I LOVE Messing Around With Plastic And Making Figurines And I've Spent Probably Too Much Time Fucking

I LOVE messing around with plastic and making figurines and I've spent probably too much time fucking around and finding out, so don't mind me.

For pinholes in the casting, I try to avoid damaging the surface too much further as it can expose a LOT of holes underneath; my default tends to be a combination of a filling putty, then layers of finer and finer primers. Tamiya Putty works pretty well for the latter, like auto-body filler for the gunpla crowd. It dries pretty quickly on the surface but takes longer to fully cure in thick sections. I apply that to pinholes with a dental pick or a needle, and really make sure it covers the whole surface before smoothing over it with a wooden or stiff rubber tool. As a filling putty, it's self-leveling, and I really like that. There's other fillers though, and some people I know have had tremendous luck with liquid styrene likewise scraped into the holes. I just know that stuff gives me a headache, so I don't use it.

For fixing and repair work, I prefer filling primers that I can apply by hand with a brush. Mr Surfacer is the thing I like to use for that. It comes in 500, 1000, and 1200 grades, with 1200 being the finest finish. I use lacquer thinner to smooth out the edges so as to save myself the sanding elbow grease. Both the fillers and the primers need time to cure and will need sanding between layers; if you've ever done auto-body work, it's very familiar, and it looks like you've already started that process.

I find with sculptures that the foam sanding pads are great up until you need to finish tight detailed areas, but that's what gluing sandpaper to a toothpick is for.

For the void under the chin where the resin didn't cast, my favorite product is Epoxie Sculpt, although other two-part epoxy putties work too. I just like epoxie sculpt because it bonds super well to cast urethane and cures really hard, and it has a very nice texture for sculpting. It can also be smoothed with straight water rather than solvents. I honestly sculpt in epoxie directly quite a bit; it's my go-to, especially if something needs strength. It has a decently long cure profile, although that could mean you run the risk of the fixed parts slumping if you have something that can't support itself while it's curing. The same company also makes Fixit Sculpt, which tends to hold itself up a lot more easily.

Whatever material you’re using to fill the voids, though, I cannot sing the praises of having some dental picks and wax carving spatulas enough. Sometimes you just need to poke and scrape and wiggle things in areas a hand was never meant to enter.

One thing to look out for with future castings is that urethane is extremely sensitive to moisture and will foam under even slightly humid conditions. Some companies' resins are more sensitive to it than others, and I spent an unfortunate amount of money on wasted resin to figure that out. Since then I store my unused resin over molecular sieves like a goddamn meth lab.

Another way to help with pinholes and voids in the future is to slush-cast the mold first by only partially filling the mold and manually rotating it around so that the resin coats all surfaces with an clean coat. The bubbles don't tend to stick around very well when you do that as you're not allowing them to collect on the surface and you're more able to get to difficult-to-cast areas. You already nailed it on the head with more vents in the design, but a lot of times, I find that there’s also a learning curve in figuring out what you have to do to get a specific result out of a specific mold, whether that’s moving it around and shaking out bubbles manually, squeezing certain sections in order to move bubbles along, or slush-casting a first coat and backfilling it.

Honestly, it’s been really exciting to see you sculpt, and it’s made me want to sculpt again. I’m looking forward to updates on your monsterclay adventures.

Hey, with your figurine, would you like some product recommendations and tips on fixing it back up again or do you feel like you know where you're gonna go next with it?

I would l o v e any hints or tips on how to move forward. I think I’m doing ok on fixing it up - but still, hit me.

Hot foil experiment version 4: success.

Just finished a residency with the amazing @makeamericaproject people. We were exploring ideas of homeland and the spirit of places. We went up to my hometown region of Steamboat Springs and Hayden, Colorado, and these three little guys are some of the results. Paperclay miniatures woodfired on a budget in a barbecue grill at the foot of Hahns Peak, with site-specific found objects. Thank you to Ilana, Maridee, and Lily for the opportunity.

@imjimpi sent me a nice reference that I finally got around to doing a watercolor study of.

Another neglected project finished by month end. This time, my inktober zine.

Some demo pieces from my principles of animation class