What a crazy week. I spent the whole of it waiting for a resin shipment to arrive so I could finish these doll heads. Due to a mix-up with the ordering (PayPal apparently farted or something) it will arrive this week instead.
But I didn’t spend all that time doing nothing!
I’ve got not one, but two new swords in the works.
Everybody remember the cool ring-sword Zaapiel that I made for a wedding?
It’s making a comeback for a very special project!
From humble beginnings traced onto a piece of foam insulation …
To a cut and and honed profile …
To a sleek shape ready for patching, sealing, and finally, its first moulding. But it will have to wait until my table is clear.
THIS bad boy is currently taking up all the space! What’s all the pink stuff? That is light, air-dry clay that I use to fill voids in the insulation that I carve the first prototypes from. There’s always some air bubbles and cavities in foam insulation and this makes holes in the swords that I really don’t want. So I fill them before I seal them to ensure a nice even shape.
Here’s Sariel chilling out in its moulding “box”. I’ve been experimenting with more flexible walls for the moulding boxes so that I don’t have to use as much silicone or other moulding compound. Most swords aren’t just big rectangles, so filling that extra space in the corners of the box is a lot of wasted material! I’m doing my best to reduce costs for crafting my pieces so that more people can afford them. This … isn’t easy. I have to spend a lot of time problem solving and trying out different things before I find something that actually works well.
Part of that cost-cutting effort is right here in this “box”. I’m using liquid latex as a moulding compound. On the upside: liquid latex is cheap and also bio-degradable over time. On the downside: it takes many coats and takes a long time to dry between coats so what it saves me in cash, it costs me in hours. I’m currently trying to work out if it’s going to be worth it to do latex layers, or if I’m going to have to buy a ton of alginate and try to do it that way.
I haaaaate using non-bio-degradable materials for prototypes. It’s so bad for the environment to make something that’s going to last forever and then only use it once. The foam I’m using for my first prototypes isn’t bio-degradable (I think) but I have a huge slab of it so I have to use it up. I’m still working out what I’m going to use instead after the foam is all gone.
Wish me luck everyone!
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