| Page 3 Latex Casting |
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| Well, here are the two halves, cleaned and ready to go. You can see in the front half, I had some areas that were repaired. I was a bit worried that it would ruin the latex casting, but it didn't turn out too bad. |
| I first coated the front and back halves with latex using a brush, then put them together using the mold strap supplied with my kit. You have to make sure it is very tight, that way it doesnt leave a large gap in the seam. Once together I then brushed a coat of latex over the seam, this helps seal it. the picture to the left shows the plaster casting with latex in it to dwell. I didn't have quite enough to fill it all the way, so I had to keep brushing and splashing latex up on the neck area. I'm ordering more latex.... |
| I let the latex dwell (sit in the mold) for about 45 minutes. After that time, the latex was dumped out and the mold was set upright to drain. You may have to tilt it a couple of times like I did in order get all the latex out of the nose and chin areas. The draining time was about a half hour. |
| After all the latex has been drained out, the mold was then put on it's side in front of a fan. I think I'll look for some kind of smaller blower for this step, the big fan didn't work so well. I had to let it sit longer to start to gel. After it got to the gel stage I repeated the process again, to get a thicker mask. |
| I let the mask sit over night to cure a bit. When it was ready to pull, I took a chip brush and covered the inside with baby powder. This will keep the mask from sticking to itself. In the picture above you can see I started pulling the mask away from the mold. I began at the back of the neck pulling the it free. |
| Once the back half was loose up to the seam, I removed the strapping and back of the mold. At this point I was pretty darn excited, I carefully pulled the mask out of the front half and all the detail was showing up, I couldn't believe I actually made my first mask! I filled it with plastic grocery bags and set it to finish curing. The pictures below are what it looks like. Somehow I did end up with a goose egg on the top of it's head, and a thin area in the chin. But overall, I don't think it turned out too bad.... It looks almost identical to the sculpture. |
| Now that the casting is done, I can paint. I will also be adding realistic eyes and hair. |
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