Mckellen/Magneto

Pigmented resin cast

Trying out a polyurethane pigment to colour resin casts.I got this one fron Tiranti.Its black and I wanted the casts to come out grey but looks like I added too much pigment (think I added about 2%).Probably need less than 1% of pigment to resin.

New silicone rubber

Trying out a new silicone rubber from DWR plastics
RTV Silicone Moulding Rubber 6.18kg kit
Shore Hardness: A 28 *Medium*, Catalyst : Purple,
Cheapest silicone rubber I have bought yet-cheaper than Tiranti and Tomps.Seems good.One thing I did not like about Tomps was the blue catalyst turned whatever you were casting blue too.This one doesn't.Its a pale purple catalyst that doesn't leach any colour on to your castings.
I made a waste mould using it for Ian...

Took the soft Chavant as far as I could and made a TMS wax cast from it and started refining...

The Lizard-painted

The Lizard

Finally finished the lizard. This is the resin cast primed.

The original was sculpted in homemade zen wax (grey) and homemade '360' wax (pink).

This is the first time I have used a different moulding process.It takes longer than my previous method (see Iron Man) but I think the extra effort is worth it because I was fed up with mis-alignment with casts and this method eliminates that problem.This is also the first time I have used 'keys' (the male and female parts that allow the pieces to register and lock together) Here are pics to show the moulding process

 First cut up the sculpture.And add the 'keys'

 Start to mould the tail.

 Starting to build up the first half using chavant NSP (medium)

 Finished with the chavant.

 Adding the all important registration marks that will ensure the two halves of the mould will lock together perfectly with no mis-alignment.I just used the end of a paintbrush and press it into the chavant.

 Pour the first half of silicone.

 Once the silicone is cured, I can begin to create the second half of the mould.

 Remove all the chavant and clean any remaining clay from the sculpture and silicone.Build the lego bricks back up.Brush vaseline onto the sculpture and most importantly onto the first half of the silicone mould.This is to ensure the second half of silicone will not adhere to the first half.You can use spray on mould release but a liberal brushing of vaseline is the failsafe.

 The two halves should come apart with no problem.Remove any remaining bits of the sculpture.

The resin cast will only need a simple seam line clean up.
Here are a few more moulding process pics.I ran out of the Tiranti silicone but had the Tomps silicone on hand ( the blue one).

Sir Ian

A little break from the Lizard sculpture to do a quick sketch of  Sir Ian Mckellan.Its a chavant clay but I don't know which one! Its pretty soft anyway. I have never tried to do a portrait likeness sculpture before so I wanted to see if I could capture the likeness with just a quick sketch.Used a couple of photo's front view and profile. A bit of measuring but mostly by eye.Pleased with it but the real test is to try a less 'characterful' face and still make it look like the person.

The making of Iron Man

This is the process I used for making Iron man from start to finished and painted final.

I first started with a very rough sketch made out of home zen wax.No armature which is one of the cool things about working with wax.It looks very crude but I am quite impatient and I just want to quickly get a feel for the pose and attitude-the gesture.

When I'm happy with this pose I work it up.Developing the main forms.

At this stage its important to not concentrate on details which is why I took these pictures to check the silhouette.

For the next stage I needed to make a waste mould of this rough to transfer to a harder wax called TMS wax.This harder wax allows me to now work on details which the grey wax isn't that good at (its too soft or sticky) The proceeding photo's show my mould making process.The figure is cut up and each piece is moulded separately.I've always used lego bricks to build a container around the piece into which I pour the silicone rubber.This is the first time I've tried using a cheaper silicone rubber (TOMPS value range _hard shore).

cut open the mould with a sharp scalpel.

comparison of zen wax with TMS wax cast.

Once I have all my TMS wax casts, I begin to work in the details,refine the anatomy and smooth and polish the surfaces.

comparison of zen wax with TMS wax final

TMS wax work in progress

getting there

Once the figure is completed its time for the master final mould to be able to create resin casts from it.

preparing to be moulded

the final resin casts using Smooth-Cast 310

The five pieces are assembled,holes and seams filled with Milliput (fine).Sanded,primed with standard acrylic grey primer spray used for cars and then sanded again to achieve as smooth a finish as possible.

Now for the painting process.I read up about spray painting using Alclad chrome laquers.There are several steps.

1) first coat with gloss enamel black ( I used the little tins of Humbrol diluted with cellulose thinners)

Its important to get as glossy a finish as possible so the subsequent layers look shiny and chrome like.

stealth mode?

2)second coat with Alclad chrome laquer.

war machine?

Now to spray the red using Alclad enamel candy red laquer, but first I need to mask off the yellow bits.A great tip I picked up was to use Silly Putty to mask off.

silver centurion?

Almost there.Mask off the red again with the Silly putty and spray the Alclad candy golden yellow enamel.

Some bits might need touching up after but that can be done with a small paintbrush and red or yellow colour applied direct from the bottle and it's done! Finish off with a nice wooden base.

Finished!