Sans Souci Studios
Follow us on Facebook!
  • Home
  • Gallery
    • Fursuit Heads and Partials
    • Paper Mache Masks 2000- 2014
  • Blog
  • About
    • About
    • Embarking on the Road to Furry Fandom
  • Contact
  • Thanks to Our Supporters!

Trying to get a head of things, a tale of woe

12/1/2022

0 Comments

 

​I started making this video in August, thinking I'd use it to review and assess my sculpt before going on vacation. I was imagining plugging the sculpt into my subconscious this way and mulling over it while out in the woods camping, returning to it inspired and reinvigorated. That's not what happened, as you might guess. I started flailing in the middle of this video, sculpting and resculpting the area around the eyes and the top of the nose, but not making any significant improvements. I think this flailing happens when the subconscious realizes something is off but conscious awareness can't yet put it into words and express it clearly as a problem to solve. 

I've been flailing with this blog post too, working on it on and off since August. I kept thinking I'd found The Problem with my sculpt and wanted to unveil The Solution here with great fanfare, along with the clever thinking that led to its discovery. But every time I set out to write this post I only found myself with more questions. Soooo.... I present to you here, The State of The Problem at this Moment, and The Steps I have Taken to Solve It So Far. I leave the Grand Conclusion for another post, hopefully one that I will write in the Near Future. Right now I feel like I just need to get something written!
​
​The common wisdom is that a sculpt, simply put, starts by establishing the relationships of the largest, most basic shapes to each other, then progresses to defining the relationships of smaller and smaller shapes within those big ones. The most common mistake a beginning sculptor makes, according to this wisdom, is working on fun little details before correctly establishing these big basic shapes. I wondered if this could be my problem.
Three dimensional art can be slippery though, as the points of reference that establish where those shapes begin and end can seem to shift in relation to each other, especially as the sculpt is viewed from different angles. So I tried to find reliable, easily reproducible viewpoints from which to establish my points of reference, one being a 90 degree side profile, and others being straight on from the top and  straight on to the underside. I might go into the latter two views in another post, but in this one, I'll stick with the 90 degree profile.
Picture
furry wolf resin base sculpt in progress







​ Here we have 90 degree side profile views of the wolf in my reference pic and the August 20 version of my wolf head base sculpt, the last one pictured in my slideshow. Now how to define those larger shapes, and the reference points where they begin and end? How to see where these shapes might be off, and find what's wrong with my sculpt?
 
  









These outlines give a basis for comparison for three big shapes in the two heads: the forehead/back of head; the muzzle; and the transitional area between them, which includes the brow ridge and the bridge of the nose. My first impression from these outlines is that the middle section on my sculpt is too long.















​If I overlap the pictures in GIMP, it appears the muzzle needs to be shortened and the forehead lengthened as well.














Picture
furry wolf resin base sculpt in progress
Picture
furry wolf resin base sculpt in progress
Picture
 




​Here's another way of looking at the profile of my sculpt, this time individually outlining the brow ridge and the bridge of nose, instead of smoothing them out into one line as I had done previously.  The difference is subtle, but when these two photos are overlapped in GIMP, it makes the muzzle on my sculpt look even more in need of shortening.







 











​​
The question that comes to my mind now is, where will the ears- one of the biggest reference points of all- be placed on the base when a head is actually assembled? It's difficult to visualize now, as the ears are not a part of this sculpt and will be added later when the head is actually put together and furred. The placement of the ears could very much effect the apparent length of the forehead. If the ears were to be placed behind the back edge of the base, as they often are in furry head construction, the forehead could look **way** too long, and the muzzle **too short** in comparison, instead of too long the way the pictures above have led me to believe.

