So I’ve made my plaster mould for my tragic robot character, and much like poor Archaeopteryx it has been a bit of a disaster.

The mould is stronger this time, but I made a real pig’s ear of making a distinct join between the two sides, so when I tried to take it apart it ended up with a pretty significant gap between the two sides.

So I did a couple of latex layers for the front half, thinking I’d just do that, and then I changed my mind and decided to really go for the 3D puppet – I stuffed the gaps with tin foil and wrapped the whole mould in foil.

I filled the mould with latex, hoping that the tin foil would hold long enough for the latex to dry and form a layer that would then hold the rest. Unfortunately the latex all came pouring out.

Next I tried sealing it with hot glue, but that was unsuccessful (this time I tested it with water), so finally I plastered over the gaps, meaning I’ll need to completely destroy the mould to get the cast out. Also there’s going to be a spectacular flash line around the crack, but maybe that will look cool.

I also won’t be able to reinforce the latex with hessian so I think I’m going to have to do a lot of layers to make it strong enough as a puppet.