Head Sculpture, Part 3: Casting and Painting

The next stage in making the model head is to cast it in silicone.

I tinted some silicone with flesh coloured pigment and cast it. When cured I filled the cavity with urethane foam to support the outer skin.

The cast face removed from mould

Slicing out the opening for insertion of glass eyes

The hollow glass eyes are so fragile, I like the way they are packaged – nestling snugly in foam rubber inside a clear box.

The next stage : applying paint.

I used pigments added to psycho paint to add the more subtle touches, freckles lip colour, and the pink bits in the corner of the eyes etc.

applying freckles and pink lipcolour

Now that the painting is completed the final stage will be to root the hair, eyelashes and eyebrows.

The finished result

detail

Ruan Sculpture

I started a clay sculpture of Ruan a few weeks ago and worked on it in between jobs and this is how it progressed.

I’d like to do a series of posts on all the different processes involved starting with this first one – the clay modelling stage and ending with the finished model. The subsequent posts will feature all the different stages including mould making, casting in silicone, painting of the model and hair rooting process. Depending on the results I might carry on and  make a whole figure.

(Further pic’s in Sculpture Portfolio, PAGE 6)

Initial stages:

earlier stages of sculpt

working on capturing a likeness

after this stage it took ages to put in the more subtle modeling of the features.

untextured stage

finished head, untextured

view 2

ear detail

eventually, when I thought I could take if as far as could, I started putting in some surface texture (also put in plastic eye blanks the same size as the glass ones will be).

surface texture views

close-up, finished head

The next post will feature details of the mould making stage!

( Ruan, I hope you recognise yourself!)