Well, I am pretty horrible about keeping this blog up to date, I still post pretty much everything on my Facebook page. I think it will be my New Year's resolution to make sure everything I do from now on comes from here and just link it from my Facebook page, ah, social media, such a great way to not keep organized.

So I am continuing the modeling and printing thing, using new techniques in Zbrush and getting more confident with them. I have also added KeyShot for Zbrush and now my models look amazing rendered in it, so of course now I have to go back and spruce up my portfolio, which of course brings us back to me not dealing with this as my primary site.

And I have added a book cover to me portfolio. My longest time friend Jason Moffatt has come up with a snazzy little tale called, "The Clean Up Crew" full of action and monsters and splosions, and can be found as a Kindle book on Amazon, rub your eyeballs on it!

So as this is a notice of me hoping to be more active here, and getting my crap together into one big steaming pile, I wll get organized!

Well, I'm back to post up on here after many months of LIFE sitting on my head and crushing it, so here's news from the bowels of newsy things.

The Wahooni continues to shudder and roll along, like unto a overloaded cart making its trek around a sliver of road on a high mountain, as many of our dreams do. I have posted up some of the new models I have created during the summer and into fall, I hope you like 'em. Been re-tooling the page a bit also, trying to get it to tuck in its shirt and comb its hair, so professional is my look. In the ensuing months I hope to have some resin casting done and a few more molds, just have to catch a few pots o' gold or roll a leprechaun or two (oddly enough stores don't take bricks and fish as payment, who knew?)

So look to the future young granulates, for it is sure to be full of whatever the heck falls out of me head, which right now is the occasional rivet or two from me creaking skull plates......

Jumping into the next learning curve in making molds of the things I have been printing.

I chose two pins I designed for my first molds. Bear with me as I don't know how this blog post will lay out so I am givijng you the overall of what I did just in case I can't caption the photos.

I measured them and traced out their shape, trying to find the area of the mold box. Once that's done I glue them to Faom-cor board (Did you know that molten glue is really effing hot? My fingers know) Now I use more Foam-cor to make walls of the mold box for the pins. I use rubber bands to hold them around the pin and glue them to the bottom then I wrapped blue painter's tape around them just in case. Taking each box I spray them both with a mold release spray (a good idea if you want to do this right, sorry no pic again).

Now comes the measuring of the silcone for the mold, this stuff can be measurd by volume so you could just eyeball it if you want to, but I wanted to try and save material so I weighed it out on a digital scale after using a handy claculator on the Smooth-on website. Once I poured in both parts of the silicone I mixed it thoroughly with a wooden tongue depressor until the color was uniform, and poured it into the mold (I couldn't get a pic of me pouring because it was too awkward to do, sorry) I poured it high up turning it into a thin stream and starting in a corner and letting it find it's own level as it covered the pins, until I filled it to about a half n inch above the pin. Now the waiting game, since this type takes six hours to solidify.

Coming back and poking it we find it solid and I start pulling the walls of the box off and then slowly peel the mold off of the pin. Not too bad, but my glue skills need some work as you can see the silicone crept under the pin a bit, but this can be cleaned up with a xacto knife and tweezers. Once I've got the molds all clean and pretty you can see the detail in reverse, pretty good, way to go Me!

Now it's time to cast, using a liquid plastic that also comes in two parts. Unlike the silicone this stuff is really fast in curing time, and it gets hot while it does. So we take our molds and spray them again with the mold release and then measure out our parts of the plastic. I overpoured on both of them just because I figured I could clean them up if I had to.

As you can see pretty quickly a white area forms as the chemical reaction happens, which spreads out from the thickest area to the thinnest. In about 25 min. the plastic is completely white and after a few more mintues it is solid and can be removed. I slowly bent the mold all the way around it until it all popped out and there you have it, with a bit of extra plastic removal you have a resin copy of your 3D print!

Next up is the two part mold which is for all those complicated pieces I've made, and I am sure more learning curve shenanigans!

So, I spent the first actual day in the great Keebler art tree, and feel strangely accomplished.

Finding the groove after so long stuffed into tiny physical space is diificult if you have all manner of art that you like to do, you end up doing most of it in your head, which has infinite space, but the equipment can get a little buggy. So today was spent 3D printing, and assembling a cabinet, and hanging artwork. By the end of the day (which meant having to stop to run all those other errands that plague our lives) I had a few printed pieces, a cabinet, and art beginning to fill the walls. Time flew, as it often does, when you are hip-deep into the making of things, and walking out into the day I was a bit dazed. But it all seemed to work, and I hope it continues to do so, I just have to get used to the idea that the space for my art isn't just in my head anymore, and it's a lot easier to organize out here, and a little quieter too.....

Small irony; I never had to use the bathroom all day today, probably beacuse it's all functional now.