Casting of the Twins - wip

[Phrubruh]

Probably like alot of you, I was unable to find the walmart exclusive separations of the twins . I know the walmarts around me have active scalpers that have back door deals with stock boys. Most of the time stuff doesn't even make it to the floor.

Anyway, I'm wondering if someone has opened the twins and is willing to allow me to cast them.

[Jayson]

I'll offer mine up for you... just pm me your address. 

[Phrubruh]

pm sent.

[jedipurge]

intrested in getting any of your casts?  yes i am.  sorry if i asked the question for you.  but i didn't get my hands on the twins either.

[don]

Master_Phruby I PM'd you.

Being stuck in Iraq with the US army I missed the twin exclusives and would love a cast...

[Phrubruh]

Cool. I think I'll turn this thread into a work in progress thread with an eye on casting techniques. I'm very new at casting parts. I've only done a few heads and guns. Most of my heads looked like Dr. Evazan. So with a little guidance from you guys, we can end up with some lumps of plastic that kind of look like twin babies and learn how to cast in the process.

[BrentS]

I'll post some of my newbie casting photos from this weekend too!

[Jesse James]

Are you demolding them too early Paul?  Make sure cure times are long enough that the figure's hardened completely...  I've got a couple Evazan wannabe's from my early work too.  I keep them around just for test-painting.

[Phrubruh]

I probably am demolding too soon. I got to learn patience.

[Glassman6]

I'm glad you are getting into casting Phruby. You'll see that it will advance your cutomizing greatly.

I'm always available for Questions if you wanna PM me.

I actually offended you havent asked me any questions yet.
Not that i'm an expert, but i'm willing to pass on any info i've learned through my experiences, or what was taught to me.

Have you checked this out yet?

[Phrubruh]

Thats a great tutorial Greg. I'm going to follow it and ask lots as questions when the twins arrive from jedijaybird. I know the local Michaels really doesn't have those brands of silcone rubber compound. In fact, they don't have much of anything. I did buy some silcone rubber and some casting  material and activator. I'll have to check what stuff I have. Where do you buy your materials?

[Glassman6]

Silicones come from Smoothon dot com, and Plastics from polytek dot com.

To start, you could try the same method i did with the witchblade parts, but use laytex. So you can get that from the art store.
Coat half the baby(plastic luke or leia, not rose  )  with laytex rubber. Then fill the mold box half way with laytex and then place the baby in it.
This way the laytex will get into all the crevases and then when you place it into the mold box in the other rubber, you wont need to worry about air bubbles. 

THis is how i do my coins. 

[BrentS]

I've gotten some silicone from Smooth On (at Glassman's recommendation) and it works great.  They were superfast shipping too.

[Phrubruh]

Ok. The stuff I got from Michaels is Castin' Craft Mold Builder - Liquid Latex rubber. I guess you are suppost to put on layer after layer of this stuff. The casting resin I have is Castin'Craft Clear liquid plastic casting resin. I also have the catalyst for this stuff. Should I go with this stuff or something else?

[BrentS]

I've used both products.  The latex is okay for making molds but I find the process very very tedious.  There is a good tutorial over at FFURG for latex (I'm pretty sure thats where I saw it). 

I absolutely hated the Castin resin.  The problem is the amount of catalyst you need to add depends on the thickness of the piece you are casting.  I never could get the ratios right.  I'm much much happier with the resin I'm using which is a strict A+B equal volume kind.  I got CR-300 (from Micromark I believe).

Plus the Castin resin has an awful ammonia smell.  Blah.