on the hands that go with the old man mask sculpture at the minute.  I’ve made a fibreglass mold of the head now and I’m just cleaning that out ready to inject the silicon. I’ll try and post some more complete pics of the process than I managed when I was doing the zombie mask. Once the cast is ready I’ll be painting it and punching in some hair round the back of the head and some eyebrows.

For the hands I’m sculpting them in chavant over life casts of my own hands.  This is to ensure they’ll be large enough to be worn as gloves.

First off I made an alginate mold of my hand and forearm.  Alginate is a life casting material that’s made from seaweed.  It’s commonly used by dentists to take casts of teeth.  It sets to a spongy consistency which is ideal for taking casts of the body.

It’s a little difficult to take a pic when your arms’ encased, but here’s a pic once I’d got my arm out. The mold was then filled with plaster.

As the casts were going to be used as part of a mold once I’d done the sculpture (they’ll sit in the middle of the mold in order to create a cavity) I reinforced them with some wire inside the plaster and by adding a layer of fibre glass on the outside.  Here’re some pics.

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