​Let's take a look...

furry wolf resin base sculpt in progress
Wow, placing that ear at the back of the head would make that muzzle look short and the forehead **really** long!! Now here's the point at which I second guess myself  and wind up running and screaming back to the drawing board!! Away I go!!!
​
Stay tuned!!
0 Comments

Points of Reference

6/7/2022

0 Comments

 
Half Arnold and full Arnold Armature by Monster Makers
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.
sculpting a fursuit wolf head base in plasticine
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.
making a template for the back of a wolf head fursuit base
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.
sculpting a wolf head fursuit base in plasticine
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.
making reference points for eyes for a fursuit wolf head base
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. 
adding reference points for eyes on a wolf head fursuit base
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. 
Picture
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. 
adding reference points for eyes on a wolf head fursuit base
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. 
wolf head base for fursuit in progress
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!
0 Comments

New wolf head base progress!!

5/9/2022

0 Comments

 
fursuit wolf head base in progress
Here is my progress so far. The white mask on the left is a resin cast of the original wolf head base, the tan one on the right is the resculpt in progress. I learned a lot from making four different masks from this original head, and I want to apply what I learned to the new sculpt. 

Tangentially, I must say, using the stacked yogurt containers to support the masks on the armatures was a stroke of genius. I have a zillion of them that I've been saving to mix resin in, and by adding just one more yogurt container to the stack I can adjust the support by just fractions of inches. I can make the support pretty much exactly the height I need. 

Anyway. I have several objectives for this new sculpt. One is to lengthen the area under the lower jaw. It's already easy to see how much longer this area is on the new sculpt. I found I had to build this out with foam on the original so it would rest properly under a wearer's chin. The jaw of the mask won't open and close properly if it doesn't,  plus it's just more comfortable and secure that way. I can save time (and potentially, earn more money per hour!) if I eliminate the extra step of having to build this out on each individual mask. 

Another objective is to build back the crown of the mask so it balances on the top of the wearer's head better. I had to build up this area on the original with foam to make it do this. If I didn't, the balance of the mask would shift forward, making it more likely to slide  down the wearer's face. Another extra step to get rid of! If you look at the pics above, you can see the top (the area between the eyebrows and the back of the mask) of the resculpt is longer, although the two masks appear to rest on the same place on the armature. That's because the clay is built up an inch or two thick inside the resculpt to keep it from squishing, and the face on the armature doesn't entirely fit into it.

A third objective is to build up a flat area on either side of the mask onto which to attach the hinges. My original sculpt didn't have this, and the hinges would pop out at all kinds of crazy angles unless I built up said flat area out of epoxy to prevent it. I bet you can guess what I'm thinking: Get rid of that extra step! Again, the flat area I'm developing is pretty easy to see in the photos.
fursuit wolf head base in progress
One last thing! I also acquired this nifty new half face armature! Doesn't it bear a passing resemblance to Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back? It should be a lot easier to use in mold making. It also helps keep the back edge of the mask flat and even, and serves as a reliable reference for judging angles and measuring distance.  As in, is the schnozz at ninety degrees to the armature, or does it cant off at an angle? Are the corners of the eye sockets at the same distance from the armature? And so on and so forth. It's harder to see what the mask would look like being worn on this armature, but it's easy enough to pop the sculpture off and put it on the original full bust to see. Especially if you have lots of yogurt containers lying around with which to prop it up!
0 Comments

Feat of Foam, Part II

3/25/2022

0 Comments

 
foam handpaw for fursuit
I think....

​
foam handpaw for fursuit
...that I...

​
foam handpaw for fursuit
...might have just finished this paw. And I'm very pleased with myself. 
foam handpaw for fursuit







And if not, well.... In case you didn't know, that's the canine equivalent of your index, you know, middle finger!!!













​
OK, backing up a little bit and telling the tale from the beginning.
reference picture for canine paw
reference picture for canine paw
It all started with these pictures, my favorite reference pics out of stacks and stacks of pics for dog feet. The pic of the tan dog foot is especially useful as it's relatively easy to see the bony structure underneath the skin.
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit
Using my handy dandy Artograph projector, I enlarged tracings of these two pictures, one for the bottom of the paw and one for the top, to the size I wanted my finished handpaw to be. These would be my "master patterns" and I would use them to trace out smaller parts of the pattern....
cutting out patterns for a fursuit handpaw
cutting out patterns for a fursuit handpaw
....like so Here are patterns for individual toes and pads, traced from the "master patterns" using the light table and cut out.
I had actually started using these patterns before I started the clay feet I blogged about earlier, but I then I hit a snag and at the time couldn't figure out how to get around it.  
sketching a pattern for a handpaw for a fursuit





​

​Previously, I had also made a master pattern for the side of the foot.

