Firstly, let me introduce Acorn. I've had a few Guest Artist copies back (some are yet to be sent out, please note if you're a Guest Artist and not received your copies yet), and am currently on hot coals awaiting the arrival of this little lady who is on her way back to me. Acorn was painted by Mindy Berg, who is just THE nicest lady to deal with. I'd not finished my custom base when I sent the model out to Mindy, so she created this lovely base for Acorn. I'm absolutely blwon away with the detail on this little gal, her appy blanket is so tiny, I feel I have to remind myself that the foal is only an inch across!
And here is the result once I'd carefully removed all the Lego and both halves of the rubber mold from the original.
So, with all these orders I've ramped up the production and have been working non-stop (apart from sleep and the day-job, that is) to get them all cast. I've learnt from previous editions, and had 4 molds ready to go before I began, but as I've been casting I've also been mold-making, and on Monday evening I had a total of... 9 molds on the go at once!
As I go, I learn, and this model has taught me a lot about mold-making. Firstly (with inspiration from Lynn Fraley's blog, in particular this post) I created a two-part mold. Armed with some Lego and some Newplast (which I feel is a little hard for this purpose, but did the job ok) I created this:
Now, I know that any ceramic casting artists would cringe when they see this, that ear sticking out like that -would never work with a plaster mold, but as I'm going to use a rubber mold to make resin copies, and as this is my first attempt at a two-part production mold, I thought this would be ok. So I built up the Lego to a higher level, filled it with rubber (red) and let that cure.
This is the result - after carefully removing all of the blue Newplast clay, the rubber part I poured now acted as the Newplast did before. I simply rebuilt the Lego back up, then (after using plenty of mold-release to stop the new rubber sticking to the existing rubber) poured the other half of the mold (using blue rubber).
Before I used this mold for production (I did a test-cast first to make sure it worked), I created two "mold-masters" - I didn't want to have to go through the whole claying up process time after time, so I removed the original resin model and poured a resin cast, in a similar way to above but without the original model being there. This gave me a mold, to make my mold, from. It's confusing, but very time-saving!
This mold worked well, but I had an upsetting number of casts come out with eartip bubbles. I had cut a vent from the chin to the base to allow the air out from the foal's muzzle which is an air-trap, but the ears, I couldn't do much with. I created 4 molds from my mold master (this is why pigment is so important - each mold is a matching colour, apart from the original red/blue one pictured above) and fought the eartip bubble-battle for over 70 casts. Eventually however, I conceded to the fact I really needed a three-part mold.
After consulting the blogs of several ceramic casters (I use ceramic as a blanket term for Earthenware, Bone China and all things ultimately clinky, as I don't fully understand the various grades yet), I knew what I needed was a "hat". Lesli Kathman has a lovely post explaining about ceramics molds in her post here. So, out came the Newplast, but this time in TWO colours!
This process had me head-scratching a fair bit! Eventually I made this; you may notice the base is smaller; this means I will use less rubber to make the mold, which is bost cost-effective, and means I can fit more molds into my vacuum chamber therefore casting more copies in one go. So, after taking this photo I built up the Lego, then poured the first piece. Then I removed all f the grey clay, leaving the rubber and the blue clay left, and poured the second piece. Then finally I removed the blue clay and poured the third piece.
I tried the new three part mold out a few times, and it worked wonders - EVERY model I cast came out with two perfectly pointy eartips! So, I set about making a new set of "mold-masters", this time though I used a slow-setting very hard rubber, instead of fast-curing resin which can shrink a touch when curing. Here you can see the two large parts inside their Lego frames, and a round mold I made for the little "hat" piece.
And there we go! At the time I took this photo (below), I was using all four original molds (pouring resin into the ear before casting, to stop the eartip bubble problems. These are in the photo below, the red, yellow and blue on the left, and the red/blue at the bottom right); two of the new three piece molds (the whitish one on the lest and the yellow one at the front) and three base molds, which are cast just like medallions using one-piece molds. In the photo you can also see the two Lego boxes containing the new mold-masters. The red mold behind the Lego boxes is a "Random Ball" mold. Random balls are a mysterious phenomenon which occur during midnight casting sessions, watch out for random balls making random appearances throughout my blog, you might even be able to make one out in the photo below, lurking at the back!
The photo also shows the other tools I use when casting - mixing pots, I use a LOT of those! and in several different sizes too. The red bowl on the right of the photo is just a plastic bowl (I forget what sort of plastic - it doesn't stick to the uncured resin so is very handy!) that I use as a bin - you can probably see the "snow" that accumulates during casting, all these tiny bits of resin get everywhere, so I keep that bowl handy and put all the little bits of resin in there, which does help to reduce the snow a bit. Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time cleaning my "studio" (aka the conservatory) than I do casting!!
And finally in the photo, you can see the fruits of my labours. This was a particularly successful evening, I cast 20 succesful foals and 10 bases in all, which is a really good result from an evening's casting (I start when I get home from work and finish at about midnight on average when I have a lot of models to cast).
Since taking this photo I've made two more 3 piece molds (orange and red), and I've retired my red/blue mold, it did very well for an experimental mold, casting about 25 copies, it is stil ok but now I have the new three piece molds I'll retire the older 2 piece ones ones, then they will still have a little life left in them just in case I need an "emergency" mold later on.
That's all for today, a bit of a catch-up I know, but I have more to tell - just not enough time to keep up with my blogging too!!
Shipping Update:
I have now cast almost all of the models sold, and am currently awaiting delivery of the Certificates of Authenticity (some people sold second quality castings of Little One as firsts, I want to avoid that so will now have COAs for all my models) and then they will be on their way - I was hoping for this weekend but it may now be early next week before they ship. I'll update as soon as possible.
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