OUAN406 - The Model

For the model making task we were asked to design a humanoid bipedal character that we could then take and model during the workshop induction. Of course the character had to be completely original so I played around with the shape of the body a bit before deciding to do something rounded and a little over the top to make an overweight character. When thinking about the proportions and body shape of the character, I did him bent backwards slightly as if he was trying to counterbalance the weight of his stomach. I drew some simple items of clothing on him to get an idea for his character and mannerisms, these consisted of a long coat with a shirt underneath, trousers, and boots. I also gave him some steampunk-esque goggles to generate a certain theme or aesthetic within the characters demeanor. Overall I'm quite pleased with how the character turned out on paper, but thought I had perhaps included too much detail or made it too complex considering I had never made a model like this before.

The first thing we did upon starting the workshop induction is draw our character out again, but simplified and in the T position. Meaning, the characters stance is one where their legs are straight and their arms are pointed outwards perpendicular to their body. This was so we could get an idea of their proportions and a general idea of the height and width of our characters. In order to make the initial armature or frame work for our models we were given some connectors and some wire. I didn't have enough conductors to produce the width of the character that I wanted as well as the shoulders so I decided to sacrifice on on the shoulders and create five across the waist and three across the neck, or shoulders. This gave us the general idea of how the proportions of the character would be. The wire part of the armatures was created using a two meter length piece of wire and folding it in half before using a drill to twist it together, the drill produced a very evenly twisted wire, perfect for what we needed. Then came making the arms, legs, head and body of the model. This part was difficult and quite intricate, it also required tools such as pliers to cut any excess wire. The final part of the first stage was adding a material called milliput. Milliput is a putty where once you combine the two components that make it up and model around something, it goes hard over the course of a few hours. We placed the milliput on the limbs of our models, the forearms and legs etc until it was a much sturdier model, that was able to stand up by itself. The armature at this point was ready for the next stage which is adding the plasticine to model the body.

The second session of the model workshop consisted of modelling the bodies of our characters using plasticine and various tools to help us sculpt the material. First however, to make sure the plasticine would stay on the model we covered them in elastoplast which are the plasters that are used to cover up small cuts. The purpose of this was to not only allow the plasticine to stick to the model, but to make sure the milliput and the plasticine didn't mix together, and remained separate. We then began modelling our characters. Due to the size and shape of the character I was trying to sculpt I had to use quite a lot of materials. To save the character from being too heavy however, I used newsprint and moulded that around his body to get the shapes of his stomach and back. Once the general shape of the body features had been established I used the plasticine to create a covering, making sure arms and legs for example were proportionate to his body. I tried to be accurate when it came to the anatomy of my model but I unfortunately made the legs too short, hopefully when I add clothes to the final model that problem will be eradicated. The final stage of the sculpting process included me making sure he had hair and facial features. A lot of this part was done by cutting other pieces of plasticine and adding them to the model that way, rather than just moulding the material that was already there. The hardest part of the sculpting process was his nose, but it turned out okay in the end, if I had more time I would have added more detail to his face and made his overall body more accurate and proportionate.

From here it was time to make the mould for casting the model in the final session. So we laid out our models onto a thick piece of clay and built walls around it so that when we pour the plaster over the model it doesn't leak out and creates half the mould we'll need for the final casting session. The most important part of the process here apart from making sure the walls were solid was to make sure that the clay surrounding the model was pushed up to it, so that non of the liquid plaster got underneath or to where it wasn't supposed to. We then poured the plaster around the model and left it for around 30 minutes so it hardened. Once this process was complete we could remove the walls and half of the mould was complete.

The fourth session we had was very similar to the previous one only that we were casting the opposite side of the model with plaster so that we had, after this process, both halves of a mould that we could use to make replicas of the model we had sculpted. After this we placed the model face down rather than face up on the base of the mould, and again constructed walls around it to hold in the plaster once it was poured in. Repeating the process from the previous session and letting the plaster set for 30 minutes, we then had two halves to a complete mould ready for casting in the final session.

During the final session, I was able to create two foam models using the process that Don showed us. The first step to do this was opening up our moulds and adding a layer of wax to the plaster mould and the areas around the mould that would need to be separated after the process was complete. This was called the separating agent, and was made up in this case of solid wax and Turpentine, a white spirit. The two piece of the mould are then put together and a tight piece of elastic placed around the outside to hold the mould together. The pouring mixture when would become the foam model then had to be mixed. The mixture had to parts which had to be mixed in the ratio of 2:1, anything less or more than thing produced the wrong consistency. The weights of the two liquid of my character relative to its size were 80g of one and 40g of the other. Once the two substances had been put together, you had to stir very rigorously for about 10 seconds because it activated quite quickly, before pouring into the mould. Once it had been poured in it took around 20 minutes to set properly before we could start to remove the mould. The model itself turned out quite well, however some of the facial details were lost because of the foam process but it worked quite well overall, there was just some excess foam that had to be removed.