​I used this side pattern to carve out toes.  I used the bottom pattern to make the bottom of the foot, with the pads and toebeans glued  in the appropriate places.  I used the top pattern to make a piece just from the wrist to the knuckles and invented a piece to fill in the sides. I glued it all together and... 
an ugly fursuit handpaw attempt
Yuck. This looks more like a hoof than a paw. There's the question, what to do with the space between the fingers? How to make this work as a glove? The fingers here are all separate pieces but they're all attached to a one piece underside. How would the fingers move?  (I could figure this out now, but this doesn't change the fact this paw is just plain old ugly.)
 a cute cat with an ugly fursuit handpaw attempt


(Awww, poor unwanted ugly paw, Trixie will give it some love.)








a handpaw for a fursuit made of foam
foam fingers for a handpaw
That's when I switched over to making and taking patterns from the clay feet, coming up with this "tubular" style of toes in the process. Here we have our friend the foam foot from my previous post, made from the enlarged and refined clay foot pattern, along with a selection of unattached toes and toebeans, showing off their tubular style. 
But then, as it so often happens, just as I was ready to tweak the sizing a little bit and then call it done, I got very excited about how cool the palmar pad for this foot looked, carefully carved and patterned the way it was. Then I got the itch to do the fingers that way too. I could carve knuckles! And tendons! How cool would that be??
palmar pad pattern for a fursuit handpaw


Here's a refresher ​I​n case you're wondering what a palmar pad is, it's that large pad on the underside of a dog's front paw. Here is my carved foam palmar pad (the thing that looks a little like a yellow fried egg) the pattern I made from it, and a test version sewn from the pattern. It's beautiful, trust me.
foam handpaw for fursuit
foam handpaw for fursuit
 Here, the foam foot with the original tubular toes torn off and replaced with carved toes. The potential  is clear, but at least for me, carving each toe out of a single piece of foam made it easy for proportions and proper placement of various parts to get out of whack.

​I decided to try out a combination of carving, using the "tubular toes", and tracing and cutting out parts from my original patterns, thus coming up with this most recent foam foot. Here's a little demonstration of my method, making a random toe.
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
 First, using the patterns pictured at the beginning of this post and a sheet of 1/2" thick foam, I traced and cut out out two finger pieces and one knuckle piece and glued them into a stack. I inserted a claw shaped piece of cosplay foam in the end of the finger to mark the placement of the nail. I then used a pattern piece from my previous foam foot attempt and glued it underneath my finger/knuckle stack for the "tube", leaving an opening for the toebean. I then started to give the whole thing a little shape with scissors and an Exacto knife.  
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Next, toebeans. Using my patterns again, I traced and cut out toebeans from the cosplay foam and some  1" thick sheet foam. I glued the cosplay foam into the end of the "tube", being careful to check my reference pics to get it aligned correctly and  at the proper angle inside the toe. (Be sure to line up the tip of the toebean wth the claw!) I then  glued the 1" foam toeabean in, using the cosplay foam toebean as a base.  Using a Sharpie, I sketched out the side of the toebean on the 1" foam and gave it some shape with my scissors and Exacto knife.   
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Now, to  give the top of the toe a little bit more of a curve. Again I used my patterns to trace out just the half of the knuckle nearest the claw, and just the part of the finger underneath the knuckle. I tapered both pieces with the Exacto knife so they would be thickest around the knuckle and thinnest towards either end of the finger, and glued them into the appropriate spots on the "stack". Then I shaped them a little with my scissors and Exacto knife. 

