On a wire

For the wire that the fish sit on I have soldered on two posts to a solid steel bar.

The fish are finally finished!!!!!

Colour

After cleaning up the cast a bit I attached the fish to an acrylic rod. Then I used an airbrush for the painting. I used iridescent paint to give a nice effect. (It doesnt really show in photos)

Casting 2

I have use polyurethane fast cast resin to make the fish. The mould has been cut in a way to allow me to be able to cast the delicate fins at the same time as the body.

To pour the cast, first I left the mould open and fixed in the glass eyes by placing them in place and pouring the resin around them, when it was set the eyes were held in place. I then was able to pour the resin into the fins (still with the mould apart), this enabled me to be able to guarantee the fins were cast fully. Once this had set I then put the mould together and poured the rest of the resin in for the body.

Cast fish out of mould:

Casting

After removing the original sculpt and cleaning up the mould, the fish is now ready to be cast.

Silicone mould:

Silicone

To mould the fish im going to use silicone. Im also going to ise moukd olugs so it will be easier to open the mould and put it together later. To put these in they are put onto a piece of acetate with a gap cut out around the fish.

Pouring the silicone into the mould.

Finished sculpt

After being once again neglected for a while the fish are now sculpted and ready to be moulded.

Fins

To sculpt the fins ive just rolled the sculpey flat, cut the shape needed and used a tool to put the lines on the fin on each side. For baking into shape I place them on foil rolled into curves so they arent just flat.

New eyes

The glass eyes that I will use on the finished fish have been delivered. The size is different from the eyes I have in the sculpt at the moment. I have cast the glass eyes in silicone to make some plaster ones to put in the sculpt. I decided to use plaster ones so as not to risk damaging the glass ones.

Wen

Meant to put some updates on this ages ago!

The wierd thing on the heads of the fish is called a wen.

Faces

Been a while

Have been working on my other project for a while so the fish have been neglected, but now one is starting to have a face after this morning.

Ive used some teddy bear eyes for now so I can locate the real ones in better later. The ones I will actually be using are some taxidermy fish eyes.

Start sculpting

Starting to sculpt. Bulk out the basic shape with foil and start of sculpy. Spent a bit of time trying to get the back curve right. It needs blending into the back more.

Reference...

Looking at real Orandas and reference images

Making plans.....

I want to make the fish resonably solid so they dont droop when on the cable. I was thinking of trying to have a soft 'skin' layer over a solid core so the fish will stay in position but feel soft to the touch.
By using silicone over a polyurethane resin (fast cast) core I should be able to get the effect that i want. This should also enable me to cast the entire fish in one piece instead of possibly having to seperate the fins and wen (red hood).
For the colouring I will use silicone pigment so that when painted it wont crack off the model.

Orandas on a Wire

For one of my final projects I have chosen an image by the artist Ursula Vernon.

The scale will be as if the fish were full grown Orandas.

They will be sculpted, moulded and cast. Im going to look into which materials would be best to use and am going to look into making them solid but with a soft 'flesh like' layer and into intrinsic colouring.