Here we have Sans Souci Studios' armatures and Best Boys, Arnold Full Armature and Arnold "Han Solo" Half Armature. (Seriously, his name is Arnold. That's the name of the person from whom this was live-cast.) Other than being a handy place to put clay while sculpting, Arnold provides valuable points of reference. Especially Half Arnold. While building a sculpt on Full Arnold is a good way of seeing what a sculpt will look like in motion on a real wearer, Half Arnold provides a perfectly flat plane from which to build a system of reference points and angles. Invaluable, as otherwise reference points have a maddening way of seeming to shift on a 3D sculpture.

Above, finding the center of the sculpt, and making sure it's at a 90 degree angle to the armature back. I measure to find the center of the armature, mark the line on both the top and bottom of the head, and trace the center line around the sculpt, as shown above. At any point where the sculpt doesn't meet the armature back (here, at the throat)  I mark the center on masking tape and then extend a line up the tape onto the sculpt. I use various measuring tools to keep the line as perpendicular as possible to the armature back, but there's always a certain amount of eyeballing and guesswork involved.

Above, creating a "template" of sorts for the back of the sculpt, to help ensure its symmetry. First, I lay down that good old patterning material, duck tape over aluminum foil, on the armature base under the sculpt in progress. Then I trace on the tape along the edge of the sculpt, mark and fold it at the halfway mark, and trim so that the two sides of the template are symmetrical.  Then I lay the template back down on the armature and clay up the back edge of the mask along it. There's still a certain amount of eyeballing and guesswork involved, as the template can shift and stretch, and little bits of clay on the armature can put it out of whack. But still, it makes a pretty good guide.

Now I have a sculpt with a symmetrical back and a centered and perpendicular nose. Getting the sides of the sculpt to match is a lot trickier. Each side can cave in, bow out, or do some evil combination of those things in its own special way. The back template can help  address this by placing "landmarks" on the sides, to make specific areas on the sides easier to compare. For example, I can mark where the cut out is for the lower jaw on one side of the template, then fold the template, mark the same spot for the jaw cutout on the other side, then transfer the mark into the clay. 

Once I've placed the landmarks I can make a gizmo to compare the angles at specific points of each side of the head. Here, I have cut out a little piece from a cereal box, preserving one original corner so that I have a handy 90 degree angle for reference. Then I carefully cut a thin slot into the sculpt, press one edge of the box in, and trace along the side of the sculpt to get the angle of that specific spot, making sure one side of the 90 degree angle is flat on the armature back. I trim along the line I've traced and then compare the angle of my gizmo to the angle of the sculpt on the other side, again being careful to line up one side of my 90 degree angle with the armature back. Then I adjust the sculpt as needed. I don't have too long to play with the gizmo though, as being made out of thin cardboard the edges start squishing down and losing their shape fairly quickly.

And here we have my Glorious Goggles, my Reference Point Piece de Resistance. The goggles will help ensure that the eyes will be equidistant from the center line of the head, lie along a line that is at right angles to the center line of the head, and are both set back the same distance into the head. They will also help ensure that the eye bed I sculpt on my head will be parallel to the back of the mask and not tipped forward or back. Plus, if I'm fairly certain that my eye placement is accurate and even, I can use the eyes themselves as further reference points for sculpting the head.

How I made the Glorious Goggles. I've traced the backs of correctly sized eye cabochons onto a piece of thin craft plastic and cut the circles out. I've measured the distance between the eyes on my original resin head, cut down a disposable chopstick I got from Chinese takeout to that length, and carefully hot glued the plastic circles on the ends, lining up the outside edges of the circles with the ends of the chopstick. Then I marked the center of my contraption with a Sharpie. Next, I measured the distance from the armature back to a point a little bit in front of its eyes and cut two more pieces of chopstick to that length, thus making the "arms" of my goggles. I hot glued them on as well, taking care to hold the arms at more or less at a right angle to the front of the goggles until the glue cools. 

Above, beginning to set the glasses into the sculpt. I've started carving out holes into which to insert the arms of the glasses. These holes need to be pretty roomy so they don't force the arms out of their proper alignment. 

Adding a slot to the sculpt, into which I'll set the bridge of the glasses. I insert a skewer through the bridge of the sculpt's nose at the inside corner of each eye, keeping the skewer as perpendicular to the center line as I can. Then I cut a slot into the sculpt by pulling up on the skewer and removing clay along its path as needed with clay tools. 

Above, the glasses have been added. Now just to fill the clay back in around them. It's already easy to see adjustments I need to make to the cheeks and brows, with the right hand brow being raised higher and there being more material on the outside edge of the right eye. 

And, here we have the goggles completely clayed over, with a pair of acrylic eye cabochons resting on top of them, and a more developed sculpt in general. I'm happy to have this pretty solid point of reference in the sculpt, though it also makes me think how sculpting software makes symmetry so effortless!

And, finished eyeballs, along with the reference picture I used. I did two sets like this, one for the grey wolf and another for the grey and black wolf I blogged about here.
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Another set of finished eyeballs, along with the reference picture I used. This will be for the brown and black guy I blogged about here.

​Now, I just need to get some teeth painted, so I can start building some heads!

Above, the finished eyes for "Max", my first fursuit head, along with the reference picture I used. I wanted the eyes for my next head to be pretty much the same color,though I wanted to use strictly acrylic paint this time. I had also used watercolor pencils in Max's eyes to sketch in some details, but found the results to be unpredictable and a little difficult to control.

 It would help if I could remember what colors I had used the first time around! So I got myself a multimedia sketchbook and this time took notes on my experiments. (It's worth noting that the steps in painting eyes on paper is in reverse order to painting eyes on clear resin- on paper you paint the dark background first and work your way up to the ring of color around the pupil; on resin, you'd start with  the ring of color and work to the dark background.)