​Using the patterns like this takes a lot of the guesswork out of the placement of the different parts, such as knuckles and toebeans.
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
The outline of the knuckle was getting a little  lost with all the layering and trimming, so I made the outline clearer by curving a thin piece of foam around it, gluing the foam down, and trimming the top a little to blend it in.   
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
Now to give the underside of the toe a little bit more of a curve. (I'm sorry but that first picture looks really rude!) With a Sharpie, I marked where I wanted the curve to be, cut a slit along that line, pulled one edge of the slit under the other and glued it down.  A curve, tada!
carving a finger out of foam for a handpaw
And here, our finished demonstration toe. I continued to refine the toes on the handpaw adding little pieces of foam and carving them down to get them just right, but this toe does get the basic process across. 

Now to start taping this foam foot and making the pattern for a fabric foot! So excited!
a fursuit handpaw made of foam
0 Comments

Feat of Clay

11/4/2021

0 Comments

 
I have two goals in mind here. One to make my own handpaw pattern. The second is to use this really cool technique furry how-to goddess Matrices describes in this tutorial, in which a small clay model is made, a pattern is taken from the model, and the pattern is enlarged to the proper size with an overhead projector. I have fantasies of selling said pattern as a download, and maybe any actual handpaws I make with it too. I have been told that the furry world could use another good feral handpaw pattern and that there's probably untapped market demand there. Charge!

dog paw for fursuit handpaw design

But first, a flashback to our previous post! ​Here is a photo of previous guest's Sadie Rae's paw. Very basic observation here- the foot,  viewed from the side, is largely oval in shape. Both of the top and the bottom of the paw have a curve to them. This is not a difficult concept, not in theory anyway. Shouldn't be too difficult to sculpt, right? (Cues theme from "Jaws"....)

Attempt Number One

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
For this first attempt I tried making a rough paw shaped chunk of clay and carving toebeans out of the bottom and knuckles and toes out of the top. This sculpt has a lot of problems but the worst in my mind is that the toebeans and palmar pad all wound up on the same plane, parallel to the wrist, making the paw look stiff and unnatural. 

Attempt Number Two

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
For this second attempt, I tried to make the angles of the toe bottoms more natural. Closer, but not there yet. The top of the foot also  leaves a lot to be desired, looking like a featureless cube of clay, especially when viewed from the top.

Attempt Number Three

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Attempt number three, when viewed from the side, has a little more of that oval shape we're going for. The top of this foot also looks more shaped and natural than those in the previous two. However it also looks a little squished and disproportionate. When viewed from the top, the toes look too long and the back of the paw too short.  

Attempt Number Four

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Attempt number four features... an armature! What a concept! Underneath the clay the armature looks like a little wire tree, with the trunk for the wrist and palm and four branches for the toes. The armature helps to hold the parts of the foot in place, keep them from getting squished out of shape, and maintain the correct proportions.  The wire also makes it easier to bend the toes into the proper position without breaking them off.  I'm happier with this foot, but I can't help but think the back of the paw looks a little swollen, like it was stung by a bee.

Final Attempt

clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
​This group of photos shows a slightly earlier version of the last paw undergoing some last minute edits. The first photo  shows the foot being checked against a favorite reference pic, and the second photo shows a tracing of this earlier version being checked against a superimposed tracing of the reference pic. (I especially love this tracing as it really shows how the two outer toes on a dog's foot are different sizes, with the "pointer" toe being larger than the "pinky" toe.) The third pic shows the finished foot, after all the edits have ben made. 
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
clay model for a fursuit handpaw
Above, a turnaround of this last paw, looking a little worse for wear from the pattern making process. (More on that later!) This paw is also built on an armature, similar to that in attempt number four. ​ Perhaps more improvements can be made on this foot but at this point I was thoroughly sick of clay feet and wanted to get on with it. Charge!
clay model for a fursuit handpaw and a cat
0 Comments

Lips!

