Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Marionette hands...molding process.

Okay, this is not a tutorial but an idea of how to make hands for marionettes. If you have questions I will be happy to answer it for you. Here I have my set of hands that I sculpted out of polymer clay and fired. These hands have a wire armature and I fired on the oven for one hour and at temp. 225. The tools you see are all handmade. I hardly buy tools because I am particular about my process and many times I spend MORE time preparing than the actually process. The mold is just an empty milk just that I cut on half and adjusted to the size I needed.I taped to seal it.
It is necessary to build a *body* around your prototype and find the *line* where it will meet the other part. Because I am using silicone as a mold making, I am much flexible about my lines because silicone will move for me . My shop is busy at this moment with tons of plaster molding as I have been working on my new dolls. I am making these mold inside my house so forgive me my poor lighting.

Here the clay body is almost ready. Now I need to trim a bit and fit properly inside the mold.


I also had to make a *pour hole* . that was easy... I just added clay around the wrist.


Silicone was poured. It takes about 10 hours for the setting.





Remove the mold. It looks great. No bubbles at all. I am happy about it. *grin*





Here I have the mold back inside the milk jug . I had to do some trimming. Then I placed the same hand inside . I did the pouring and now I must wait until tomorrow to see the complete mold.I will try my first resin hand tomorrow. I can't wait. This is my first time making hands this way.

3 comments:

julie campbell said...

Very interesting :0) I have been wondering about making a silicone mold so that I could try making a resin doll and this makes it look simple !
julie xxx

Abi said...

Indeed - I love to learn how artists do stuff - and making it look simple? I bet it's harder than you make it look!! thanks for sharing, looking forward to more learning. :O)

Woolytales Miniatures said...

Hi Julie and Abi~
Silicone molding is 100% easier than plaster molding. the fact that is flexiable makes a huge difference. I did not show here but it is extremily important to use a mold release and if you need a name for the one I use , just ask. If you don't use it, everything will stick together and your mold is useless. Silicone is expensive . You need to think ways to make the molding box to save you from mexing too much. I use a mix that is 10:1 rate, that means one part is mixed with a second part ( 10 percent) together. Like 100 ounces of one part mixed with 10 ounces of teh second and that is it.
Not is not hard and a little practice will do it. I am not an expert on silicone molding as my main molding work is plaster but I will be happy to answer any of your question.
ahh, my mold is ready. I will be making my first hand tonight... I will show the mold and the hand when I am done.smiles~