Moulding A Cyclops

The podcast: battleswithbit...
A friend of mine, Helen McKenna, had sculpted this cool cyclops character on a Don Lanning sculpture course (check our awesome chat with Don battleswithbit...) and wanted to mould it.
She didn't have a workshop space and was nervous about damaging it so we decided to do it here in my workshop and film the process to show how it went.
We used epoxy, and I got to try some materials out for the first time.
It worked well, and we were really happy with the result!
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Check out the podcast: battleswithbit..., available wherver there are podcasts.

[@Spaghettislim]

Thanks for all these videos Stuart, they help so much. Hope to see more of them!

[@stuartbray]

I'll try and keep it up. Its been a while since I uploaded and I have now so much footage that I can now edit down with all this time!

[@noahnavarro8616]

Thanks for sharing these videos!!

[@mrbanana101]

Very wonderful and informative video, as always! I'm curious about how much epoxy resin was used for this mold? I'm interested in working with large molds (head molds, complete torso molds, etc.), but price of materials always seems to be one of the inhibiting factors when doing it just as a side hobby. Based on how much epoxy resin was used, wondering if it could be a less costly alternative to a silicone mold with a mother mold.

[@stuartbray]

If you can avoid using silicone for a mould then its utterly sensible to do so. In this instance, the final item to be cast out was always to be silicone so it makes sense to make a rigid mould. Plaster would work and would be cheaper, but I wanted to try epoxy. Polyester works well too, but having made so many polyester resin moulds, I was keen to see how it compared.

[@mrbanana101]

@@stuartbray Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely continue with plaster for now

[@stuartbray]

@@mrbanana101 The key with a large plaster mould is to make sure its well supported with a frame or structure so you don't need to make it overly thick and heavy. Use plenty of scrim/burlap in layers to provide strength, as pure plaster is brittle and prone to break as it doesn't flex well unlike fibreglass moulds.

[@newimagepropreplicas9863]

Great content...i wanted to ask how you minimize the mark left on the sculpture made from applying the clay wall directly to the sculpted surface?..i find if my sculpture is water based clay i do leave it as long as i can to harden before molding but can still spoil any fine details on the sculpt where the clay wall is pressed in..many thanks

[@mateo2117ify]

Thanks for sharing all your experience with all of us. Where i'm from, they keep everything to themselves.

[@cxbra]

Amazing. One thing I can say, its truly sad the original sculpture has to be sacrificed, but I guess thats what she made it for.. Im using a different, block-molding method for my sculptures. I MUST keep the air-dry clay original!

[@stuartbray]

That is where digital sculpting comes in handy, or scanning the sculpt before making a mould. It is that magical destruction which allows one thing to become something else which I find quite important to the process.

[@MilesAscough]

Hi Stuart, great video, where do you get you 6mm carbide drill bits?

[@stuartbray]

I got mine ages ago so can't remember, but Google to find suppliers. This one came up, they are not cheap but worth every penny: www.aptoolsltd.co.uk/product-category/drills-drill-reamers/dagger-drill-solid-carbide-gt50-metric/

[@MilesAscough]

@@stuartbray Oh brill, thank you!

[@convolution223]

Are you using the same kind of epoxy on the glass? or something else?

[@stuartbray]

The gelcoat was EpoxaCoat from Smooth On and the resin on the glass is thinner, laminating resin called epoximte, also Smooth On

[@imnotvintageimgrumpy586]

Is that a Kuato growin' on the back of yer head?

[@stuartbray]

You'll need three hands!

[@parasiteunit]

Using the coloured silicone rubber is a very good idea. Many years ago I fabricated some skin with boils on it, as a gelatin prosthetic. I used yellow food dye and a tiny bit of white face paint to give the boils some colour before I cast the rest of it. It was very effective. A real good way of pre-colouring a peice before getting down and putting the details on with alcohol based paint/silicone paint. Again - a very through video without any needless steps. Clean and concise. Fantastic.

[@Thekrhiya]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻✨thanks

[@chriskuneman3310]

Did you use polyester or epoxy resin to laminate the fiberglass?

[@stuartbray]

It's all epoxy resin.

[@chriskuneman3310]

@@stuartbray thanks!