5/26/2021

0 Comments

 
mold boxes for casting fursuit lips and teeth


​Looking over my photos on my Facebook page I realized I had wanted to do a post about making lips for my masks but forgot! So here goes!

The snaky looking thing in the long moldbox on the right hand side of this pic is my first attempt at a lip for my resin wolf head. I sculpted it pretty straight because that's how I had seen other lips sculpted  online. Silly me.
silicone lip on a resin fursuit wolf head that does not fit
silicone lip on a fursuit resin wolf head that does not fit
Above, trying to fit a silicone cast of this straight lip on my mask. You can see how it gaps underneath, between the lower edge of the lip and the jaw. No good.
 gluing a slilicone lip to a resin fursuit wolf head
Above, trying to glue the new lip on. I think that pile of clamps might be trying to tell me something.... 
pattern for a lip for a fursuit resin wolf head
making a pattern for a lip for a fursuit resin wolf head
Making a pattern for a more fitted lip. The green thing above is Frog Tape stuck to aluminum foil. I pressed a piece around the lower jaw, sketched the shape of the lip on it, and cut it out. I then made it symmetrical by folding it in half in the middle and trimming it so the two sides would match. Then I tried out the new shape back on the head (above), trimming and fiddling until I was happy with it.
sculpting a  lip for a resin fursuit wolf head
sculpting a lip for a resin fursuit wolf head
Here I've built the lip up in Monster Clay. It's built right on top of the pattern thingy, stuck on around the edges with a little more Monster Clay, so I can fairly easily remove and reapply the lip to the mask or adjustments as needed. 
lip sculpts for a resin fursuit wolf head
Above, the two clay lips next to each other for comparison. The new lip is on the bottom. Very different shapes. 
gluing a silicone lip to a resin fursuit wolf head
gluing a silicone lip on a resin fursuit wolf head
Gluing silicone casts of the new lip in place. Not so many clamps needed this time! (The rubber bands here are actually serving as clamps here too.) I tried using Weldbond instead of hot glue, as Weldbond is theoretically stronger and doesn't leave those lumpy ridges when it dries. Weldbond takes about 24 hours to fully cure, hence the clamps. It did a good job, but I'm not sure it does enough of a better job to justify the long wait time. 
silicone lip on a resin fursuit wolf head
silicone lip on a resin fursuit wolf head
And, the new lips freshly installed. Wheee!!
0 Comments

In Pursuit of Pointy, and In Search of Squishy

3/27/2018

1 Comment

 
To date I've purchased teeth from other craftspeople to use in my masks, but I've always really wanted to make my own. Below, a pile of attempts made over the past couple of years, made with Monster Clay (a kind of plasticine), Super Sculpey and Apoxie Sculpt.(Skully is supervising. He is a very helpful skull.) A whole lotta nope right here.
jawset sculpting teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
I finally settled on the Monster Clay for making the prototype teeth. I got tired of waiting for the other two to dry and/or set up in between sculpting sessions, and I got REALLY tired of trying to smooth out the hardened model with sandpaper or a Dremel. Monster Clay can be frozen to make it very hard and  can be softened with a hairdryer or microwave or such to make it very soft, so it is adaptable for a variety of sculpting situations. It also smooths beautifully using rubbing alcohol or its more powerful big brother, isopropyl myristate.
sculpting jawset teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
sculpting jawset teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
First, I made "plates" for both the upper and lower jaw, making sure they fit comfortably inside the resin head. Then, using Skully and reference pictures I found online, I sketched the placement of the teeth on the "plates". Using a lightbox, I then checked to see how the teeth on the upper and lower jaw would line up with each other (left). These would serve as "templates" for the jawset.
 
teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask
sculpting jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask





Now it's time to start sculpting! Left, rechecking the template in the lower jaw.





