One downside of having piles of reject resin eyes, however, is that the OCD has free reign and its sufferer feels compelled to paint piles and piles and piles of experimental eyes until one comes out Just Right! The above eyes pretty much have all the same color scheme, but have slightly different styles of brush work.

And finally, the eyes I'm going to use on my next head, painted on sparkly clear bubble free resin eye blanks from Dreamvision Creations. I am pleased with how they came out and can't wait to install them!

The first order of business, however, was to decide on a diameter for the pupil. Anything in the center of the resin eye blank is greatly magnified, so it's good to try out a bunch of different sized pupils to see what looks best, knowing that the actual circle used will be smaller than how it will appear. The Circle Thingy came in handy for this- I put it down over a piece of black construction paper and simply moved the blank over each opening, until I found a size I liked.

I then cut out the circle and folded down one little edge so that I could get it centered in the hole punch, since it won't fit otherwise. I use the target to try to get the hole as close to the middle of the circle as possible. Then I peel the wax paper off the back of my new stencil and carefully position it over the back of the eye before pressing it down firmly. Even though the hole punch has been carefully positioned over the "X", and the stencil may be smack dab in the middle of the eye, the placement of the stencil may still need fiddling- again, any little error is magnified hugely by the center of the eye.

**note** it's best to use the new stencil ASAP after it's made, specifically, it's best to remove the tape promptly from the wax paper, as the longer the tape sits on the paper the more firmly it gets stuck.

 When the paint is dry I remove the stencil. I **do not** use a hair dryer to speed drying as I sometimes do, as I've found it can cause a skin to form between the stencil and the eye, which can make the paint on the eye peel off when I remove the stencil. I scrape off any little spots that managed to get up under the tape anyway with my fingernail. In case of a total disaster, it's possible to wash the paint off the eye and start over again, though it's best to do this sooner rather than later- the paint is easiest to get off  before it has fully cured, usually within 24 hours. And, the finished pupil!

UPDATE 11/15/16: I want to share some good tips I got from Furaffinity, Livejournal and Facebook after I posted this article there. Some suggestions: Try using a paint marker, with a metal washer for a template; use spraypaint or an airbrush to get a better edge with the stencil; use frisket film for the stencil. I had tried to use frisket film previously but the punches can't handle it. However I might try putting the frisket film directly on the eye, drawing the circle on the film and cutting away the hole from there with an exacto knife.

 

So I decided I was done experimenting with new ways of painting eyes and was ready to buckle down and concentrate on getting some good bubble free castings to paint. In theory it looked simple: make sure Part A is comfortably warm to the touch, microwaving if necessary; gently mixing the proper amounts of Part A and Part B together; letting them rest a preordained time in their mixing cup, then scooping off the bubbles which should have obediently risen to the top; pouring the mix gently down one side of the mold to minimize new bubbles; and then checking the casting once or twice during the first twenty minutes of setting to pop any more bubbles that dutifully would come to the surface.

First mistake: not getting part A warm enough, so that the mix would be too thick for any bubbles formed while stirring to rise up and pop. If Part A was too cold, bubbles were also more likely to form while stirring in the first place.

Second mistake: getting part A too warm. The mix would be beautifully bubble free in the mixing cup, but new bubbles would form no matter how gently I poured down one side of the mold and then the mix would set too fast to allow these bubbles to rise up to the top and pop.

Third mistake: mixing the part A and part B as little as possible, so that there would be no bubbles but there would also be unmixed spots in the casting. These would not cure but would remain soft and sticky no matter what.

At first the owner of Little Windows was a huge help and spent much time by phone and email helping me work out my problems. Her first suggestion was to let the mix stand in the cup as long as necessary for the bubbles to rise to the top before pouring into the mold. This, unfortunately, never happened. Her next suggestion was to adjust the microwave in increments of seconds to see what time worked best for getting the right temperature, but unfortunately my ancient microwave does not have this capability. Her next suggestion was to wipe down my mold with rubbing alcohol or acetone so that bubbles would not stick to its surface and rise more easily after the resin was poured. Unfortunately I found the only thing this did was introduce yet another opportunity to get lint in the mold. She felt bad that I had used up an entire kit without getting a single bubble free casting and sent me a new replacement kit free of charge. Then, she stopped returning my calls and emails.

However...I had piles and piles of bubbly castings, so I decided to keep the ones that had cured properly and use them later to try out new eye painting ideas. I put them all in a plastic baggie and set them on a shelf... and a month later, they had all yellowed. So that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of that.

I briefly considered making eyes out of other kinds of resin, but rumor has it that Easy Cast, another commonly used resin, is hit or miss in the curing department and also yellows over time, and Smooth On's Crystal Clear- what Dreamvision Creations uses for its eyes- is somewhat toxic and as such is not suitable for a home studio. (Plus, when I asked about it, they told me they also use a vacuum chamber to make sure the castings come out bubble free!) When I called Smooth On's excellent tech department to ask what clear casting resin would be suitable to use in a home environment, they recommended Epoxacast 690, with the caveat that the two parts were fussy to mix and I would need a scale that could measure down to 1/100 of a gram. If I do go back to trying to cast my own eyes, this will be the material I start with. However I decided I had spent enough time chasing this rabbit down the hole and I needed to get back to what I was most interested in in the first place: making masks.
I write my tale of woe here so that either a) you my dear reader can either learn from my mistakes and perhaps achieve a bubble free casting where I could not or b) save yourself a lot of time, money and aggravation and proceed directly to Etsy to buy a pair of blank bubble free resin eyes to paint for yourself. Which is what I ultimately wound up doing.