Mould making tutorial, Part 8 - 1st silicone side

Editing...

Next step is to sculpt and to define the area separating two silicone sides of the mould. This is the most important and presice part of the mould making. Also, this is the step needed also when making box mould.

Before insering the statue back to the clay I'll cover the clay with cling-film. I'll push the statue (and film) to the clay, remove it again and cut the film so it will cover just the area between statue and clay. This way most of the statue will not touch the clay and will be clean. Also, this way the statue will stuck more to the silicone and not to the clay side of the mould, which is also very important.

I'll smooth the clay and make the surface as clean and precise I could. Open side of the statue must be absolutely clean from the clay, on the same time there couldn't be any openings between the clay and the statue.

There will be 3 air vents inside the silicone. Two of them are made from aluminum wire. Third, very short one, which is connecting left thumb to the longer vent, is made from soft wire isolation plastic. (It's hard to see on the photos, but it's yellow-geen and it's there.)

Then I'll make all the syncronization details, using several different tools. Most of them are from this steel punch tool set I mentioned in part 5, but for small details I'm using Fiskar's dual-tip stylus.

Mould is ready for silicone!

I'm mixing small amount of silicone and, using the rough brush, cover the statue and the surrounding area with thin film of silicone.

It doesn't really matter if inside the silicone there will be some air bubbles. It's important that there will be no air bubbles touching the statue's surface. This is the reason I'll fill the mould in two steps - first this thin layer and then the rest. I'm using the air blower (made for cleaning photo lenses) for blowing some air to all the bubbles I see, to help them pop.

Soon the silicone will be thick enough to not to flow anymore. I hope by this time there will be no air bubbles...

Then I'll close the mould, using masking tape, clay and plastic strips.

And then I'll pour the rest of the silicone.

16 hours later it's time to open the mould...

And here it is- finished side of the matrix mould!

There's some excess silicone around the mould. I'll remove it later, for now it will work as a sealing between the plaster sides.