Basic Molding with RTV Silicone

This is just a very basic step-by-step guide to creating relief molds out of RTV. I've only recently learned how to do this myself, so I don't have a pressure pot, but I do hope to get one in the near future. I'm just making a quick tutorial with pictures to show my maker group what I've been doing. There might be some swears in here, I don't know. Luckily I took good, self-explanatory photos, so if my writing is painful, you can pretty much do this just by following the pictures.

Oh, before starting make sure the 24 hours you need for curing are not during rainy days. Humidity will put bubbles in your mold, and moisture will cause it to take longer to set.

1. First, you are going to need your RTV. I chose Econosil from Silpak Inc. This stuff has a 24 hour curing time, and you need to mix 10% of the catalyst B to the A-side by weight.

  2. Your materials needed for mixing are:

• kitchen scale
• RTV and catalyst
• mixing stick
• one plastic cup
• one bucket that is large enough to hold the amount you will need to fill out your mold.

3.   Before you start mixing, you are going to need to set up your molds. First, I used a hot glue gun to glue my pieces for molding onto the surface that I was going to pour the silicone into. I cut a large Pepsi cup in half so that I could use that as the wall of my mold. For the bottom of the Pepsi cup all I had to do was glue my skulls into it, but for the top I needed a smooth surface to glue my hearts and stars onto, and then I needed to hot glue the rim of the cup to that surface. What I ended up using was the top of a cookie tray from the supermarket.
 

4. Now, you need to measure out the amount of side-A that you are going to need to fill out your mold, because this will be the greater amount. For side-B you will only use 10% of the amount you used of side-A by weight, and it is very important to get it exact, so you must use the scale for this part. In my example I used 10 oz. of side-A, which means I only needed 1 oz. of side-B.

5. Now, mix the crap out of that shit, making sure to scrape the sides. It needs to turn a nice, uniform light blue color.

6. Once you are certain that you've mixed every particle of side-A with side-B, you can start pouring your mold. When you pour, don't move the cup around to try and fill in spaces, because this will create bubbles near your pieces. Instead, just pick one side and pour from there until your pieces are completely covered. Make sure you have enough RTV above your pieces that if your mold springs a small leak, it won't sink down to uncover some areas.

After you've poured every bit of RTV, you might want to vibrate your mold a bit to try and get the bubbles to the surface and away from your pieces. I put my molds onto a filing cabinet, and pounded the ever-loving hell out of it to shake as many bubbles out of it as I could. It still won't get as many as a pressure pot would, but the bubbles are going to be rising throughout the time it's setting anyway, so as long as you've poured right, you shouldn't have any touching your pieces.

7. Wait 24 hours.

 8. Oh look, it's done! Also, the one I set on the cookie tray sprung a leak, so I guess it's not really a good surface to use hot glue on. My mold turned out alright, though.

Peel whatever you used for the wall of your mold off now.



9. Now pop the bottom off, making sure to be careful if you don't want to break your originals. You will see that a little bit of silicone has probably gotten underneath your pieces. That's no problem as long as you have an X-acto knife or a small pair of trimming scissors. Just pop the pieces out, and trim the excess silicone off.

And there you have it! Your very own silicone mold. With this, you can make STUFF.

Dogtor Who

So, I was shopping at Michael's one day when I came across this kit:

I knew I had to make it into a TARDIS somehow, it just screamed out for it. It took me a while to get it started, because I didn't know how I was going to do the walls, or make it more TARDIS-shaped, and I knew it was going to take me a long time to make. Eventually, though, I ended up with this:

Once I had the basic TARDIS shape all figured out, I knew it would get easier from there, so I kept going. I wanted to make The 10th Doctor, a Dalek, and a sonic screwdriver, but I saved those for after the TARDIS was complete. Now, after a week of working on my project, it's finally done! All-Seeing Eye Dog: Dogtor Who, and Dalek, and of course, the TARDIS, which is bigger on the inside!

I'll be uploading the rest of the photos shortly on my Facebook fan page, so that you can see all the angles, and the unfinished versions of the Dogtor and the Dalek. I'm pretty happy about the way they came out, and I hope you enjoy the photos!

Birthday Surprise from Wenchkin and Scott Krichau

Woo! I got another birthday surprise yesterday, and this time it was totally unexpected. A package from New Mexico showed up for me and I was curious as hell about it! I opened it up to a bunch of surprises from Wenchkin and Scott Krichau!!

I got two screen printed shirts, a custom screen printed cup cozy, and some hand printed cards with Scott's creature art on one and Wenchkin's calaca Snufalufagus on the other!

