last modelling session

Once our casts were fully dried we added the expanding foam. It came in a two part mixture which is mixed in a 2:1 ratio. it has to be stirred very quickly with a decent amount of force as it start going off almost instantly. Once you'd stirred it for around 10 seconds it was poured into the foot holes of the cast and swirled around. First time I did this I hadn't mixed it vigorously enough meaning the texture of the foam was not quite right, I also didn't use quite enough hence there being no legs below.

I enjoyed the workshop and definitely learned a lot about sculpting/model making however it is not a branch of animation I'm particularly interesting in I'm glad I got the opportunity to experiment with it but it's not something I'm itching to continue

casting and sculpting our models

The next session we started to sculpt our characters out of plasticine on top of the armatures we'd built the previous week. We used a selection of sculpting tools which were far more effective than using finger. This process took a long time and I'm sure there are many different sculpting techniques to learn which would require a lot of practice. We then scored a faint line down the side of the model to mark the mid point of it. This was for the next step. we got a large piece of clay rolled it so it came up to the halfway line then cut out a slot for our model. We then cleaned up the edges so no plaster could go in.we added four clay walls to this to stop plaster escaping the sides. Its important the walls are strong/think enough to withstand the weight of the plaster. Don then showed us how to mix plaster however I was already familiar with the process it is pretty simple. We then filled our casts with plaster making sure to tap the bubbles to the top. 

We repeated the same process for the other side of the model to get the whole cast after the first lot of plaster had tried which takes 24hrs to properly dry out. A lot of time was spent waiting for the plaster to dry the foam we were going to use at the final stage sticks to wet plaster. 

model making

The model making workshop was very enjoyable and I felt I learnt a lot. There were some skills I was aware of before we started this from previous sculpture projects during foundation but there was lots I didn't know. We started by bringing in a design for a character, I used one of my old doodles "hobo-wizard". The design was relatively simplistic so I was hoping it wouldn't be to difficult to sculpt but it could have been simpler. We took our designs and draw them again but in a position where there arms and legs were spread open as we needed to cast then in this position. It was important we marked out where the joints would be as we had to take it into account during the next section. The next part was making the wire armature for the inside of the model. You can buy professional ones which have incredible balance and proper joints but these are very expensive. We made a much more cost effective version using wire and electrical clamps. We cut one long piece and formed a loop to make the head and body and the 4 smaller pieces to make the arms and legs. These were held together with the screw clamps which were very fiddly, it was good to keep them slightly tightened for adjustments. We then set the armatures in place so only the points that were joint would move, we stuck miliput a clayesque epoxy to set these points and the head, we also put nuts in the feet so they could be screwed to a base.