This was something I've been planning for a while, but finally found the time to get started. The first thing I set about to do was to sculpt the helmet. There are many ways to go about this, other than sculpting; i.e, pepakura, foam, and I even saw someone who used paper mache to make theres. But I always enjoy sculpting, and the less sanding, or working with toxic chemicals I have to do, the better.
To sculpt this I used Monster Clay. It's a great clay in my opinion, and I really like working with it. I started blocking out the basic shapes, on a lifecast I had of myself.
For blocking out, I like to work in large areas, and use mostly hands. I keep a center line on my sculpts as long as I can, so I can constantly make sure everything is lining up correctly. Once I get everything into the basic shape I want them to be, I will use a large rake to start blending the giant blob into a more cohesive blob. From here I move down to smaller and smaller rakes, and keep refining and adding clay as needed.
After many painful hours, you'll eventually end up with something smooth enough to mold. While not everything on this mask is perfectly smooth, I felt it was smooth enough, that once molded and cast would give me a piece that would be easy to clean up fast, and fix an imperfections.
To begin molding, I added a thickness of clay, I used WED clay for this, around the back side of the sculpture. This makes sure it gives me the 1/4" of thickness I want for the helmet, instead of the whole 1" that I built up to make the helmet have the proper dimensions. Once the back side is clayed up, I added a clay wall around the back to act as a retaining wall, so silicone wouldn't drip all over. For the mold I used Mold Max 30 silicone, from Smooth-On. For the first layer of silicone, you want to keep it thin, so that it will get into all of the crevices, and get all of the detail. Once this layer has cured, you than add 1-2 other layers of thickened silicone to give it strength so it won't tear. On the last layer of the silicone, I add in bits and pieces of silicone that I had left over from the previous layers, to give me some registration keys of the jacket. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures of the jacket part of the mold. But I used plaster bandage for the outer shell. The outer shell is a hard, stiff surface for the silicone to sit in, so that it will keep its shape and not warp during casting.
For the first cast, I used EpoxAcoat, also from Smooth-On, and backed it up with fiberglass. I was pretty happy with the first pull. I'm keeping this one around, in case something needs to be fixed on the silicone mold, or it needs to be recasted. For the next castings I will be using Smooth-Cast 65D, from you guessed it Smooth-On. This is a urethane resin that is specifically designed for slush casting.
To finish of the head piece I will be using 3mm foam, the kind you get from JoAnnes, and sintra. Hopefully I'll have some more updates soon, but for now here's a picture of the foam armor that I have finished so far.
I had a chance to do a test paint up on one of my buckets over the weekend. I think the orange is a little to light, so I'll have to see if I can find a darker shade. I'm pretty happy with the blue. Need to add black to the side panels, and the inside of the eye.