​Gum line built up (and though it's hard to see) tooth placement traced in from the template.  
sculpting jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask
​



​Actual teeth taking shape. The whole thing is built on a thick piece of cardboard, so I can take it in and out of the mask's mouth without squishing it. Not too badly, anyway.
  
sculpting jawset teeth in resin wolf head fursuit mask
Above, looking to see how the lower part of the jawset is shaping up when viewed from the side. The teeth are just loosely stuck down to the gums at this point, so I can easily move them around if I need to.
sculpting jawset teeth in resin fursuit wolf head mask



​Now for the upper jaw. Left, checking the template for the upper teeth inside the resin head, using Skully and photos for reference.
sculpting jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head maskPicture


​Gumline built up, roof of mouth roughed out, and tooth placement traced in, using the template. 
sculpting jawset teeth for resin wolf head fursuit


​And, roof of the mouth more refined, and actual teeth taking shape.
 
sculpting jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask
sculpting jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask.
And tada! Above, a finished Monster Clay plasticine model, ready for molding. Silly me, little did I realize that this would be the first of three finished jawsets I would mold. Sucks being a perfectionist.
Sculpting tongue and jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask
sculpting tongue and jawset for resin fursuit wolf head mask
Above, beginning the molding process, and a tongue while I'm at it. The jawset has been firmly attached to a thin piece of plywood, which will serve as a mold board. Every little gap between the model and the mold board is filled in, as otherwise the mold rubber could find its way under the model, and float the model up on top of it while it's curing. Which would not make a very good mold at all.
making molds of jawset teeth for resin fursuit wolf head mask
mixing silicone mold rubber
Left, making molds! I've used cheap Tupperware type containers for the mold boxes, attaching them to the mold boards with hot glue and cutting openings out of the bottoms for pouring in the rubber. 
pouring silicone mold rubber over jawset teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
mixing resin for making jawset teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
​And, casting resin into the new molds to make teeth! Wheee!!! 
Picture
cast resin teeth jawset for fursuit wolf head mask
 

sculpting teeth jawset for resin wolf head fursuit mask

Above, getting ready to revise the jawset. Did I mention how I did this three times? Seriously though, it's easier to check the fit of the teeth in the head when they're in hard resin and not squishable clay. Above, a set of resin teeth that has been Dremelled down to fit the head better, and another set of clay teeth made by pouring melted Monster Clay into the mold, called a "borrowed casting". It's much easier to tweak the teeth from a borrowed casting than trying to make a whole new set from scratch. (If I wasn't such a chicken, I could have also resculpted my original set of clay teeth. But I wanted to keep them the way they were for extra insurance.) 
sculpting teeth jawset for resin fursuit wolf head mask
sculpting teeth jawset for resin fursuit wolf head mask
Above, revisions. To the right in both pictures is the original sculpt, still on the moldboard. In the middle is a modified resin casting, and to the left is the resculpted "borrowed casting". This first go round I removed the "flare" thingy from the bottom jaw, as it only really served to complicate fitting it into the resin head. I also made the plate for the upper jaw more symmetrical. You can see how the original sculpt has a bigger "bulge" on the left hand side than the right. Why did I do this, you may ask. Well, I was using a reject resin head casting to fit the teeth in, and I forgot that the resin on one side of the muzzle was much thicker than that on the other so.... in order to center the teeth in the opening, the plate had to be a lot wider on one side. Definitely not going to be the case with the average resin head! Fortunately I realized this before I got too much further into this process!  A great big duh, but could have been a much bigger duh.
resin teeth jawset for fursuit wolf head mask
resin jawsets teeth for fursuit wolf head mask
Above, showing all three sets of revised teeth. The top set is the first one, the middle is the second and the set on the bottom is the final version. Besides changing the "plate" as described earlier, I did a lot of playing with the front incisors. I refined them in the second set but then realized I had also made the top ones too small, so I made them bigger in the third set. After re-checking my reference pictures of real wolves I also decided the gum area above the front incisors also needed to be longer, so I also changed that in the third set. I also did a lot of fiddling with the area circled in yellow in the right hand picture, with the way those particular teeth came together. The top incisor right next to the large bottom canine also underwent a fair bit of refinement.
nose and tongue for fursuit wolf head resin mask





