Hyn Patty

I also posted this photo of first version 1/9th traditional scale Porthos with the docked tail.  This is a roto cast hollow white resin I have cut up for mold making.  I'm in the process of using colored oil clays to 'clay up' for pouring those molds in plaster.  Once the molds are poured, I test them to make a single casting like the curio bisque at the top of this thread.  This allows me to see where the mold is skimming or tearing clay off as I demold so I can trim those edges clean.  Tiny undercuts can be skimmed off the plaster mold pieces easily.  If there are air bubbles, I fill them with plaster paste or epoxy.  If there are details that are too soft, I can go back in and recut them much more sharply in my plaster master mold.
Then, rather than continue to use that first mold, I seal it with mold soap and then pour a silicone rubber mold of each plaster piece.  This will then allow me to cast as many plaster production molds as I want!  As the mold detail wears very rapidly (especially if I am casting porcelains) then I may need to be able to reproduce the mold several times over to keep every piece of my edition super crisp.
As usual, this probably belongs in the mold making and slip casting thread...

Noted.  And sometimes I use IPA - depends which one is handier.  I've never had an issue with either one since I literally only use a drop or so in my water spray bottle of the bleach.  The generic bleach I buy only lists one ingredient and nothing added for scent.  (I also incidentally use it for phytosanitary applications like tissue culture of plant materials.)
Yes!  This method of cutting up the piece is typical for casting porcelain and bone china in the UK and Europe.  Indeed it was a few photos shared here with me from another member (who may or may not wish to be named) that helped me figure out this problem.  I also worked with porcelain sometimes and I've been working on perfecting and testing English bone china slip I've made here in my studio.  So I went ahead and produced this multi-part mold for that purpose.  It works just as well for earthenware. 
As I knock some rust off I'll be pushing to try and make more complex molds that would allow me to cast Porthos as whole and as close to one piece as possible.  Body with three legs attached most likely, with the head and neck separate and that cocked back leg.  That would take less assembly and thus less time.  And problem solving with mold making is an excellent challenge to practice if you want to get better anyway.
One of my new sculptures I have started is the 'Spider foal' that is rolling.   I'm jokingly calling it my 'spider' sculpture for now because it looks hideous!  But it's in the early 'skeleton' stage where I flesh out the proportions of the bones and set the joints as points of reference from which I will build up tendons, muscle, skin, etc over top.  Anyway, you can see that I do not like to sculpt with molding limitations in mind.  So being able to mold them in pieces and assemble ANY kind of pose or complex arrangement really frees me up to do anything I want.  

Yes, stunning work and thank you for sharing the process as well. 
Betty

Absolutely beautiful, @Hyn Patty!! I really appreciate the look behind the scenes into the mystery of assembling that challenging pose. Thank you for sharing and inspiring.
(giggle) Fabio tail!
How do you scale your creations?

Years ago I found a book about Belleek porcelain. (I had never heard of the company before finding the book. Apparently, it's an old Irish pottery.)
In the book they showed beautiful porcelain figurines. To allow for variety each appendage, arms and legs, were made with a ball end. The ball end fit into a socket on the main torso form. That way the arms and legs could be arranged in different ways. A huge pain to mold but I did this for the Akita mold. Each leg had a ball like end that fit into sockets on the main torso. As the piece was small there wasn't much room, to move each appendage, but it did allow the artist to play with it as he saw fit. 
 
 

Here's a quick shot of one of my wet boxes.  It's just a plastic box with a lid that I happened to pour a little left over plaster into.  I keep it wet with distilled water with a few drops of bleach in it so things won't mold.  A layer of paper towel helps keep the plaster clean should I want to use it with different kinds of clay pieces.
You can see I have already attached Portho's head to his neck, then his neck to his body.  Due to the angle of the head and neck with the shoulder, and the muscling of the neck swelling in and out in the curve, it would be difficult (but not impossible) to mold that area to pour as a single piece.  It would require multiple internal small mold pieces. So much easier to simply cut his head and neck off and mold them separately.  It only takes a few minutes to score and slip stick all of his various pieces together once I have cleaned off the seams.  I do this when he's firmed up nearly leather hard.
Once he is leather hard and actually starting to dry I can remove him from the box and burnish his seams properly and do final detailing.

