Bullfrog Carousel studio images

The Bullfrog is finished.

Ive painted him with earth powder pigments from Tirantis mixed with meths and shellac. The gold is bronze powder in light and dark gold.  I now need to find him an owner.

Marco Monkey Puppet

Marco is a capuchin pirate monkey puppet, myself, Eleanor Brereton and Adam Edwards have just made as a comission for Flabbergast Theatre Company. He has a wooden frame, polyfoam body and silicone head, hands and feet. The three of us worked together to produce him in two weeks.

Meet Dean

 Chipping resin Bullfrog cast out of plaster mould. Thought this was going to take me a week but no, just got the boys on it, (boy+mallet+chisel)x3 = chip out in ten minutes. Done.

The following images show the seam lines, mis-alignments and holes I need to fix.  I resined the ears, horns, tail and reins on last week.  I have also finished constructing the base part of the carousel ready for Dean to go onto. He had to be angle grinded him off the dolly, collar welded onto the pole, resined his feet on and basically slotted him onto the carousel base pole. It was not this simple but we got there.

Need to get sanding now.

carousely bits

Welded base structure. This will be in the wooden carousel base.

Biscuit jointed the circle halves together.

Carousel tent piece. Having 8 of these.

Decoration for carousel skirt. Going to sculpt this, mould it and cast lots of them in resin to apply all round the carousel.

Bought this pole from a curtain pole company. Moulding it in silicone so I can replicate it hollow to put round the gas barrel pole that runs through the bullfrog.

                                                       Carousel base coming together!!

Casting in resin

Repaired mould pieces, filling in areas with plastacine. Painted the mould with shellac and then wax.

Painted pigmented gel coat layer in.

Next step is fibreglass.

De Moulding

To de mould you soak the mould by pouring water over it, gradually prised each piece off. Then had to  remove everything inside; clay, polystyrene and the armature. 

Leaving the box steel armature in the mother mould as it will stay in the final resin version.

Breakages happened in areas where the plaster was too thin.

Moulding the Bullfrog

Cut off ears, horns and tail to mould separately.

Shimming, pushed brass shim into sculpt where the various mould pieces will be.

Built simple wooden structure to support the mother (main) mould underneath.

First plastered the mother mould and secured to wood.

Plastered the other other mould pieces.

Attached steel poles all over Bullfrog to support the mould pieces. Mould finished.

Built clay bed around ears/horns/tail and plastered over them, reversed and did the same.