Moldy Seaclops

Well, I completely underestimated how much Ultracal I had and ultimately was only able to make the top half of my Seaclops mold on Saturday. (I have since placed an order for more of the gypsum concrete plaster compound and will finish the mold as soon as it arrives.) Here's where I'm at so far:

First I plopped down a bunch of water-based clay for the bed, to create the wall for my mold. I used a crayola brand earth clay that we sell at work and it worked fine. Was a little too soft maybe, required a bit of extra cleanup when removing the clay at the end, but otherwise okay.

Next I smoothed out the clay bed, about halfway up the sculpt (between the fingers is the worst, possibly my least favorite part of the whole process).

Then I sprayed the whole thing with a quick layer of Clear Coat, mixed up a pea-soupy batch of Ultracal, and brushed on my first layer.

After two more layers of soupy Ultracal...

And about 1/2" layer of Ultracal coated burlap...


Next came the super thick, clay-like layer of Ultracal to finish it up...

And finally, after the top half set up, I flipped it, peeled off the clay bed, cleaned up the residue of the water-based clay with a soft damp brush, and now I'm ready for the second half...

Ideally, there should be a little more space around the edges, particularly near the feet, fingers, and head, and also more space between the arms and torso, but I had to squinch him in a bit more than I should have because of the size of my toaster oven. Now I'm off to finish the sculpt of my mermaid...