January 09, 2007

This is the first step of building the tiger. I do all of my work on the masks in clay, and this is the first pass clay sculpture for his head. I'll do more detail work after this, finishing up the ears, making sure he's symmetric, detailing the nose, etc... before it's cast. I'll be using a eurothane mold-making rubber this time, rather than the silicon RTV, at the suggestion of the local plastics man. It's a thicker compound, more suited to painting on; the RTV is really intended for things which are going to be cast by lowering them into the material, rather than painting it on. I could use a platinum-based RTV silicon, but those don't like sulpher at all, and I don't know if all of my clay is sulpher-free.
This sculpting is done on-top of a lifeform of my face, so I can get the eye and mouth placements right. It's a tear-duct-looking critter, as most of the realistic masks are. There's probably 15 or 20 hours in this sculpting at this point. Around 5 more are left to get the clay work finished, then it's time to cast the mold.