casting

I have chosen to cast my sculpt using carbody slush which is a mix of carboy filler and polyester resin mixed togeather. i used an equal mix by weight of each and painted on four layers than backed it up with resin and fiberglass matting. i noticed that the slush had pulled the silicone mould away from the fiberglass jacket which ment that when i joined the mould sections togeather they did not meet up fully. i used more slush to seal the join line then mixed up some more slush but this time with chop strand to make a nice strong join line. when i de-moulded i found that in several places the split line did not line up, time to make another cast.




i found a different resipe for carbody slush from Pete Tindels website, the ratios for his mix is 1/3 resin to 2/3 carbody filler, this mix is alot thicker which meant i could hopefully get it all on quicker before it starts to shrink when painting into the mould i only needed 2 layers to give it a nice thick covering and this time i used resin and tissue instead of matting, by the time i got the two halves of the mould togeather i still found that the slush had pulled the silicone away from the fiberglass jacket i just cant get it on fast enough i need another pair of hands. but i am still hoping that it will be a better cast.

i broke the leg when i was demoulding, the fiberglass tissue was just not strong enough matting would have been better. the cast is very light but a bit weak in places.

to fix the leg i used lollipop sticks as internal splints stuck in using carbody filler, then i used carbody filler to stick the leg back together, i removed any filler that had squidged out and then smoothed of using acetone.


After working at Altered States FX, if i was to cast out another figure i would use a gel coat plus one layer of matting, then using fibreglass tissue lay it along the flange, this can be easily trimmed back once demoulded but creates a strong join line. I would have less shrinkage and hopefully better register when lining up the mould halfs, which would have meant less sanding and filling with a neater split line. because really there was no need for it to be cast in carbody slush.

Important design aspects and examples of professional work

when designing this character i have looked at a variety of media as my inspiration for the posture and character of the figure, how to express the personality of the character through the composition. I looked at heroic figures in films such as Hellboy 1&2, Ironman, Batman, Blade, Sincity, Lord of the Rings, predator, terminator and many more. I have also looked at their counterparts in comic books and illustrations. what i have found is the heroic characters in film or the drawn figure in a graphic novel, the body posture play a key role in communicating what sort of person they are to the audience.

for example Ironman
this pose with chest out, arms out making the upper torso look wider, a solid equal waited stance showing stability, head held high looking into the distance. everything about this posture says strength, power and justice, everything in his posture is open and strong. where as if you look at a character on the opposite end of the heroic scale such as the Joker from the Dark Knight.
this posture is equal weighted showing strength but his back is slightly stooped with shoulders hunched and head facing slightly down giving him a sinister posture that projects insecurities and hidden aspects of his personality also the colours used help to convay this. this is a sinister character with a dark past.

i have looked at examples of maquettes in the film industry.

Mile Teves maquette for Iron man. over three feet tall and took five weeks to complete.

http://www.milesteves.com/gallery/v/SCULPTURE/IronMan-full-body-maquette.jpg.html

Hogsqueal prototype, but wasn't use as the final design.

Materials

I decided to sculpt using WED (Walt, E, Disney) clay i had several options including oil based clays such as chavant NSP or la beau touche, good for fine details and the bonus of not drying out are slower to use the initial balking out of a sculpture takes longer. water based clays speed up the balking out considerably but dry out and crack and you have to wait for the clay to become leather hard before you can start sculpting the finer details. WED clay seems to be the happy medium between the two and is the reason i chose to use it.

"Wed clay has become quite popular in the film industry for creating large detailed sculptures. Although it is a water based clay, Wed clay dries more slowly and has many of the same sculpting qualities of oil based clay. Requires a spray bottle of water for maintaining moisture and for smoothing. Can be used for mask sculptures as well." http://www.monstermakers.com/product/em-217-wed-clay.html


casting in resin

"Because they shrink, cast resins cannot be easily reinforced with internal armatures like steel rod. The resin shrinks around the unyielding steel-- and is split as if by a wedge. Resins can also tear themselves apart. Polyester resin, for example, goes through a jelly-like state before becoming hard. In thicker castings or those catalyzed too hot, the core is already hard when the outer areas gel. The gelled material must shrink as it becomes a solid, but when it cannot compress the hard core, it splits on the outside instead." http://users.lmi.net/~drewid/resin_faq.html

