Details of some of my bronze work.

Despite what this may look like, it's art. The unfortunate color of the wax aside, I am making a hollow wax casting of my MARTYR sculpture for bronze casting. Using the same mold I do for resin, the hot wax is poured into the warm mold, slushed around and dumped back into the pan. Using successive pours of slightly cooler wax each time, rotating the mold by hand and dumping the excess will eventually give me a relatively thin, relatively even hollow cast which appears very similar to a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny, which the foundry will encase in a ceramic shell. Once air dried the shell is put into a kiln where it fully hardens and the wax melts out (Lost wax Process).

ERASERHEAD baby resin casting I just pulled from the mold. If you look closely you can see that I included the little guy's tongue. I may revise the sculpture to make him look like when he was sick and mold it again.

First pull from the mold. Perfect reproduction. It's not easy to work in this scale; in fact I am in a small minority of artists who can and do it well. But, like any skill, it is achievable for most good sculptors if the desire is there and they use the right materials. Pretty satisfied with this portrait.

Original design Zombi bust from years back. A living dead torso with no arms, strapped to a headstone and used as target practice. Resin casting of a wax sculpture, about 1/4 scale.

Another portrait where I first sculpted the face in polymer clay, made a mold of it, then cast it in another material (Monster Clay), for refining and finishing. Softer material for roughing in, harder material for finessing. Ready to mold the finished portrait now.

I took a long-ish break from this. Set it aside to work on other things but getting ready to mold it soon. One of the last things I do with hair is to use small loop tools to take out mass and refine the volumes of the hair to try to give it an airy feel. At the same time I often revise shapes to improve the look. Like Lynch, Poe's hair is part of his likeness. Sill tweaking this but will soon go on to smoothing the surface of the hair with mineral spirits and a very small paint brush which will create a harmonious surface. The crumbs of clay will melt since the clay is petroleum based. Again for those who ask about scale, the head is less than 2 inches tall.

This gentleman is using his own time and money simply to foster great art, support artists, and try to find more patrons who believe that art without beauty is cultural poison. Please support this effort by signing up, reposting, etc. Costs nothing. xitter.cf/MaecenatGallery/status…

I've posted about this before, but I've added a few thousand followers since, many artists especially but I think the overall message crosses many paths. In the early 90's I was hired by DC Comics to sculpt statues and the relationship lasted over a decade. They always paid me to both sculpt the figure and paint the master for the factory, with the resin master being molded and cast by their manufacturer and shipped to me. After several years in a good working relationship I offered to make the master molds and "tooling master", which was the sturdy resin figure the factories used to make many production molds. I argued that it would be better than shipping my original art to the factory at risk of loss or damage and them having to pay me thousands again to redo the work. They agreed it was wise. I paid my mold maker at the time, then added 30 or 40% to his bill for my time making passive income. It wasn't a huge amount for one project, but it adds up when sculpting as many pieces as I did for them. DC also paid (quite well) for professional photography before digital cameras came around. Product photography was my first professional work in the arts, so one day I approached DC again, telling them I could do the photography as well. Brought my photo portfolio into the offices one day to show them I could do it, they agreed and now I had another income stream from the same client. I had my professional equipment still which was just gathering dust. Below is a 4x5 transparency I shot of my DARKSEID statue which DC used for box art and advertising. What I did in my field can't be replicated today, but the lesson in it is that regardless of your field of work, the more skills you have, the more valuable you are, and two, that initiative and talent in tandem can offer great opportunities if you speak up confidently.

The casting on the right was done intentionally. I'm playing around with the mold, but it's a good illustration of what can happen when a mold is closed too tightly. I made a post including this info yesterday. Kind of a fun caricature, but only if that's your intention.

Casting failure. Even with decades of experience, sometimes shit goes awry. I still don't know what happened here. The resin took forever to set (I left it overnight). It was still leeching oil but appeared firm. Went to remove it from the mold and the head snapped off, then when pulling out the head the hair snapped off. It's brittle. All I can figure is that something corrupted this casting, but I'm using the same resin. Moisture? Poorly mixed? I don't know, but the following casting turned out perfect after switch distribution and mixing cups.

Lynch times three.

Casting resin. Powder the mold. This reduces surface tension of the liquid and makes for better flow into small crevices. Put in powder and tap around the mold to cover the surface, then dump out excess. Close the mold with rubber bands. I make cylindrical molds whenever possible because the pressure from the bands distributes evenly. You want the mold just closed, not pinched so - more bands and less pressure. This reduces the chance of distortion in the casting. Equal parts A&B of resin of choice, mix in paper cup with the rim pinched for cleaner pouring and better control. Certain areas will trap bubbles (nose and chin especially). Pour a small amount into the mold, lean the mold sideways and tap the bottom to help release the trapped air. Put the mold in the pressure pot and pour the remaining resin. Demold when cured. As you can see, even a small head with tiny details can be replicated well with the right process and tools. All that's left to do is remove the shims in the hair and clean up the minimal mold line. I use this particular resin because it's slow setting and I can get all the steps done and the mold in the pot with plenty of time to spare before the resin begins to set up. I also like the off-white almost old bone color.