Dragon Skin Tests #3 - 3D object

Just a quick update - along with scripting I've been doing more DS tests - this time in a 2 piece mold of a 3D object (a cute little Sculpey turtle). The airbrush compressor has been delayed so the pigmenting is ground pastel powdered between 6 thin layers of silicone.

Dragon Skin Tests #2 - Pigments

More tests - now with pictures! I was very worried about pigmenting Dragon Skin given it's picky reputation, but so far have been pleasantly surprised. This is 5 test strips, made from a plaster mold. A bit of white remains on the surface from treating the mold cavities with white acrylic paint to act as a release. It worked, but took some of the paint with it.
Details below 1 & 2.
1 is: thin coat DS brushed on, baked (1/2 hr 150F), layer of black acrylic paint and DS mixed, bake, layer of red acrylic and DS mixed, fill rest of cavity, bake.
2 is: Thin coat of DS brushed on, baked, layer of soft pastel scraped off with a blade and mixed with DS, baked, repeat, fill, bake.

Details below 3 & 4.
3 is (my current favourite) thin layer of DS brushed into mold, soft pastel sprinkled on, baked, layer of DS, sprinkling of soft pastel, bake, fill, bake. Smaller shavings will result in a finer detail for the future.
4 is: thin layer of DS brushed on, baked, thin layer of DS followed with red FW Acrylic inks (brushed on very lightly), bake, thin layer of DS followed with green ink, fill, bake.
Details below 5 and closeup, 3.
5 is: Black Liquitex paint mixed directly into the DS, baked. Small white flecking on top is the acrylic paint pulled from the mold; for two things that aren't supposed to get along the paint was very successful and the only material change was increasing the stretch of the DS and making it slightly tacky; talc would be needed.
Closeup 3 details a small diagonal red line where too much pigment fell and the DS didn't stick to itself properly; after rubbing the surface the top layer slightly peels.
The setup - a chocolate milk container and popscicle stick were used to mix the DS, oversized eyedroppers to measure.
Hard to make out (bit of motion blur on the first) this is 100% DS and 70/30 DS/Slacker in the second.
Same pieces, stretched. Hard to see much difference from the pictures but the Slacker mixed piece stretches much easier and has a more organic feel.
As all pieces are holding up well this is very encouraging for colouring!

Dragon Skin Tests #1 - Slacker

Today was the first day of playing with the Dragon Skin silicone. Pleasantly surprised by the lack of odor, but what a sticky mess! I used eye droppers to dispense, which was still drippy and sticky but far less worse than if I'd tried to just pour it... can't imagine. Getting thin layers to paint between should be interesting.

Pictures to follow - I made a simple plaster mold with 6 channels in it (cut pop bottle in half, fill with plaster, use spoon to make channels). I mixed a batch of Dragon Skin (carefully avoiding all of it's sensitivities, I went with half of a chocolate milk carton, worked like a charm) and used 20ml of parts A and B. Mixed with a popsiscle stick.

I put some Dragon skin in each channel, then mixed in increasing amounts of Slacker, channel 1 being pure DS and 6 being approx. 60% Slacker. Then threw in the oven for 1/2 hour at 150F.

The results so far are very promising! The pure DS is nice and stretchy, but a little tougher than I'd like. The last two continued in the oven for another hour to be sure, but are too sticky and unsolidified to use for animation - as fits with this writeup: http://www.sculpt.com/technotes/slacker_info.htm

The 20-30% Slacker tests show the most promise, having a nice mix of stretch, compress and solidity. I'll try to fine tune the ratio, and begin tinting tests as well.

It's up!

Finally finished... oh how I need sleep :)

Coraline Entry

My dragon skin has arrived and is acclimating itself to room temperature as we speak :) It required a few days before playing with it, which suited me well as I was finishing my entry for the Stop Motion Animation Coraline contest they've had running. I'll be posting the final version tomorrow (cutting it close!) but in the mean time here's a teaser.....

Then back to our regularly scheduled work on the new animation and dragon skin!

Silicone Puppets

So, I've decided to give it a go... silicone puppets. A big part of the decision was the Coraline box (dang them and their making me do more work!) I knew I wanted to try something different, and being able to handle a silicone cast piece gives a better idea of the feel and look I'll be pursuing. Foam Latex is a very popular and tempting choice, but as I've never handled it before it's hard to be as concretely sold on it as I'm sure others are.

I've spent the last two days reading everything online I could about Dragon Skin in particular and silicone in general; I've gone through the handbook on SMA, as well as most of the threads referencing it; Strider's blog, and a good chunk of threads about it at the Effects Lab - a great place to catch up on information!! My plan is to paint intrinsically, airbrushing thin layers of FW Inks between thin layers of the silicone, then filling the mold with a mix of the silicone and slacker to create a softer inner bit. I've read this might cause wrinkles, but as it's for an older character I'll be sculpting quite a few into the master sculpture to begin with. The only catch is that it will still be awhile before I can order the materials safe from freezing; in the mean time I can get some NSP clay and start the master sculpt!

As for knitting... the problem with knitting with itsy, bitsy, teeny, small-as-a-hair kneedles is that.... they're a tad easy to loose. You drop one, you'll never find it again. So I'll need to be ordering a replacement before I can finish the gloves!

I've also been creating something for the Coraline contest over on stopmotionmagic - hope to get alot of filming done over the long weekend and soon have something to show for it! I don't want to post any pictures yet, but lets just say that roller coasters are a time consuming prop to make!! ;)

Smaller and smaller we go!

I've started the gloves! Having Ceri (WoollyMonster) doing miniature work as well is great encouragement. This is using 0.5mm needles with 1 strand of embroidery thread - there are approx. 30 stitches per inch. Since they're fingerless I'm going to cheat and pinch the fabric together between the fingers rather than make teeny individual bits, so the piece below is the pattern to follow. It's slow going - the thread is very slippery and the needles very bendy!
I've also been working on his sweater (he wears alot of clothes, this one!) I couldn't find a properly scaled verigated yarn I liked, so I bought a thicker brown embroidery cotton (original colour seen in the second pic) then dyed it with black and white acrylic ink.

I like how the colouring turned out, but it turns my hands gray when I knit it! No doing this on the bus. I'll probably coat it with a diluted matt glaze when it's done so it doesn't powder gray all over the set.And here's part of the sweater vest! He puts this on after waking up from falling asleep in his chair - a way to add character and incidental animation (hopefully!) Knitting's been great for giving me time to think over the next storyboards and really try to develop it fully.
And... can't film without a nice orderly set room! I've been spending time trying to get the spare room I work in to an 'everything in it's right place' mentality. It's coming along but slowly! Too much stuff.
Detail - paints, Sculpey and supplies.