Sculpture

All info taken from: http://library.thinkquest.org/23492/data/works.htm

Greek art in particular was very influential in the development of Western art, and because knowledge of the Classical period is almost a prerequisite to observation of the evolution of Western art

The style of the Classical period in Greek Sculpture developed from the conventions of the earlier Archaic Period. Through the Classical period (which is usually divided into Early, Middle, and Late Classical periods), the human figure evolved from the one-dimensional rigidity of Archaic kouros and kore figures, to a more realistic figure which interacted with its three-dimensional environment.

The important concept of weight shift was first applied to sculpture in the Early Classical period. With this application, the sculpted figure came to be seen as moving in a direction through space, rather than merely standing in it, as in an Archaic statue. The Middle (High) Classical period saw the application of a Platonic canon of proportions to sculpture; the sculpted figure could represent the sculptor’s ideal of a ‘perfect’ human body.

Finally, in the Late Classical period, sculpture began to be realized as a three-dimensional form, which took up and enclosed space. The figure could be viewed, like a ‘real’ object, from any three-dimensional angle. With the figure spatially defined, the Classical style gave way to the later Hellenistic period, during which development of the emotional and dramatic aspects of sculpture was to continue.

Also, there developed a new relationship between the sculpted figure and its enclosing space. In the earlier years of the Classical period, sculptures had been intended for viewing from only one or two certain angles, usually frontal. During the Late Classical period, the sculptor began to create figures that interacted with their environment in all three dimensions: these figures could be viewed from any angle with equal effectiveness. This dimensional innovation is generally credited to Lysippos, personal sculptor for Alexander the Great.

The Greeks studied the movement of the body, how weight is carried, and how a shift in stance could affect the placement of limbs, torso, and head. After 480 BCE, the first marble sculpture displaying the qualities of ‘contrapposto,’ or weight shift, appeared in the Kritios Boy. However, whatever technical advancements made by Kritios Boy were put aside when the Persians invaded Greece in 480-479 BCE.

Renaissance sculpture.

Moulding

I have chosen to mould my sculpture using silicone with a fibreglass jacket, i had two option one build a clay wall for each section of the mould and first silicone then fibreglass this section, this would be a long process as the mould would need to be about 8 piece, i would risk having my clay sculpture drying out too much and start cracking. The second option is to paint the whole sculpture with several layers of silicone then have a fibreglass jacket procken into about 8 parts. i would have to cut into the silicone once it is moulded so as to get the sculpture out and this would be the problem area, if i did a bad job of cutting the split line i would risk creating a poor join line when i comes to moulding.

the pros of the first method are a neater split line and posibley easier casting, but the cons are a slower moulding process and the risk of clay sculpture drying out.

the pros of the secound method are speed, no risk of clay drying out. the cons are possibly poor split line.

before i mould my character i need to remove the hands, ears and horns, this will make the whole moulding process alot easier it would have been benificail if could have been able to remove the arms but because of the armiture this would have caused too much damage to the sculpture trying to cut through it, this is something to think about the next time i mould a large figure.
I have chosen to use the second method of moulding and cover the whole model in silicone then fiberglass.

because of potential work experience i needed to try and get the multi piece fiberglass jacket on in one day. this did not leave me with much time to think about how to best go about moulding it, and so i had to just start it and figure it out the best way to do it as i went along.
The main thing i needed to do was laying up two different sections of the mould at once, so as i was moulding the front right leg i could be moulding the back left as well as back of the head.
but because of my very tight time limit i could not spend enough time making it as neat and clean as i would have liked.
i didn't end up finishing it in one day and the work experience fell through so i was able to finish it on the following monday, it ended up being a 12 part mould.

the demoulding went smoothly and as i removed each fiberglass section i drew an outline of the split line i will then cut along this line to remove the silicone.

i only cut the silicone into 5 pieces, legs front and back, torso front and back and one for the head. over all the moulding went well and managed to get it done quite quickly.