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....

1 Part Down - 9 to go....

The body sculpt has been competed, it has been textured, smoothed but not baked off (as sculpy usually is) The reason being, modifications can be made easily if the mould fails, and the bottom jaw will probably break off when de moulding ... But can easily be blended back in.














The mould

To begin the body mould was made using a standard condensation cure silicone. So that fast cast replica's can be used for the following reasons.

-Base for sculpting additional limbs and parts.
-Painting tests
-Casting tests
-To be used when moulding with Transil 40

The oils from the sculpey may inhibit the platinum silicone, so a lacquered fast cast version will be used to prevent this contamination.















Mould Studs
I attempted a new moulding method. The mould studs (from mould life) are used within the silicone to perfectly locate two part moulds. The image shows a piece of plastic being used to created the split line with punched holes containing the studs. The plastic covers the entire seem up to 5mm away from the shape.

-problem - My original intention was to have the split line running around the seem of the spiders body where the top meets the bottom. thus easily hiding any flashing. But when pouring the clear plastic lifted slightly, and the split line is now across the spider eye cluster..

Other than that it was a very quick successful mould, we will see on Monday the extent of the split line. But it should be easily hidden.....

Sculpt Update

The basic shape of the carapace (top) has been finished , and the details of the underside are near ready for texturing. It currently looks rather odd, but will look more even when textured.

Also using a piece of clear plastic is very useful when sculpting, as details can be sketch from photographs then looked through. Making scale and proportion easier to achieve.

Hair idea's

After attending IMATS this weekend I have a few methods of applying dysdera's various hair types. The main issue being the scale creates hair with a translucently.

Spines
-Sculpted, then cast from opticlear 31 in the same method as the main body.
-Sand thin acrylic rods , then either airbrush or dye.
Thick Hair
-Bristles taken from cheap laminating brushes, or similar brushes
Thin Hair
-Human or animal hair
-Synthetic hair
-possibly finer brush hairs
Wide area's of tiny thing hairs
-Sparsely flocked, if possible tests and samples are needed.
-Same as 'Thin hair' but one at a time.

sculpt and the maquette...

Roughly finished the foam maquette and began to pose the spider and a defensive pose will probably be the most likely. But 'hurray' I received a live specimen of dysdera today and she is now in her enclosure. I will give her a few days before photographing her as she will require time to settle in. (so photo's comnig soon)

Began the final sculpt a few days ago, the foam test became very useful. The image above was taken very early, showing the styrene outline taken from the foam....

BAD NEWS--- the core I built for the sculpt was too big, half needed to be dug out and cut in half.... all is better now...

--Off to IMATS this weekend, for talk models and source useful materials...