Sculpt Finished

Hear is the current body primed and ready to be lacquered. She is starting to look very spider like. The leg components are just about ready to mould, so tomorrow the basic base structure will be carved. Meaning each leg an be positioned so the joints can be added. So the final Transil 40 mould can be cast by Tuesday....

Sculpting near complete

Underside of female dysdera showing lungs openings and epigyne




















Moulding the fang, using mould life mould studs at split line. This split mean that fang could be separately moulded without damaging it.















Details of abdomen sculpt, focus on spinnerets

Excluding the final 3 leg segments each part of the spider has been fully sculpted. The current estimation is the I am just over a week behind my original time plan. Due to the sculpting taking longer than originally though. An example of why is shown in the image's above. Using mainly dead specimens as reference specific area's change after death. The underside of the abdomen was heavily modified after a live image was taken of the lung openings.

Each sculpted part has now been moulded in fast cast and are being modified with joints so each piece can be moulded in opticlear and then be easily assembled. All moulds should be completed by the end of next week.

Modifications

Made some major changes yesterday and today, the jaw area specifically. On building the jaws I discovered that there wasn't enough space. So the best Fast cast copy was then taken back and re sculpted in milliput. Meaning the baking and shrinkage of sculpy can be ignored.

The Abdomen has now been massed out and detail is being applied.

Sculpting update

The base of the leg are near finished, but the sculpting is taking far longer than originally thought. So for the next week their may not be any other progress.

Progression

This image doesn't show much, the lower jaw section was a more complex shape than originally thought, such much time has been spent reshaping. They have progressed much since this image and are ready for moulding. But the moulded copies will be modified further...
















-Various brushes have now been taken apart and applied to various objects. So far PVA glue is the most effective. once dried the transparency takes on the colour of the surface below. Becoming a very quick method of adding hair root details.

-Also this weekend was spent airbrushing.

AirBrsuhing

Airbrush
Spending today playing with my airbrush, searching the net for some useful techniques and goggle and you tube are full of them. also have bought various colours of the Tamiya acrylic paints as I am told them are very good.

More Specimens
Also John Partridge of the BAS has found another Dysdera, but even better he has offered it to me for this project. Photo's coming soon....