Last but not least, a freshly textured nose and tongue, ready for moldmaking.
molding nose and teeth jawset for resin fursuit wolf head mask with legos
And since I had spent so much time fiddling with the teeth, I decided to fiddle with the mold making method as well. At the suggestion of an acquaintance I made my next set of mold boxes out of Legos instead of Tupperware containers, so I could get the mold boxes precisely the size I needed them and save molding rubber. Molding rubber is expensive. They don't call it "platinum cure silicone" for nothing. (A good source of cheap used Legos is bricklink.com.)
making molds for fursuit parts with lego bricks
molding parts for fursuit heads using lego bricks
The rubber curing and then  being removed from the Lego mold boxes. I sealed all the little gaps between the bricks with Sonite Wax **except** the one between the first row and the mold board, with the results seen below on the left. Brain cramp!! Little rubber Lego bricks! Fortunately the hot glue attaching the Lego mold  box to the mold board kept the leak from getting out of hand, the worst effect being I didn't have quite the thickness of rubber I would have liked around the model at the top of the mold. 
molding parts for fursuit heads using lego bricks
 






​In the home stretch! Right, casting a nose and some teeth in the new molds.
casting parts for resin fursuit wolf head mask
casting parts for fursuit resin heads out of silicone and resin
silicone rubber fursuit nose and tongue parts for resin head
Above, the nose and tongue models with their squishy rubber counterparts. Wheee!!!
silicone rubber nose for fursuit wolf head
Checking out the fit of the rubber nose in a resin head. Lookin' good! The resin head on the right wants a rubber nose too. 
cast noses tongues teeth jawset parts for resin fursuit heads
fursuit head parts teeth jawset tonges noses silicone resin
And above, a pile o' puppy parts, ready for maskmaking!! I'm feeling good about the results of my endeavors here. Time to think about colors for fur!!
1 Comment

Eyebrows

10/14/2011

0 Comments

 
Last month, evil little voices began whispering in my ear and telling me that the deer mask needed big, bushy eyebrows. I stood firm and didn't give in, as next they'd be asking for hairy ears, but I did begin to wonder, maybe the eyebrows did need *something*. Here's the mask with the eyebrows in question:
Picture

The first thing I did was to print out the above photo and sketch over the then-current eyebrows with a blue highlighter, to see more clearly what I already had (below.) First thing I noticed was that the eyebrows were asymmetrical. Not that that's a big issue, I think most eyebrows are asymmetrical, but it gave me a place to begin my explorations.
Picture
Below, two sketches with symmetrical eyebrows, one with the "left hand" style of eyebrow, and the other with the "right hand" style. I didn't like either of these.
Picture
Picture

Maybe it was the smooth, unwrinkled skin on the forehead between the eyebrows that was bothering me? I tried sketching wrinkles in between the eyebrows, but I didn't like them either.
Picture
Not sure where to go from here, I decided to hit the books. Below is one of my all time favorite reference books in my mask library. It's informative, easy to use, and beautifully illustrated.
Picture
Below are illustrations for the muscles responsible for thunderous eyebrows, the corrugator (the two little arms over the eyebrows) and the procerus (the muscle over the nose.)
Picture
Below, the actions of the corrugator and the procerus illustrated. To quote from the above book, "...the eyebrow lowers, especially the inner third...The eyebrows move closer together. A cashew shaped lump appears at the inner end of the eyebrow, with a curved, vertical crease along its inside edge (a), the "frown line". A small, crescent shaped dimple appears (b), above the middle of the eyebrow. This is where the muscle attaches to the skin and so becomes a low spot when the muscle contracts......"
Picture

I decided I needed to work on my (a) frownline and my (b) dimple. (I toyed with playing with the (c) vertical fold over the eyelid and the (d) hollow at the inner corner of the eye, but that would have meant changing the shape of the eyes more than I wanted to.) So I resculpted the eyebrows and went from this:
Picture