Here's my very own Glitter Bitches shirt, since I recently became a Glitter Bitches Affiliate, and now it's official!

Just call me Marilyn from now on! EAT IT, logic!!

Birthday Surprise from Creeplings

I know I promised to update this blog more often, and it just hasn't been happening. I'm not much of a writer, you see, so it's tough to psyche myself up to do one of these. However, today I got an awesome birthday surprise in the mail from Rebecca Roka of creeplings on Etsy, and I knew that just showing the photos on Facebook or Google+ wouldn't be enough. She had said that she was sending me something practical, so naturally I expected a bra, but what I got instead was a hundred times better!

The trivet all on its own would have been a great gift! I love it, because it's the color the Cheshire Cat in my first painting, and I'm going to be using it for my coffee every morning. BUT, check out that box with the ribbon on it....

I recognized it immediately as a Super Sculpey box, but was instantly confused by the addition of one of my own little sculptures, the Wyvrog, on the cover! Then I took a better look at the box. Rebecca had made a sleeve cover for the "Supurb Sculptee"* box featuring my sculpture and all little quips about my creations! "America's premier boob modeling substance". She even added a Fuckery Seal of "Aproval"*!

The Whimsicle* logo and the gift tag she used on the ribbon are her own creations, and are available as tags in the Ornaments and Tags section of her shop. She has also made several Whimsicle pillows with this design for Regretsy charity auctions and prizes!

So there you have it! I really wanted to show everyone my fantastic birthday gift. I'm going to use the hell out of that Sculptee, but once it's gone I'm going to keep that sleeve for every new box I buy. Thank you, Rebecca! ♥

*All spelling errors were intentional.

I'm Kinda Weird.

I've been sketching a lot of combination animal/thing creatures lately, and last night I went a little over the top...

Mini Horse in a Doggie Door

HOLY CRAP, AM I POSTING HERE AGAIN?! It sure seems that way! Let's hope it sticks this time. It's been ages, but I have a lot of stuff I'm working on, and way too many big changes going on in my private life.

First, let me tell you about Quixote. Quixote is my mom's mini horse that she's had since the end of last year. The last time I posted I was living upstairs in my parents rental house, while my parents lived a few blocks away in the same city. Since then my mom decided that she desperately needed to own a mini horse, and the area they were living in was not in the equestrian district, so she had to pick up the family and move before even considering buying a horse. She quickly did so. The whole family, besides the two of us who were renting out the other house, moved to a smaller new house in the equestrian district, and my mom got a mini horse. The little guy is a bastard. He bites, he doesn't come when he's led, and he sometimes pushes my mom into the street while she's walking him for his daily exercise. We're told it's because he hasn't been gelded yet, but we're also told that mini horses tend to be ornery. He does seem to love my mom in his own way, and in the picture above he has his head in the doggie door because he heard her voice in that part of the house, but he knows he has strength in him, and my mom is not at all a very good match for him when he wants his way.

None of the above would have effected me in any way, of course, except that my parents are now trying to sell the house that I was renting a room in. (Anybody looking for a place in Burbank? It's well worth it for the amount you can make off of renting parts of it out.) So, now I'm once again living with my parents in a very small space. It's a devastating blow to the ego, but in a place like LA, when you are just barely paying your bills every month, it is very difficult to find a place with affordable rent. It's cramped here, and I have a LOT of stuff because my last apartment was so big, but I am still garnering up some creativity to get a few new things done here and there.

What I'm working on now are mini paintings of pun-animals. They started out as goofy sketches in my sketchbook when I was bored one day, and people started asking me to paint them, so I have been. These three are my faves so far, and the paintings themselves were purchased right away. What I would like to do, if I can ever get my brain in working order, is to start writing little stories for them. It would be cool to make a childrens' book or a comic, but I haven't had to write anything with a lot of content in so long, that I've gotten very rusty at it (as I'm sure you can tell by this post). That's why I'm starting to write here again. I'm going to try and hone my writing skills a little bit, even if it's just to report the things going on in my daily life. It may be boring, but there's a good chance there will be pretty pictures to distract you, so please stick around!

Framed Wonderland Paintings

I just thought I'd post a few photos of my Wonderland paintings in their frames:

 "Uff With Her Head!"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"Smoke Rings"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"Absinthe IS Wonderland"

16" x 20" canvas, framed

"This Damn Thing is Broken"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"The Cheshire Cat and the Tea Rat"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

If you are interested in any of these paitings, please email me at kitcameo@kitsglass.net