Shop Log - 6/28/22

Since my last update, I've been hard at work making fresh molds for my ongoing bootleg action figure projects and I think I finally have all that I’ll need for the foreseeable future (give or take a couple head molds). And while I’m still compiling a comprehensive article detailing my silicone mold making process, here’s a recap of my previous week of crafting.

I decided on what I want to do for the very first figure in my Mr. Boneface figure series, namely a semi-translucent green “Toxic Slime Pit” variant. Since I started pressure casting, I’ve been wanting to do more with translucent figures since air bubbles are no longer a major concern and I was thrilled when I was able to crack the code for what I think is a really stunning green pigment for my Flex-It 90 resin. That is, two drops of Special Resin and Chemical (SRC) brand Yellow pigment, six drops of generic transparent green dye (this particular stuff is for epoxy resins and Flex-It 90 is polyurethane resin, but it still worked out okay), and one TINY droplet of SRC Green pigment on the end of my wooden stir stick. Like all the figures in the line, the final pieces will have additional paint apps on the head, trunks, boots, and wrist bands with this figure in particular sporting a color palette heavily inspired by the Toxic Crusader/Avenger (hence why I went with the banana skull head sculpt for this one). I’m also kicking around the idea of including a little display stand with each figure but don’t hold me to that one just yet.

Since I’d already completed a set of molds for my Mr. Boneface/Basic MOTU KO body pattern the weekend prior, I got to work casting the base figures so that I would have the entire run of five pieces ready by the time I was ready to move on to the next stage. Though I should probably note that I hadn’t decided yet if the next phase would be to start prepping the five Toxic Slime Pit Mr. Boneface copies for their paint apps or casting all the parts for the next figure in the wave (which I’ll keep as a surprise for now, and much like the Toxic Slime Pit variant, it’s not one of the potential designs that I “previewed” in my earlier Shop Log).

But before I was finished casting the last piece, I did a bit of thinking as decided that the mold lines on the arms stood out way too much and Flex-It 90 resin being as abrasion resistant as it is, I knew that sanding them down would be no easy task and would probably leave behind artifacts on the surface that would be every bit as obvious as the mold lines themselves. You see, I did the initial molds for these arms the same way I always have for action figure arms: using a two-part clay-up mold since I was paranoid about the little socket in each of arms that connects them to the ball joints on the torso not filling up properly with silicone. That’s when I made the call to hit pause on the resin casting, put my fears aside, and re-do the arms as a one part cut mold. This was a bit disappointing for me, since I’d recently spent so much time making/remaking the molds for these (and other) figures in my new SRC brand Cast-A-Mold silicone that I was beyond ready to move on. But alas, this was not to be…

In my experience, as well as the experience of other hobbyists who are into this kind of thing, parts that are casted from a one-part molds have considerably less flash (that’s excess material that you have to peel, cut, or sand off when you first take a casted piece out of its mold) and less pronounced mold lines than ones for a two-part mold. So, along with a batch of other molds (which I’ll get to later), I once again disassembled the still unidentified bootleg He-Man figure that has been the basis for all my action figure molds up to this point and started gluing my air vents and pour spots to the arms as well as the torso, because I can always use a spare torso mold.

This is how I oriented the pieces in their mold surrounds (plastic cups from the dollar store with the bottoms cut off). This picture was taken before I pre-filled the sockets in the arms with silicone, affixed the cups to an acrylic sheet with Loctite silicone sealant (which I find is better than using hot glue, is easier to smooth out, and is less prone to leaks). Again, details on that whole process will be forthcoming in my mold-making article. But imagine these cups filled with silicone rubber and that’s pretty much what the one-part molds look like.

When the molds were complete and I cut them open to extract the original parts, I was a bit concerned when I saw that the “peg” on one of the molds was at a slight angle when it should have been protruding straight out. Now, this peg creates the “socket” in the arm, as it represents where the rubber flowed into that negative spare and cured inside. This worried me because I thought it might alter the shape of the arm socket when I poured in the resin and if that was messed up, then the arm wouldn’t snap onto the torso and the entire thing would be useless.

