Push-molds

So, I've been experimenting with push molds made out of sculpey after that horrible failure using InstaMold. Having limited success, I've gotten to the point I can now cast some decent shapes I can actually use:


This is another try at making a pinky style head, this time using a push mold. As the mold isn't flexible, there can't be any undercuts to the object being cast and it turns out, it's really hard to remove an object from the mold. I've tried dusting with baking powder and using cooking spray as some forms of release, both which sort of work, but have their issues.

What seems to work best so far is simply boiling it. After pushing the sculpey into the mold, boil the whole thing for 10 minutes and the cast will partially cure. Once cooled, it actually had dislodged itself from the mold and was easily removed without deforming. The surface texture isn't so great though, but that might be because I used Sculpey III and not the super smooth kind. In any case, it should be easy to fix, like a resin part. The hardest thing is kneading the sculpey into a consistent mixture with no air bubbles or folds. If these are left in the cast, it has a tendency to crack when curing.

Anyway, I had an idea when browsing the pinky mods, so I'm planning to use this as the start for that project.

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Dust Control

Morning coffee with biscotti, Mmm... Thought I would share something that worked out really well for me. I've been doing my sanding and cleanup by wet sanding with sandpaper and needle files because I like the control and it doesn't get resin dust everywhere. But with my last kit, this was going too slow, so I decided to break out the dremel with a flex attachment and a vari-speed foot controller. I bought these a while ago, but only used them once because resin dust got everywhere. I looked around the house to find a solution for this problem and found a large plastic biscotti jar from Costco.


The opening of the jar is about 4" in diameter, which is perfect for placing a hand in with enough room to move a flex tool around. I cut the bottom clean off which gives a large opening for even the biggest parts and enough room to move around inside. Since the jar is clear all around, there isn't an issue with visibility and you can still see all around the part while working on it.


It's still hard to clean up detail areas with the dremel, but for knocking down seams and removing excess resin, it goes very fast. Still wear a respirator while sanding though, as some dust will escape and don't want to be breathing that stuff in!

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Pinky Mods

There's this whole community of kit builders that focus on Pinky:St mods and you often see some of these come up as event kits, like the Pinky Saber. Here are some recent additions in this kit category from WF2008, found on YJA.



These are like mini resin kits, and they work great as beginner kits and are really a lot of fun. They're small, so not a lot of surface area to prep and they don't require a lot of paint. Steps to building them are the same as a typical resin kit, although it's not always necessary to pin them and some areas can be left unglued for swappable parts. I have the EVA 00 Pinky Mod from a previous WF and think I might start that soon.

How to get to Pinky Street? is an excellent collection of Pinky related sites, many of which deal with mods. Most of the sites are in Japanese however, but you can always look at the pictures! Anyway, looking at these has given me an idea for another Sculpey project. :)

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Web Surfing

Since 2008 Summer WonderFestival is this weekend, I've been surfing around the sculptor sites to find anything new that might be of interest. I'm still looking for a good Mikuru kit to go along with Haruhi and Yuki, but as much as I like the Bubba sculpts, I did't like the Mikuru bunny. There's a new Griffon Goth Mikuru, but I think it's only available as PVC.


A few others I liked from T's System and Kaoru..


Cerberus Project seems to have gone into the ball-joint-doll direction, and though I've never been interested in these, they are very detailed and fairly impressive.

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