On location for Chevy. The fastest way to go 22 feet up.
Chevy Costumes
Messi has to go.
No polyester to match. Jersey cotton wins the color look-a-like.
For the final costume we went with screen printing.
Kool Aid is Back
Shot a Kool Aid commercial that is airing in Canada. Directed by Kevin McMullin. Featuring smiling kids with bright red mouths.
Small Mask
The latex mask for the stop motion puppets worked out. But the mechanical skull is still too big and stretches the facial expressions all wrong. Waiting for more armature parts from England.
Someday these two will merge.
New Plaster
The new goal is to make a tiny latex dog mask to stretch over the mechanical skull.
Eyebrows, ears, jaw.
Research and development. My attempt to make a silicone layer over the armature didn't quite work. It is too thin over the eyebrows. Plus I think gluing fur to silicone is difficult so I'm going back to the idea of a latex mask for this little skull. I'll have to find a way to grind down the pro-proxy I used for the lower jaw as it's a few millimeters too big.
Skull Work
Silicone Intermediate
Made a silicone mold from the new wax with a better wood base.
Someday this process will not be suspenseful.
The mold looks good. Now just have to coat it with a mold release and pour silicone into silicone. Only fear is that they will fuse and get a solid block of silicone.
Poured it in. Feeling unsure.
Good news. The positive looks pretty good.
New wax
Tried liquid latex.
It didn't work out.
Starting over. Going to try foam latex. Three part plaster mold and a toaster oven.
What I love about the people who work at the sculpting store is that they make me feel like that what I'm trying to do is totally normal.
Plaster and Fur
While I wait for the plaster to dry.
I did a test of a fur technique by covering this tea candle.
Safety first.
Foam Latex
Shaved down the fake fur.
The sculpting store is full of mystery.
Mounted the wax to some wood. I have this abstract plan for a three part mold.
I love this fake fur, but it's too thick for a miniature. I have some mohair coming from England.
Brown Wax
Because I am new at this it is suspenseful. It reminds me of waiting for a roll of film to come back from the lab. Because I'm learning as I go, I decided to look up how to cast something in wax on the web. I found a video about bronze casting where I learned about a lost wax process. It almost seemed anecdotal until I discovered that they heat up the ceramic molds when they pour the bronze to assist the casting process. So, I stuck my silicone mold in the oven at 150 degrees thinking it would help prevent the wax from cooling on contact and making a bad cast.
Puppet Development
There are a few animation scripts that we've been working on and it's time to bring them to life.
Oot and Aboot -- they are best friends who spend their retirement years going shopping, traveling, and watching action movies starring Matt Damon. They are dogs.
After a few months of considering hand-drawn animation I'm coming back around to stop motion as a way to bring these lady dogs to life. For my first test I'm going to try and cast this dog's head in wax and then cut off the ears, eyes, and jaw and make them animate-able.
Later -- So I failed to mix the silicone properly and according to a YouTube video it may never cure. So this trial could be my first big waste of time and money.
While I wait to find out if this silicone will cure I will begin working on a clay skull. The form I hoped to make out of the wax.
I went back to the sculpting store to get more silicone molding compound and while I was there I learned that one is not supposed to make models out of clay with sulfur or the silicone won't cure. I can't find anywhere online that tells me if Sargent Art clay has sulfur. If it does then my back-up plan will have turned into another learning experience.
Good news. After 24 hours the silicone cured pretty well something might just work out.