I started this dog gargoyle with a lump of oil based clay. I love working with this type of clay! It never, ever dries out and I can use it over again many times to create new pieces. The clay I use needs to be warmed a bit to make it easier to squish and twist and all that fun stuff. A low watt bulb in a gooseneck lamp works great to warm it up.

I'm not using an armature for this sculpture since it's going to be chunky and really won't need any internal support. On larger pieces I would build an armature. Hopefully I can show that to you in the near future.

I've already spent about 4 or 5 hours building up the body and working on the face. In this picture I'm making the spikes and adding them to his head and around his jaw.

Here you can see I have his spikes finished. I've also worked on his ears and am pretty happy with the results so far. This took me almost 2 hours to get to this point. All those pointy little pieces of clay laying around are just extras and they'll get tossed back into my clay bowl and wait to become something else later on.

My wonderful husband has already been in my studio twice to remind me to take breaks and to eat lunch. I really loose track of time when I'm working. If it were not for him, I'd probably starve myself. LOL.

Time to call it a day. I'll finish the sculpting in the morning. I've spent about 7 hours on this sculpture so far. Whew!

Good Morning everyone. I've had my coffee, breakfast and managed to finish sculpting my dog gargoyle. Just add another 2 hours to the time spent sculpting him and you'll get a good idea how much time is spent just to get to this point. Actually, this one went pretty fast, some of my more complex pieces take a week or longer to sculpt.

Don't forget to add your signature! I like mine to be in the back so that's where this guy gets to wear my name. :)

Awww, isn't he a cutie! I still don't know what to name him at this point so I'll ask my husband and some friends for ideas and hopefully this guy will have a name pretty soon. Now, I'll start making the mold.

I make my molds using a professional grade latex. Latex is great for molds, it captures all the fine details, it's stretchable so you don't have to worry as much about undercuts and it's durable. I can get around 100 castings from my molds before they start to break down. When you use latex make sure you ventilate your work area as this stuff will curl your toes! I'll be painting on the latex in thin layers, up to 16 layers.

Latex ruins brushes so I won't use any of my good brushes for this. I use kids brushes that I can buy in a pack of 24 at a hobby store. After each layer I wash the brush in soapy water. I usually use one brush for awhile, they're good for several sculptures, as long as I clean them well in between layers:

The brushes that I use are a bit stiff which is great for getting the latex into all the detail and breaking any small bubbles that may be in the latex. Take your time putting on the first few layers of latex. These are the layers that will put all your details into your final casting and you don't want your mold to have lots of tiny bubbles because you were too impatient.

It takes about 5 minutes to paint on the layer. You then have to let it completely dry before applying the next layer. Depending on the room temperature and humidity it takes anywhere from 1 to 2 hours for each layer to dry.

I'm now at latex layer 4 in this picture. I can start painting the latex on a bit thicker at this point since my detail layers are nice and dry and bubble free.

Notice that I am building a "lip" around the base. This will help keep the mold from folding inward when I pour the hydrostone and will also help when I pull the mold off the set hydrostone.

This is what the latex looks like at layer 14. I'm done with the latex and it has a nice thickness to it. Yuck, poor guy, he looks like he has a really nasty skin condition.

It took about 20 hours to get all the layers of latex painted on and dried. Now I'll let it "cure" for 24 hours before I make the mother mold.

Before I can start building the mother mold I have to decide where my parting lines will be. It's really not as hard as it may seem. I try to pick "the path of least resistance" and draw my lines with a marker right on the latex.

The Mother Mold is a hard, outer shell that keeps the latex from stretching while I'm casting the sculpture in hydrostone.

Once I have my parting lines drawn in I will dust the latex mold with baby powder to make it easier to pull off the mother mold.

The material I use to make my mother mold with is a 2 part resin called Magic Sculp. It looks and feels like putty when you mix it and it dries as hard as bone. It's great for mother molds because it's easy to apply and it's light as a feather when it cures.

Here is a picture of the first side of the mother mold finished. You see the wooden dowel? There will be 4 of those and they will become my built in stand when I am pouring the mold. To make this I simply mixed equal amounts of part A and part B of the Magic Sculpt until it was completely blended. I then applied it by pressing it in place on the latex mold. The mother mold is about 1/4 inch thick.

The Magic Sculp has to cure for about 2 hours before I can build the next section of the mother mold.

Seven hours later and I now have 3 sections of my mother mold completed. Before I made each new section I applied petroleum jelly (vaseline) to the mother mold edges and dusted it again with baby powder. This prevents each section of the mother mold from permanently sticking to each other.

See how I sculpted the edges with a curve in them? This helps "lock" the mold together when I'm casting the sculpture.

I have added 2 more section of my mother mold and it's now finished. Total time to make the mother mold was about 11 hours. (I must be nuts!) I'll let this cure now for 24 hours before I pull it all apart.

Here is what the mother mold looks like after I pulled it off the latex mold. I had to use a spoon to dig out most of the clay so I could get the silly thing off.

After I pulled the mother mold off I then pulled the latex mold off what was left of my original sculpture.

Here is my original sculpture after I dug it out of the latex mold. May he rest in peace.

Actually, this is kind of creepy looking.

Now it's time to mix up a batch of hydrostone and make my first casting from this mold. Hydrostone is mixed with water in a 1 to 2 ratio, example: 1 cup water to 2 cups hydrostone. This sculpture takes about 1 3/4 cups water and 3 1/2 cups hydrostone.

I first put the water into my mixing bowl, I then sift the hydrostone into the water. I let it set for about 5 minutes to let the powder completely soak.

After it soaks I stir it with an old spoon being careful to not stir in a bunch of bubbles. I stir for about 3 to 4 minutes to make sure I don't have any lumps in the mixture. The consistency of this mixture is about the same consistency of pancake batter.

Pancakes ... yummmmm!

After the hydrostone mixture is completely stirred it's time to start pouring the mold. I only pour it partially full at first. This way I can tip the mold around to get a coating of hydrostone on the inside of the mold. I also start squishing and poking the mold in spots I think might trap air.

Getting a nice coating on the mold's surface.

squish, squish.

poke, poke poke .... take that you nasty old bubbles!

After all the squishing and poking I pour in more hydrostone but I still do not fill the mold. Now it's time to start putting the mother mold on to support the latex mold.

After I have the whole thing put together I hold it all together with rubber bands. I add more hydrostone filling the mold almost to the top.

I will use either an old, cheap paintbrush or my finger to "brush" the inside of the mold to break loose any bubbles sticking to the surface of the mold. I will also tap the mold with my hand to bring bubbles up to the surface.

It's almost impossible to get rid of every bubble but if you take the time to do these extra steps you won't be surprised by a big hole on the surface of your casting that was once a trapped bubble.

Now it's time to top off the mold. Another tap or two on the side of the mold to level off the hydrostone then it's just a matter of waiting 30 minutes to an hour for the hydrostone to set enough for me to pull the molds off.

Time to pull the molds! First the mother mold comes off. Be careful of those rubber bands. They smart when they snap.

Removing more pieces of the mother mold.

After that I pull the latex mold off. It's just like a thick rubber glove and peels off easily.

TaDa!!! A finished casting of my dog gargoyle. I always consider the first casting a test because it shows me where bubbles may get trap and it always gets those last little pieces of clay I couldn't get out of the inside of the mold.