Set Stills

Beach Tent Shooting Day!

Richard Roy helped me light and film the opening and closing set the The Fair film. The shot was pretty tricky—a dolly move and a track focus. For the final composite, I'll be adding a layer of lightly falling snow in After Effects.

Lamps

I found some great little glass bulbs at a dollhouse making store. From there I did some simple wiring, painted some straws, and built up the features with black ribbon.

234 dipped lights!!!

Carousel Progress 4

Nearly finished painting the horses

It's a Great Day when Horses Neigh!

Hazzah! I've finally figured out the process for casting the horses for the carousel.

Originally, the goal was to make a silicone mold of a horse that I sculpted, and then cast a silicone horse (with an armature inside) within that mold. From there, the plan was to make 12 molds of the silicone horse in the 12 positions of the zoetrope... but... making the silicone horse with the armature was A LOT more challenging than anticipated.

The silicone was too dense before it cured to get into all of the fine details of the mold—especially the legs of the horse. Once cured the silicone was not dense enough and even the most flexible armatures were tearing through. I began looking for a new material to cast in.

The solution that I have found is casting the horses in a two part urethane plastic with an armature. Although the product is fairly brittle, I am able to heat the plastic after curing and bend the legs into position. The armature holds the legs together where any cracks form, and I fill the cracks with Magic Sculpt (a resin with hardens overnight). This technique makes it so that I do not have to make an additional 12 molds and casts!

I have also started testing options for the paint pallet:

Lights and Encaustics

I've been working on lighting for the carousel. The challenge is the number of lights and the fact that they need to be spinning with the zoetrope (so the power source needs to be isolated). 

Right now I am giving fiber optic lights a try. The pictures below show me modifying a fiber optic strands by dipping them in tinted damar crystals to give them a tungsten quality. 

There are still a lot more strands to go, but the overall effect is on track. 

Finished with Casting

I'm all done casting! Now onto sanding and painting.

Carousel Poles

      Casting the poles for the carousel horses has turned out to be one of the more challenging casts. I've been trying to avoid a two part mold in order to avoid seams, but my one part molds yield pretty inconsistent results. I do have the option of altering the casts after the fact by sanding and adding clay, but kind of time is not in my production schedule. So I was stumped for about a day... but.... tada! I found straws that are perfect for what I need! I ran wooden dowels through the straws and cut them down to size. They will work perfectly and they are pattern is consistent enough that I can actually make the poles spin on the zoetrope. Blessing in disguise.

Casting Begins

Casting is one of the processes that I've been looking forward to the most. Int he past, I have done some plaster casting with latex rubber and plaster molds, but nothing on this small of a scale. Larry Larson did a great demo of the mold making process this week.

For this step, I made a silicone mold of a piece baked Sculpy. Once cured, I pored in the casting medium--a two part urethane plastic and waited. Now all that's left is REPEAT! 

For the retaining wall, I used cut pieces of flexible baseboard material. To seal it, I hot glued the material to a piece of glass.

The original sculpted part and the silicone mold

The first cast!

And so it begins...

Shopping for Supplies

I found silicone rubber for casting at a great shop called TFB Plastics in Shelby Twp.

Samples of work from custormers

Soooo many choices... Thank you Mr. John the Salesman who helped me decide!

Drove past it twice, they should get a real sign :/

Also, if you didn't know, Michigan is cold and snowy in February. 

Technical Drawings