Installing the Mechanics!! First The Mouth!!

Now we are to the point where the mouth and eyes need to be cut out. You must be careful to cut two parallel lines on each side of the mouth so that when you reinstall the mouth the gaps will be nice and tight! We don't want wide gaps!







When I make the mouth, I like to build up the mouth with teeth, tongue, Etc and make a mold and cast of the finished mouth. This allows me to make another mouth later if I want to make another head. This saves a lot of time if I do make a second figure.









I cut and glue a piece of thin ply to the mouth and then use brass rod and tubing to make the pivot point.









Here you can see that I have found the pivot point on the mouth. This take time, patience and trial and error.

When I build the mouth, I will reshape the it and try to eliminate any odd or irregular shapes of the mouth so that when the mouth is opened or closed, the mouth will look natural!

As you can see, I am starting to build up the mouth. When finished, it will be shaped, the detail of the teeth, tongue, Etc. will be added and then the mouth will be installed into the head.

After the mouth is finished I will work on installing the eyes, raising eyebrows and I'm still thinking of installing a stick out tongue!! Before I get to ahead of myself, I still have a lot of work to do on the mouth!!

Casting the Head!!

Today I have cast the head. I used a two part urethane casting resin that was slush cast in the silicone mold we made earlier.

Here is a photo of the urethane slush cast in the mold. This takes time, patience and several coats!

Here is the cast demolded from the mold. Note all the detail from the mold!

The next part of the project is to cut out the mouth. From there we will build a functional mouth with detailed teeth and tongue and then its time to install the mechanics!!

Stay tuned for my next Blog when we will install a moving mouth, raising eyebrows and maybe a stick out tongue!!