Hi everyone,
I thought I would start a new thread to showcase this area of this art skill. I have only started to work with wax just this past two months or so and have adapted to it like fish to water. First let me show you my workstation.
And here is a close up of the tools used to work with the wax.
I use a soldering iron with a modified tip to melt the wax and drip on wax to the wax sculpt and also used to remove large amount of wax flashing left over from the wax casting process. The rest of the tools are various carving instruments used to scrape away excess wax. It turns out the wax I get from Bantha5 can be worked with clay shaping tools so I did not have to invest in a new set of tools. Any chance to save a few bucks is always welcomed.
Now lets have a see at what I have been working on for the past month or so. First up is a collection of Alien heads I have made wax casts of for fine detailing. I still have 5 more heads to make molds of to round out wave 1 of alien heads. Here is a sneak peak at what they look like:
These are in various stages of progression. The Minbari head is almost done. I will be posting more detailed wax head shots as they are finished.
Next up is my masterpiece in progress. You have all seen the clay sculpt of her in different parts sculpted on various cast resin pieces. I am referring to my Gargan figure that I start back in December. Even though I finished the sculpt of the figure over a month ago, it could not see it assembled until now thanks to casting parts in wax. Now you too can see for the first time the assembled Gargan figure:
She is still a work in progress. I found that I had many corrections to make such as air bubble from imperfect molds, and much needed modifications after articulation was designed. Here is a pic showing all the parts that make up the Gargan:
It was after putting in the articulation that I had to make changes to my initial sculpt. For example, I made the arms to wide for proper articulation, so I had to slim them down, also the boobs were not angled correctly when the torso is sitting on the skirt so that had to be changed. Then there was the hollowing out the headdress and skirt. Based on some recommendations, I decided to mold the head dress with the head in it and same with the skirt with the leg base as well. On several occasions I broke tips off or melted holes, but the beauty of wax is that you can just add more to it and keep moving on. For the most part, the initial sculpt maintains its integrity. For my first wax figure, I probably should have not chose the Gargan with so many parts and extreme amount of detail. She has been a great learning project for me and I am having a lot of fun and above all else, I am really proud of how she is starting to turn out.
Well it is late now, so I will turn this over to you all for comments, questions and suggestions. Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more updates on this thread.
Jedi_Master_Ben
