on the road

Never complains about wearing his seat-belt!

casting parts

Some people have asked me about how I do eyes & noses, so here's a little sneak peek! First up: Noses!

I start with a paper clay sculpture. Paperclay is cheap, dries (relatively) quickly, around 4-5 hours on a dry day, and is pretty forgiving as far as correcting imperfections with sanding etc. For this nose I wanted something toony, but still 'pebbly' textured. Somewhere between a realistic dog nose and something off Pluto.

Then I mount the paperclay to board & spray with a release agent. I like using an acrylic sheet because I can stick dams of sculpting plasticine to it and get a liquid tight seal. This time I used lego blocks to build a box around the nose, filling the gaps with plasticine. I ended up lining the box with a plastic baggy because I hate cleaning up leaky casts!
One tip for pouring your molding material; pour high! It prevents air bubbles from developing in the molding material. See TapPlastic's website for excellent casting/mold making techniques & products!

Once the molding material cures, peel the acrylic backing off the mold, and out pops the paperclay sculpture!

I trimmed the extra bits off the mold, popped it back into it's support lego box, and then poured my cast material in. For this nose I used a semi-hard polyurethane tinted with black pigment.

It's squishy, soft to the touch, and people seem to like to beep it!

big baby dragon

Big blue dragon baby. I think he's become my new traveling mascot, yay!

pattern pieces

In addition to large-scale projects, I've been working on a customized teddy bear pattern. What started off as a simple 10 piece project quickly spiraled into a 24" monster of innumerable seams and pieces. I think the latest count was something like 74 individual pieces in 6 different materials. Whew!

I should really get around to attaching his head, hmm.

accessories

Quick project I finished ages ago of a dragon tail. The material is actually an upholstery fabric, with foam backing. Amazing stuff. The scale pattern is really lovely, and it's soft & stretchy. None of the stiffness of vinyl or faux leather reptile pattern fabric. The horns are a very rigid 'plasticky' material, makes some tough horns indeed!

Working on a matching set of ears & head horns for this outfit.

cutting foam

One of the most useful tools in a costume builder's arsenal is the band saw. That, and an at-home scissor sharpener tool. It's amazing how quickly foam will dull a blade!

Makes cutting out curly tails a lot easier!

needle felting

Occasionally I'll get an itch to work on something totally different mid-project.

Needle felting is a lot of fun, if slightly dangerous. Those barbed needles are sharp!