To this. I've emphasized the dimples and clarified and moved the frown lines more into the center. I've also tried to show how the muscle pulls the skin and bunches it up over the nose, spending many hours making faces at myself in the mirror and examining the wrinkles to do so! 
Picture
Below, a picture of the entire mask with its new eyebrows. I really like how the pattern of wrinkles in the center of the forehead echoes the shapes of the tines over them.
Picture

Now, I am really and truly in the home stretch with this mask. With any luck, my next post will show pictures of it finished!
0 Comments

Almost There

9/14/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
The deer mask is almost there! Here it is in its current state. As you can see, the mask has more detail and a smoother surface texture than it did in the previous post. I made lips, eyelids, wrinkles, etc with a layer of Paperclay, and filled smaller irregularities with a layer of Polyfilla. Both of these materials sand beautifully, and the Paperclay can be carved, albiet gently, with Dremel alumium oxide grinding stones, on a low speed.

Below, the mask with initial applications of Paperclay and Polyfilla.
Picture
Below, with eyebrows and other details sculpted in, and antlers removed. Due to the complexity of their shape, the antlers need to be removable and replaceable for both moldmaking and casting.
Picture
At this point, I decided I didn't like the ears, and started resculpting them. I wanted the base of the ear to be longer and thicker, the tips to be thinner and more refined, and the openings to be further away from the head.

Below, the antlers in their newly removable state, attached with screws. You can see the scorch marks from the Dremel from when I cut them off initially. The ears are also more refined.
Picture
Next step, to get the antlers on straight and even again! Somehow the antler on the right side has sagged noticeably in this process, sigh.
Picture
Good thing I get so much moral support from studio assistant Ezzy.
Picture
0 Comments

Deer Antlers Part 2

3/19/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here's the deer mask back in June. I felt pleased and thought all I needed to do was smooth and refine the antlers a little.

Ha, ha.
Picture
While I worked on bunny masks and looked at the deer mask just sitting on my workbench for the next several months, I realized the distance from the center of the mask to the tip of one antler was almost twice as far as to the other. Some asymmetry in deer antlers is to be expected, but not this much. Not cool.
Picture
So I cut the antler between the innermost and the three outermost tines and rotated the whole thing out a little. Not surprisingly, while the tip of the antler is more properly positioned, the tines are now tilted too far back. I stapled wads of tinfoil to the antler to use as an armature for new improved tines.
Picture
Picture
Then I took a photo of the mask, which I printed out and folded in half to check the relative positions of the two antlers to each other. The bottom edge of the left hand antler obviously need work, but otherwise, so far, so good.

Then I covered the new tines with Celluclay, cut off the old ones, and refined the rest of the antler a little bit.
Picture
I got rid of the lump on the underside of the left hand antler and...
Picture
Picture
OMG! How could I not have noticed before that the tip of the right ear is at least a half an inch higher than the left ear?? So I carved the bottom edge of the antler up a little...
Picture
... and brought up the edge of the left ear.
Picture
And here's where we are for the moment.

But wait, look, the second outermost tine on the right hand antler is about an inch longer than its conterpart on the left.... AAAGGGGHHHH!!!!
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    I make masks. Because art is more fun when you put it on your head.

    Categories

    All
    A Day In The Life
    Airbrushing
    Artemis
    Casting
    Cat Masks
    Color Design
    Deer Mask
    Ears
    Eyes
    Fur
    Garm
    Handpaws
    Head Base
    Horse/unicorn Masks
    Jawsets
    Lips
    Maxine
    Methods And Materials
    Moldmaking
    Moving Jaw
    Noses
    Painting
    Paper Mache
    Patterning
    Photography
    Rabbit Masks
    Resin
    Rip
    Sculpting
    Sewing
    Shaving And Trimming
    Silas
    Silicone
    Strapping
    Studio Announcements
    Tails
    Tongues
    Videos
    Wolf Masks

    Archives

    October 2021
    September 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    July 2020
    November 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    August 2014
    June 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    June 2010
    October 2009
    September 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    February 2008
    June 2007
    April 2007

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly