I made a death mask for myself with plaster of paris and lots of vaseline on my mustache and eyebrows. How did it work? Not real good!At least in the comfort area. I had 2 straws shoved up my nose and the plaster set as advertised in 15 minutes. It pulled out 1/3 of my mustache and brows! The mold woked perfectley and pulled out every wrinkle and scare on my face.
Here is my question: For live face casts, what is the best (less painful} product.
Summerville, SC
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I'm no molding expert by any means, but I don't think there's anything out there that won't grab the undercuts of all those hairs. Let's see what the pro's have to say...
Most likly spelled it wrong, but it's a dental impression material that doesn't really stick to anything, picks up good detail and unlike plaster, it sets up fast and doesn't go through a "heat" while curing. The mold will be pretty fragile and will usually only give you one pull, so if you want something more durable that will provide multiple pulls, use your plaster to pour a cast then make a more durable mold from the plaster cast.
...but I wasn't sure about the hairs. Plus, I think you might need some backing/reinforcement (as J Randall said it's pretty fragile). I would think that w/o some backing before you pull it off you will get a less accurate pour from it because of some distortion as that alginate mold will want to flop around a bit. But from a less painful standpoint the alginate I would think would indeed be less painful. 100% painless, I don't know.
If it were me, I'd take the extra 3 minutes or so to pour the alginate, then once it starts setting up, pour some plaster on top of that for reinforcement. For a total of 20 minutes or so. It should be less painful AND you won't have any distortion with the plaster reinforcing the alginate (You spelled it correctly J Randall!) You might even be able to use some modelling clay or something else as reinforcement instead of plaster. That way you'd spend less total time being uncomfortable...
Marty and J Randall I appreciate the info and will let you know soon how it went. My big project is to get a face cast of each of my daughters and somehow make concrete Charib style garden figures with their faces. But I will have to try it on myself first!
...I'd just use the concrete with no release agent - lol! (AND no straws!) Just kidding (For all you "animal" rights activists)...
Use alginate for face casting. Dental alginate will set up too fast. Go to ArtMolds.com. They have MoldGel Regular Set. It will give you about 4 minutes working time and they have tutorials for how to make face casts. They also have a product called MoldEZ, which is a really strong type of (hair) conditioner that will allow the alginate to not stick to hair. Vasoline will still work but make sure that the hair is slicked down. Use plaster bandages to make a support mold for the alginate. Please be careful doing this on other people. Sometimes the model is closterphobic (sp?) and will freak out under the alginate, at that time get it off as fast as possible. Another tip - if someone is allergic to shellfish, this might not be a great product to use on them as it's made out of seaweed. :) In that case you can use a skin safe silicone for a permanent mold.
Hope this helps - email me if you have more questions. I might be able to help more.
~ Niki
We sell a two part silicone rubber for making lifecasting. It is safe to use and will not stick to the skin and after mixing one to one it will set up in 15 min. and can be used for more than one
casting.As you may or may not know,alginate can only be used for one casting and will not last for vary long.
good luck and happy mold making.