Making a plaster mould for a puppet head

Micro Mr Punch project
Puppet making - Step 2
Making a plaster cast from a plasticene original
(well the red stuff is Newplast actually)
Step by step - how to make a basic plaster mould for creating a papier mache puppet from a modelled original.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• rosemarybeetle
• @rosemarybeetle
• punch
• and
• judy
• plaster
• casting
• sculpture
• papier
• mache
• puppet
• puppets
• micromrpunch

[ItsRyanStudios]

how much does the plater cost?

it looks expensive =[

[rosemarybeetle]

@ItsRyanStudios HI. It's not very expensive. 5KG (about 11lb) is about £7.50 for normal dental plaster. There are cheaper craft grades and more expensive professional casting grades, but good basic plaster is petty cheap (the mould here probably used about £2's worth if that)

[yankovic1234]

is that plaster of paris

[rosemarybeetle]

@yankovic1234

Hi. It's dental plaster, which is a slightly harder finer plaster, but plaster of paris works OK. You tend to get more bubbles with cheaper plasers, but you can fill those in before you do the papier mache, with a bit of normal wall filler.

If you can get to a specialist sculpture or craft shop (or online), you can get all sorts of super hard setting plasters which are great if you need to make several models from one mould.

[turbothingy]

how do you make sure you cut the plastercine straight?

[rosemarybeetle]

Hi turbothingy,

Largely by taking care. One of the reasons to chil the model is to keep it rigid or it can bend when you are handling it. Having said that, for most models this is not completely necessary, as you can touch up the halves once you have cut it.

It isn't actually even essential that it is straight - both halves will still match even if you cut it a bit wonky, as they are both wonky in the same place!

[bumbag999]

Hi,

yes, you are right you can. In fact there are quite a lot of ways of doing it. The method you suggest works, and is good when you are making a mould by pouring a setting liquid into a mould. after the firsthalf is done, you can drill some shallow cone shaped holes in the first half it BEFORE applying the mould release, and puring the second half. This produces little lugs which line up the mould halves.

hope this is of use, even if it makes you think of a better way!

cheers

[turbothingy]

Could you not simply keep it whole, and pour in the plaster over one half, allow it to set, apply a release agent to the mould and pour over the second half, making a two part mould?