Hi there and welcome back to my blog!
This week the sculpts are getting finished off and then the negative moulds are going to be created.
Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6: Finished Sculpts (O'Connor, 2022).
The sculpts had been transferred to the new positive cores made last week and have been completed. The edges have been blended flush to the core, remembering where the mould was cut to not change the shape of this otherwise the pieces would not fit together. All of the textures have been added to the pieces: a toothbrush was used to create a large porous texture on the wrinkles, and a metal tool with a sharp scraping end was used to get the texture on the horns.
Figures 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12: Plasticine Cutting Edge Wall (O'Connor, 2022).
The next step was to create a cutting edge using plasticine. The plasticine was made to 3mm thick. It was important to keep the 3mm thickness the whole way around the core, avoiding the keys and making sure to leave a gap between the sculpt and the plasticine because this will be where the cap plastic is going to be to blend away.
Figures 13 & 14: Flange Wall (O'Connor, 2022).
A flange was created around each core, going roughly halfway up the keys and being a similar width the whole way around. The flange is made to assist the opening of the squash moulds as it leaves a little 'ledge' meaning the positive core can easily be removed (Stuart, 2020).
A polystyrene wall was made to go around the negative moulds, the edges and gaps were filled in using a hot glue gun, otherwise the polyurethane would have just spilt out. Lots of release agent/Vaseline was then sprayed onto the sculpts because if this didn't happen, the polyurethane would have just stuck to itself and fused, meaning that the sculpt would be lost and everything would have had to be done again.
Figures 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21: Making the Negative Moulds (O'Connor, 2022).
The next steps are just the same as how the positive mould was created. 2 layers poured in making sure to get all of the detail from the sculpts, a brush could be used to pick up polyurethane and cover areas that didn't cover from the pour (behind the horn). The next layers are the 2 poly fibre layers, with scrim added on the second. And finally, the plaster gets poured in and filled to the top, making sure it is flat.
Once the moulds had set, the polystyrene board was taken off and the moulds were taken off the board using a hammer and a chisel. Figure 22 shows how the clay has got stuck inside the moulds. This needed to be taken out, but both the clay and the plasticine needed to be kept separately because they both needed to be weighed as this was going to tell us roughly how much silicone we need to use for the squash mould.
Both moulds were then cleaned with fairy liquid and a toothbrush, but this needed to be done very gently because even though the mould is made from polyurethane, the sculpt was still very thin so the wrinkles are still very fragile.
Once both moulds were cleaned up, they were ready for running pieces (Figures 23 and 24).
Figures 23 & 24: Finished Negative Squash Moulds (O'Connor, 2022).
Thank you for reading this week's blog!
Next week we will be writing about creating flat moulds.
See you then!
Alysha :)
Reference List:
O'Connor, A. (2022) Cleaning Negative Moulds [Image]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Finished Negative Squash Moulds [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Finished Sculpts [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Flange Wall [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Plasticine Cutting Edge Wall [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Polystyrene Wall [Image]. York.
Stuart. (2020) Makeup FX Blog [Online]. Available at http://www.learnmakeupeffects.com/blog/ (Accessed 4 May 2022).
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