But thankfully, my fears were unfounded and even after several subsequent castings, the arms connect to the torso without any issue and the overall shape is unaltered despite the weird aberration in the mold. And what’s more, the mold lines are considerably smaller, require much less clean up, and generally look better than the ones produced from the two-part molds. This is a test casting that I made, the picture taken almost immediately after taking the molds out of the pressure pot and demolding the pieces. I’m definitely going to stick with the one-part molds for the arms going forward, as I’m much more satisfied with the results seen here.

A side note, I wanted this test figure to be a semi-translucent blue like Crystar the Crystal Warrior, so I mixed the resin with some blue transparent resin dye (again, the generic stuff used for epoxy resins) but since Flex-It 90 resin’s default color is a golden amber/yellow, it just turned it a different shade of green. I kind of foresaw that result, but I still wanted to see what happened.

Now I just need to cast five new sets of arms for my Toxic Slime Pit Mr. Boneface figures. Also, I’m probably going to re-mold the bandana skull head too since (as you can see from the pics), it’s still a bit rough on account of the mold I’m currently using being from my first batch of “prototype” figures (and thus, made from silicone that wasn’t vacuum degassed). So once that head mold is cured, I’ll have to do five new head castings as well. Then I’ll hopefully be finished with the casting stage for the Toxic Slime Pit Mr. Boneface.

And while we’re still on the subject of mold making, I made molds for yet another bootleg action figure buck body separate from the one seen above (and thus, the seeds for a series of wrestling-themed bootlegs were planted). I found this very MOTY-inspired luchador figure on ebay for about $6-7 bucks and being such a huge fan of Mexican bootleg action figures, I couldn’t wait to take it apart and make a whole new set of molds. What’s interesting here is that the head and waist are connected to the torso via these long pegs instead of ball and socket joints.

What I foresaw as my biggest challenge with molding this figure was the through-hole that runs the entire length of the torso. It’s not the easiest thing to photograph, so I’m hoping this wooden skewer illustrates the point (pardon the pun):

So I set the torso mold up like I would any other torso piece with the pour spot/funnel glued to the neck area, air vents glued to the ball joints where the arms attach, as well as some extra vents on either side of the neck for additional venting and stability for when I glue the funnel and vents to the bottom the plastic cup (leaving the torso piece itself upside down in the cup). I poured the silicone in two batches, the first one filling up the mold cup enough for the silicone to go past the funnel and just up to the neck where the through-hole begins. I waited for it to partially cure before, leaving me with a “floor” to where I could drizzle in some more silicone to pre-fill the through-hole without it leaking out. Once the through-hole was more or less filled up, I poured the rest of the second batch of silicone around it

The final mold has this crazy long peg where the negative space of the through-hole will be when resin is poured into the mold. I’m not overly concerned with this peg tearing off in subsequent castings since Cast-A-Mold silicone is incredibly tear-resistant and I’ll keep it spritzed with mold release before every casting.

Molding the other pieces was business as usual, though I regrettably had to use a two-part mold for the legs because I wanted to have the pour spout attached to the end of the peg and not pour in through the feet. It would have been too hard to keep the legs upright in the cup if I went the one-part mold route.

To date, I’ve only made my initial “clean-out” casting in flesh-colored resin to season the molds and aside from a few scattered air bubbles (I tend to have those with initial castings despite the pressure pot, with subsequent castings always turning out much cleaner), I thought it turned out great.

I’m looking forward to doing more with this luchador body pattern as well, as custom head sculpts will be even easier than the typical ball-and-socket ones for my other MOTU KO buck system since all I have to do is take the neck peg from an existing luchador head cast and glue it to the bottom of my custom one.

But as of now, I’m still focused on getting my first wave of Mr. Boneface figures produced and up for sale on my Etsy store. At this time, I’m thinking of splitting the series up into two waves of three figures each (each figure with a highly limited run of five individually numbered pieces as I gauge the level of demand for this sort of thing). Expect more announcements on that in the very near future as well as some more behind-the-scenes articles detailing the making of my bootleg resin art toys.