From the depths of Kentucky

[Josh Barton]

I only have a few things to show since I'm uber novice. But here goes. First up is Micron Ace. It's the first figure I made. I worked on it from july of last year up till late november. Original construction is styrene, found objects, and apoxie sculpt. It's about 3 1/2" tall. The figure in the image is a painted resin cast. Yes, the colours suck. They're my (former) university colours. So he looks like an X-man.



Since then I've moved to work in super sculpey. Molding and casting figures with sharp corners caused a lot of problems with air bubbles so I wanted to work in organic shapes to see if I'd have better results. Sure enough, I did. Next up, Ashiarai Yashiki. Giant bloody foot yokai. It took me only a few days to sculpt. It's only about 3" tall. What you see is the baked sculpey original. It's casting very nicely with very few holes.



Lastly I have this thing I've been making for fun to see if I can. It's closer to a fight figure. I'm not really familiar with the genre but I gather it has to do with 80s action figure design. Again, sculpey contruction. Its about 7" tall. Articulated at the waist, shoulders and wrist. What you see is about a week's work off and on. There are a lot of easily identifiable inspirations. Bit of RealXHead, MUSCLE, yokai, etc. It will have a head. The head I find is the hardest thing to sculpt on any figure. While I'm working on that I got impatient and primed the whole thing and clear coated it to see how it'd look. I need to fix the gap in the waist too.


Thanks for looking!

[Sanjeev]

Damn...it's great to see some of your work here, Josh!

Keep posting whatever you can...and if I may make a request: more clear castings...with glow powder! I'd love to see that top robot guy burning with power!

[Zro]

Love the third guy but all great stuff man and who dosnt like a giant foot!!

[Josh Barton]

Glow powder and clear casts are definitely a goal but so far I haven't been able to make a single cast of anything without it having holes. The foot casts with like 6 holes max. When I get the whole molding/casting thing down solid, you'll get more glowy things than you can deal with.

Sanjeev said:

Damn...it's great to see some of your work here, Josh!

Keep posting whatever you can...and if I may make a request: more clear castings...with glow powder! I'd love to see that top robot guy burning with power!

[Josh Barton]

Thanks man! Hopefully more people will develop a foot fetish. It's going to be a test subject for paint for many moons to come.

Zro said:

Love the third guy but all great stuff man and who dosnt like a giant foot!!

[Dead Presidents]

Josh, welcome ! I really like your work. The time your putting in is something we all do around here. weather it be painting,sculpting,or bashing something together that's what a lot of members do around here. Please show the last pic again when you make the head for it.
Thanks for sharing !

[Josh Barton]

Thanks! I appreciate the warm welcome. I'm pretty ADD so I end up working on a trillian different things at once. Makes it difficult to actually finish anything, but the third fig will get a head pretty soon. I'll definitely post up pics when he gets his noggin.

Dead Presidents said:

Josh, welcome ! I really like your work. The time your putting in is something we all do around here. weather it be painting,sculpting,or bashing something together that's what a lot of members do around here. Please show the last pic again when you make the head for it.
Thanks for sharing !

[rand borden]

to get rid of the bubbles you need a vacuum chamber. As soon as you poor the resin put it in and it sucks all the air out causing the bubbles to rise to the surface. They can be pricey but if you have patience you can build one yourself.

Josh Barton said:

Glow powder and clear casts are definitely a goal but so far I haven't been able to make a single cast of anything without it having holes. The foot casts with like 6 holes max. When I get the whole molding/casting thing down solid, you'll get more glowy things than you can deal with.

Sanjeev said:

Damn...it's great to see some of your work here, Josh!

Keep posting whatever you can...and if I may make a request: more clear castings...with glow powder! I'd love to see that top robot guy burning with power!

[Sanjeev]

Thanks for the info, Rand...and good to see you here!

Now, I've never done this stuff, but I've read that vacuum chambers were actually for when you pour the silicone. The chamber takes bubbles out of the silicone for producing a perfect mold. When you pour the resin later for making the actual piece, is a vacuum chamber necessary then, too?

[rand borden]

yes it will work with both. I have done it. you need to use a resin that is slow to cure. I tried it with 5 min urethane resin and it didn't really work.



Sanjeev said:

Thanks for the info, Rand...and good to see you here!

Now, I've never done this stuff, but I've read that vacuum chambers were actually for when you pour the silicone. The chamber takes bubbles out of the silicone for producing a perfect mold. When you pour the resin later for making the actual piece, is a vacuum chamber necessary then, too?

[Sanjeev]

Ah, makes sense...thanks, Rand! Looks like a vacuum chamber may be a necessity, Josh...

[mark nagata]

speaking of vacume chambers look for my report from my visit to the vinyl factory .. I was surprised to see one in use in their process .... !

[Josh Barton]

I had been sure I'd need a pressure pot for a while now. Just haven't gotten around to building/ buying one. Right now I'm sticking to organic forms since they're easier to cast. Few corners for bubbles to hide in. Hopefully soon I'll be able to procure one and cast more complicated fun stuff.