I’ll have to post this here for now, until the sister blog Cast The Whales is up and running.
It all started with a feverish late night vision. As fast as possible, I reproduced the vision in Microsoft Paint, lest it be forgotten like the last 2000 pages of Kubla Khan.
What do YOU think about late at night?
I won’t recount every step that followed, there are not enough megabytes on the internet. Here are some of the highlights.
My original model, before I comprehended how impossible it would be to melt enough brass for a three dimensional head this size.
Half a head is better than none.
The inimitable and indispensable David Silva packing sand into the casting flask. I could never have done this project without him. He is a master of metal and fire.
Making the impression.
Melting down the brass. Yeah!
As cool as this looks … still not hot enough.
Once the brass casting grains turn into liquid metal straight out of a special effect from the early 90s, a quick pour and then you just hope.
Looking good ….
Great success!
And then there were two. This must be how god felt after he made Eve from Adam’s ribcage.
After a few days worth of compulsive grinding and polishing, it looked like this.
Making the background was harder than I expected. I wanted the look of metal accidentally spilled into the pumice stones, but it took a lot of practice before we could produce this effect deliberately. W.K. Kellogg probably had the same problem when he tried to replicate Corn Flakes.
Kids - DO NOT spend an afternoon splashing molten metal straight into pans of pumice stone. I promise, it’s really boring.
David brazed together the pieces of splash metal with silver solder, another difficult and lengthy step that I am almost completely eliding over.
I won’t even mention the polishing, pumice-stone removing, acid staining and whatnot that happened in post-production. Let’s just go straight to the pig picture.
Who has the cuter gorilla face???
Almost forgot. This is …. a …. uh … light switch cover.
Originally posted December 2011
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