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Published: 4/21/2015
In my post about my dislike of Crayola air dry clay, I have photos of a statue work in process.
Inspiration was from the concert Tee from LiSA at Anime Boston.
Coming home from a trip to Boston, I felt really inspired by LiSA to pursue creative outlets. I think its fair to say I am obsessed with anime statues, but how could I get a LiSA statue?? I'll make one! Never having done this, I'd say I did a fair job sculpting. Unfortunately, the clay I bought is crap, so I am going to attempt to mold and cast it to have a resin statue to paint. Wish me luck!
Updated: 4/25/2015
It is clear that I don't really know what I am doing. What an utter mess. After successfully creating a dump mold of her arm (had to cut the arms off for the molding process, made 1 mold to be used for both arms and fused to the body after casting). Waiting for it to dry now, I am a bit worried about the top layer not being mixed well enough to dry, in about 6 hours I might have a runny mess on my hands.
So, every way i have seen for creating a 2 part mold involves using clay as a base and pour silicone for the top part of the mold. One guy in YouTube comments mentioned suspending the model on cured silicone blocks and then pour the rest in up to the half way point. (Side note, it is really hard not to get silicone on top of the model using this method, hope it peels off later.) I know why it is not recommended, air bubble rise to the surface under the model and your cast will have bumps. Not only and I lazy, but I am not sure I would'n't mess up the model (made out of shitty clay).
The worst part is that 2.8lbs of silicone, Smooth-On Oomoo 30 (30 min work time; 6 hour cure time), was just enough for half the mold. So I am going to need another week and $30 to ship out another trial kit. To be continued...
Updated: 5/8/2015
So the second half of the mold worked out pretty well, I was better prepared for the silicone, everything mixed well, and the whole second batch of silicone was the perfect amount. Once cured, it was a bit hard to separate the 2 sides of silicone, I used the super sealer and ease release the kit came with. Next time I would try vaseline for an easier release. The mold was pretty rough, I did not clean up the lines at all, and all the detail of the clay was there, for better or worse.
I would recommend measuring in some way how much resin you need. I estimated, but made too little. I then lifted the mold up but it began spilling out of the mold from the bottom (next time tighter rubber bands). So I quickly mixed up a new batch before the old started to harden, and it worked out, but I made way too much and wasted material. Better too much than too little though.
After de-molding, a bit on the face and hair didn't quite cure. It was still soft and a bit of the hair fell off. Maybe the 2 resin parts needed to be mixed better. Even the next day it was soft, but several days later it was hard like the other parts. Since the original clay model was so rough, along with air bubbles from not being able to roll the resin in the mold, it took quite a bit of sanding, bondo, and putty to clean up the piece (thank goodness for my dremel and accessories). The arms, molded separately needed to be pinned and attached. Next step, priming and painting...
Updated: 6/14/2015
Finally finished, after a long process. Priming, pinning and painting went pretty smooth. Most of the painting was done by brush, which I dislike, but overall it came out pretty good. I am happy with the base colors too once I decided what looks good.
To make the Lisa lettering, I bought Super Sculpey (learned my lesson about buying good clay), but it seemed to be old as it was rock hard. After some 20 minutes with canola oil and a hammer, I had workable clay. Baking in the oven took longer then expected, though I feel even if I took it out sooner it would have hardened when cool. I took the colors from the logo behind LiSA at Anime Boston.
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