Hot Pour Vinyl Fishies

Materials:  Hot Pour Vinyl, Plaster, Vaseline, Acrylic Paints, Mold Box (wood or other), Modeling Clay
 
The mold for these herring was made for our production of 'The 39 Steps', by our clever and hilarious intern, Jess Smith, with guidance from yours truly.

Intern shown actual size.

 It is a simple two part plaster mold made from a fake fish that we had in stock.  See! Casting and faux foodstuffs in one convenient post!

The Original.

The first thing that Jess did was to determine where the seam of the mold wanted to be. With a symmetrical piece like a fish, this is a pretty easy task, especially when the fish you are using is a cast piece that already has a seam!  Using a wooden mold box, Jess built up clay around one side of the fish, taking up the space that one half of the mold would eventually fill.  Before applying a release agent, she built up clay near the mouth to form a pour spout, and carved a trough with a carving tool to act as a registration.  (A registration is made to keep the two pieces of the mold in the correct alignment.)  Once the clay dam was complete, Jess used petroleum jelly (good ol' Vaseline) to coat the clay dam, the wooden sides of the box, and the fish. This acted as a release agent so that the plaster would not stick to any of the surfaces and prevent the mold from being removed.  Jess then poured the plaster into the first side of the mold, and allowed it to cure.

Here you can see the first half of the mold and the clay dam that has been removed.

Once the plaster set, Jess removed the whole thing from the mold box (some disassembly required), flipped it, and settled in back into the mold box, plaster side down. She then removed the clay dam, built the second half of the pour spout, and gave the whole shebang another coat of petroleum jelly before pouring side two.  Once side two was poured, she removed the mold from the box, removed the fish from the mold, and gave both pieces of the mold a good scrubbing to remove the release agent.

See the registration trough/ridge?

The next step was to pour the castings.  We used pigmented hot pour vinyl to do this (see last weeks post here).  After securing the mold halves together, Jess heated the vinyl until it melted, and poured it into the mold.  The vinyl itself isn't sticky when it's dry, so no release agent was needed.  Then, once the vinyl had cooled, we popped it out of the mold, trimmed the sprue from the pour spout and painted the fishies silver with acrylic paint.  We did try to brush silver bronzing powder into the mold before casting, and while it looked good, the powder came off on our hands too easily when handling the herring- so we went with the paint instead.

The best thing about these fishies is their floppy quality.

Read more

Pickled Herring with Onions

Materials: Paraffin Wax, Candle Pigments, Microfoam, Fake herbs

This is one of the dishes that I made for the engagement party scene in 'Cabaret.'  In the scene, the counter is covered in party food; punch, sausages, St. Lucia rolls, fruit bowls, and pickled herring.  This pickled herring is made of a material newly discovered to me- paraffin wax.  Well, okay, I knew about paraffin wax before, but the idea of using it to replicate translucent foods is on the newer side. My boss suggested it last season for a smoked salmon platter that was on the list, and I decided to use it for this project.  The paraffin is nice because it is easy to carve with an olfa knife or carving tools, easy to tint with candle coloring, has a great translucence for things like fish, and you can buy it at the grocery store. Also, you can melt it down for re-use.

 I started by finding a few research photos.

This is one of them.

 

 

 

 

Next, I went out and bought some candle pigments. Okay, I asked our shopper to go out and buy me some candle pigments. Candle colors come in packets of small, intensely colored wax diamonds, like tiny diamond shaped crayons.  I bought my pigments from a candle supply company in my neighborhood which I will now shamelessly plug. Not only can you find candle and soap making supplies at The Candlemaker, you'll also be dealing with a small, local and web-based business run by a delightful woman that boosts tax revenues in my neighborhood. Also, she's really nice.  Please check her website out for all of your candle making needs.  Again, that's www.thecandlemaker.com

Okay, the shameless promoting is over for now. After buying the pigments, I carved the paraffin wax into pickled herring shapes. I carved the shapes with my trusty Olfa knife, and used a clay carving tool to smooth them.

Like this.

 Once the shapes were carved, it was time to add some color.  Using a makeshift double boiler (tin cans in a bath of boiling water) I made three wax washes; one yellow, one gray, and one black.  The yellow was just to cut the bright white color of the wax, the gray and black were to give the appearance of skin.  Keeping the colored wax warm and liquid, I used acid brushes to paint it onto the pieces of "herring."

Like this!

 Once the herring was finished, it needed some garnish to make it believable.  The dill was easy, I just pulled some plastic fish tank plants out of our stock.  The onions were more fun. I cut microfoam packing material into thin strips, and glued it into rings using rubber cement.

Neat, huh?

Once I had herring, onions, and dill in hand, I just had to glue them down. I used a combination of hot glue and rubber cement to do this. Turns out, rubber cement doesn't stick to wax, and hot glue doesn't stick to microfoam. Fun, no?  Anyway, once it was all together, I was very happy with the effect. 

Not too shabby.

Read more