Witch Head (2016)

Which head? A Witch head.
At the corso works a man who always had a witch on top of his chimney. Unfortunately, the witch fell down and he wanted to make a new one. He's a fine welder so he could make the dress/ broom, but he didn't know how to make a face.

Finished face, only needs some outside varnish

I can do a face. Clay isn't a stranger to me. Yet it had to withstand the forces of nature and well, clay isn't the most trustworthy companion when it comes to rain and frost.

Therefor I had to make a mold from a clay model and use some sort of resin.

But first start with the clay model:
I use tin foil to make a base (which saves up a lot of clay)

The tin foil is covered with masking tape, this makes the clay stick on a bit better; it doesn't really want to stick to the foil.

Tin foil base

Same base, covered with masking tape

 After a bunch of carving and adding/ removing clay I ended up with this face:

Finished clay model

I used cheap air drying clay. Normally when you want to make a mold you might consider using plasticine or something similar. This type of clay stays soft and can be reused for your next project.
Anyhow, further methods remain the same.

Give the head a mohawk makeover. Because it's not possible to make a one piece mold with the nose and such you have to make a seam somewhere. I did this at the back of the head, because the hair will cover it up. The pouring hole will be in the top (a hat will fit here later on)

Witch with a mohawk

Now add layer after layer after layer of liquid latex. I added some harder to the latex to make it thicker. In the end I noticed the mold shrinks a considerable amount (at least 10%). So I'm not sure it's a good thing to use.

When the rubber is finished a two piece shell will be made from polyester (with glass fiber).
To make a two piece mold you need to make a barrier the whole seam around. For this I did use plasticine. 

Rubbermold with half a polyester mold

Other side

Now the hard part is done it's time to pour in the resin. At first I tried the regular resin (polyester) but it takes a lot of time before it solidifies. Next to that it doesn't cover everything + it is rather fragile.

I went online and found some better resin: Smooth-Cast 65D
This is a quick solidifying resin used for this type of hollow cast molding.
Mix the 2 parts, pour it in and keep swirling it around so everything inside is covered (yes, it's a messy process)

You'll be left with a nice lightweight white duplicate of your clay model. (The only sidenote is that it leaves some small bubbles at the surface; you can fill those with primer when you start to paint)

Casting process

The only thing left is to paint your new model.
I used a dark grey primer and added some light grey by dry brushing.

Front side of the witch.

Next it's making the actual witch, which probably will happen at the corso next year)