I got the last doll out of the molds last night. Inkling #9, who is dark tan with a faint red shimmer. It looks like a good cast, but isn’t quite the color I’d been aiming for so she will be hitting the road as well. Probably going to do a fullset as well.

At this point, I have a lot of sanding and assembly to do. Blaaaah. I think I’ll do the three preorder girls and get them shipped, then I’ll take a week or two to make new molds before going back to finish the other 4 dolls.

Here are the colors. There is a milk white, pale peach, pale blue, light tan, dark tan, blue pearl, blue pearl + glow, and a pale tan prototype/production master.

The master will hopefully be on it’s way tomorrow or Monday. Yaaaaaay. The goal is in sight!

Some Inkling colors together.

I looked at the tan pieces I cast earlier… and I don’t know what the deal is, but the pieces don’t match each other. It seems like the first pour was more translucent than the second, but I don’t know how that’s possible. I tinted all the resin for the doll at once. :<
I guess I will make this doll the prototype on account that the pieces all came out great… I’m so annoyed though. :( I had been so excited to be almost through the preorder!

The blue girl is in the pot now, hopefully I’ll finish casting those pieces tomorrow so I can go back to attempting the tan girl again. >_<

This weekend seems so busy already, even though I had Friday off.

I have been working on casting Inkling. I have all of prototype Inkling ready to sand and finish, aside from needing to recast one of the calves. I don’t know what’s up, but for some reason I have miscast that piece a few times now because I’m not putting in enough resin. I think perhaps it needs a thicker vent, maybe it’s getting a bubble that’s making me think it’s full? The mold isn’t leaking. I want prototype Inkling to be on her way by next weekend so I can get this party started. So far prototype Inkling has one tan calf that was an extra when I cast Inkling #1 for Dezarii.

I’m also working on casting a NS Inkling…. the color is really pretty. I have to say that I really love the translucence of this resin. I did a test for the color of the next Inkling (pale blue) and it turned out really, really pretty. I’m eager to cast those pieces. After blue, I have another tan… then the preorder pieces are all cast. After that I’ll do Mandy’s tan with red pearl and my own pearly acid green, if the molds hold up.

So far I have 3 little Ziplock baggies of Inklings to finish and string. Wheeeee. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, there will be 4 and a half. :) The glow in the dark Inkling is spoken for, but I’m not sure of the fate of the plain blue pearl. I think I may customize her and auction her. I’ll figure it out once the preorder dolls are completed.

*dances*

YEAH BABY.

I am NOT impressed with Dragon Skin. I’m only a few casts in and already I’m having some tearing. Seriously pissed. For this performance I could havejust used Moldmax and saved myself some money.

My first priority has also become making my production master. Gargh.

The molds worked pretty well, I think… A few didn’t get enough resin in them, but I think that’s just a matter of getting used to how much resin it’s going to take. I think I will need to remold the happy face and the lower torso… but I’ll do another pour tomorrow of the full doll to figure everything out.

I think I’m going to do tomorrow’s pour in 2 parts… I’ll do 8 molds at a time so I’m not rushing.

Yes. Tomorrow.

Well, I just put the first resin pour of Inkling into the pot… I hope this works!

Last night I poured some cheap resin into a few of Inkling’s molds to clean them out… I learned (or realized) some things from that. First, I need to remember to grease the core rods or they are NOT coming out. Noted. Second, I learned that the pour spots were too thin… they were not condusive to filling the molds. In my mind, I just scaled all aspects of the moldmaking down… air vents, gates, etc. That doesn’t work. I cut the gates a bit bigger on a few of the molds and I am actually injecting the resin using a syringe!

I’m not sure if this first cast will come out because of timing… I’m wondering if I’ll have to do Inkling in two pours because it’s so hard to fill her molds. What a pain! O_O I am so glad I’m outsourcing most of the real casting.

Anyway… yeah. In about 90 minutes I’ll know how this went! Happily, if any pieces need to be redone I have more resin in this color… I am using up my Task 3 from the junk casts and so I just tinted that whole bottle of part B. It’s a sort of pale tan. I think it’s close to the color that two pre-orderers requested… so maybe someone’ll have a doll soon! :)

I keep telling myself that…

Tonight I poured the second halves of the molds. There are 16 molds…

Here’s a pic of the molds in the pressure pot after the first pour. The translucent part is the newly cured silicone; the opaque white is the clay holding the pieces in place.

Here are the mold halves after being sprayed with mold release. The translucent part is the silicone. Her butt is huge. HUEG.

Most of the molds are okay so far… there is only one that concerns me at all. Her lower torso had some of the silicone leak through the torso and fill in… that core was supposed to be connected to the other half of the mold. I’m afraid that the silicone won’t bond well, which would mean I’d need to re-mold the lower torso (ugh). Really though, that’s not too bad… but I hope it works so I don’t have to. I don’t want to put another 2-3 days into it.

Tomorrow night I may go to Sugar Mountain after work… if not, I’ll demold the masters and file them away, then pour some cheap resin in to make a junk cast and clean out the mold. I was entertaining the idea of trying to do a real cast tomorrow, but I don’t know… it sounds daunting for a Tuesday.

Something happened with the second pour for Shadoweyes… and the mold didn’t cure properly in some places. :( I am going to let it sit for a week or so, but I am not optimistic. There has already been some damage to the mold around the left shoulder and bicep when I demolded. I didn’t realize that it hadn’t cured in those places when I started demolding. I think that the silicone was just too old – it’s just on the cusp of the 6 month shelf life, and it hasn’t been stored in optimal conditions (it’s been both very cold and very hot in the house over the last six months).

I will admit to feeling some anxiety in pouring Inkling’s molds… even though I think that it was due to the silicone being old, I find myself fretful about things like cure inhibition (which is a bigger problem with platsil than tinsil) and myriad other molding problems.

At any rate, the first pour for Inkling’s pieces has been completed – I got up and did it straight-away. I have a few areas of concern with regard to the shapes of the molds/pieces themselves, but we’ll see if they are overcome by the pressure. With regard to the pressure, I am worried that a lot of air was incorporated in mixing the silicone, so I’m afraid that the silicone level will drop a lot when it’s all pressurized. I guess worse case scenario, I’ll open the pot around 6 tonight and see if anything needs to be topped off.

*fingers crossed* Please let this all work. I hate molding.

It took forever to clay Inkling. I was really nitpicky with the clay, so hopefully there will be little to no seam lines on her. Here’s to hoping! I think I spent about 15 hours doing clay. That’s way too long. Everything takes me longer than I think it will.

The end is in sight, though. Now I just need to stick the halves of the PVC mother molds back together, then I can pour silicone!

Also feel like showing Mr. Kitty, who is my distraction for when I feel like carving into things. -_-;
Modified Dollzone Mo, in progress.

Also waiting on a new power cord for my laptop. I don’t know what I do, but I just kill the power cords. This’ll be the third one for this laptop in as many years. -_-;;