Head Sculpt Casting Solution?

[Squeakyclean]

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Hi all, a few weeks ago I asked for some head sculpting advice on the Planetfigure forum, many of you were extremely forthcoming with help and I'd like to show you how I progressed. As some of you will know I'm currently working on a commercial project - details of which I can't divulge at the moment - however, I can show you some of the work on the head (which will give you a clue, but my lips are sealed). I wanted to offer two alternative heads for the figure and this presented me with an interesting challenge; would I need to sculpt a second head from scratch or could I try and cast a copy of my own?

Hmmm... I'll try a cast methinks. Firstly I took some ProCreate, mixed it 50/50 with some MagicSculp which I then let stand for about an hour so it wasn't too soft, I then painted the face of the sculpted head (minus beret) with Vaseline and pressed it into the block of PC/MS putty taking care to lift it straight out and not 'wiggle' it. The block was then left on the radiator overnight to harden fully.

After experimenting with different mixes of PC and MS I found that pure MS worked best,so the next night I painted the inside of the now hardened mold with Vaseline, mixed up some MS, left it to stand until it was starting to firm up, then pressed it very firmly into the mold and again left it on the radiator overnight. The following night I simply prized the 'face' out of the mold (it comes out pretty easily with the Vaseline), cleaned up the flashing and affixed it to a faceless head (a ball of old Milliput from the putty scrap box) with more MS, cleaned it up and sanded away the join once the MS had set. The face itself then needed a bit of refining and I also removed the moustache and sculpted some new ears, sawed off the top of the head and added the helmet.

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All this sounds like a lot of work but this is definitley something I'll be doing in the future as it nicely provides the basic features; nose, brow, cheeks, chin etc which can then be changed, added to or refined where necessary to create individual faces.

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Anyhow, see what you think. Cheers for looking, hopefully more soon. Matt

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