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while.  At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition.  I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year.
Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture.  Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year.  Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces.  This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size.  He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better.  Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later.
So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

Yes!  I've gone off and on to Breyerfest since the mid 90's and that is indeed the event I am attending this year in July.  So I want to have a few of these in both sizes and both main versions produced in time to take with me.  I'm also flying out to California to judge a show of equine art and of course want to take some there too.   I also do a number of fine art shows once in a long while but shipping can be VERY costly and I have moved away from paying gallery and show commissions on my sales.  I get plenty of people willing to fight over the pieces I post to public auctions online.
Thank you both for your kind words.  I would love to see your dog pieces, Denise!  I used to sculpt a few dogs as well so if I ever have time I plan to get back to doing that once in a while in between equine pieces.
You are right Jeff that molding a piece like Porthos /can/ be crazy - if I was determined to cast him entirely in one piece, whole.  The issue of his sharply turned head and neck, and the close proximity of his back cocked leg that actually crosses over partly in front of his other back leg, would be ... very challenging to say the least.   So I cut up my 'master' I was molding and I actually cast Porthos in a few pieces.  With practice, assembly and clean up of such a sculpture goes pretty quickly.  I can demold the pieces into a wet box, allow them to firm up a bit, then do the old score and slip-stick routine.  Since I'm the sculptor it is no trouble whatsoever for me then to clean up and redetail those areas I had to attach.  That way it's actually not that difficult to mold such a sculpture as long as you don't mind some assembly.  I can easily put a piece like this together and do all the initial clean up and resculpting in about an hour or less.  Then back into the wet box for slow drying to prevent cracking as he has some uneven thickness in some areas.
To facilitate easier molding I can also flood some minor undercuts such as the tail bow, and simply go back and hand detail those pieces again after casting and assembly.  It does mean I spend a lot of time with post casting but on the other hand I get thousands of dollars per piece once completed so it's well worth my time to make them the highest possible quality I can. 

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand.  Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him.  Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey!  This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event.  But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic!  I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done.  I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes.  The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet.  They each fit down into little  holes I have drilled down his neck.
I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall.  I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while.  At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition.  I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year.
Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture.  Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year.  Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces.  This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size.  He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better.  Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later.
So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

Yes!  I've gone off and on to Breyerfest since the mid 90's and that is indeed the event I am attending this year in July.  So I want to have a few of these in both sizes and both main versions produced in time to take with me.  I'm also flying out to California to judge a show of equine art and of course want to take some there too.   I also do a number of fine art shows once in a long while but shipping can be VERY costly and I have moved away from paying gallery and show commissions on my sales.  I get plenty of people willing to fight over the pieces I post to public auctions online.
Thank you both for your kind words.  I would love to see your dog pieces, Denise!  I used to sculpt a few dogs as well so if I ever have time I plan to get back to doing that once in a while in between equine pieces.
You are right Jeff that molding a piece like Porthos /can/ be crazy - if I was determined to cast him entirely in one piece, whole.  The issue of his sharply turned head and neck, and the close proximity of his back cocked leg that actually crosses over partly in front of his other back leg, would be ... very challenging to say the least.   So I cut up my 'master' I was molding and I actually cast Porthos in a few pieces.  With practice, assembly and clean up of such a sculpture goes pretty quickly.  I can demold the pieces into a wet box, allow them to firm up a bit, then do the old score and slip-stick routine.  Since I'm the sculptor it is no trouble whatsoever for me then to clean up and redetail those areas I had to attach.  That way it's actually not that difficult to mold such a sculpture as long as you don't mind some assembly.  I can easily put a piece like this together and do all the initial clean up and resculpting in about an hour or less.  Then back into the wet box for slow drying to prevent cracking as he has some uneven thickness in some areas.
To facilitate easier molding I can also flood some minor undercuts such as the tail bow, and simply go back and hand detail those pieces again after casting and assembly.  It does mean I spend a lot of time with post casting but on the other hand I get thousands of dollars per piece once completed so it's well worth my time to make them the highest possible quality I can. 

Off topic, but as you seem to be exploring the boundaries at the moment so you may be interested.
Historically millions of bowls have been made in bisque moulds. Not by casting, but by a skilled-labour intensive slow-wheel process akin to manual "jiggering".
 
Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nef_LuFDkc
Note there is no attempt to mould-form the foot or the upper smooth-section-with-rim. But you get a lot of texture with little per-pot effort, and the use of stamps minimises per-mould effort.
 

Yes!  I've gone off and on to Breyerfest since the mid 90's and that is indeed the event I am attending this year in July.  So I want to have a few of these in both sizes and both main versions produced in time to take with me.  I'm also flying out to California to judge a show of equine art and of course want to take some there too.   I also do a number of fine art shows once in a long while but shipping can be VERY costly and I have moved away from paying gallery and show commissions on my sales.  I get plenty of people willing to fight over the pieces I post to public auctions online.
Thank you both for your kind words.  I would love to see your dog pieces, Denise!  I used to sculpt a few dogs as well so if I ever have time I plan to get back to doing that once in a while in between equine pieces.
You are right Jeff that molding a piece like Porthos /can/ be crazy - if I was determined to cast him entirely in one piece, whole.  The issue of his sharply turned head and neck, and the close proximity of his back cocked leg that actually crosses over partly in front of his other back leg, would be ... very challenging to say the least.   So I cut up my 'master' I was molding and I actually cast Porthos in a few pieces.  With practice, assembly and clean up of such a sculpture goes pretty quickly.  I can demold the pieces into a wet box, allow them to firm up a bit, then do the old score and slip-stick routine.  Since I'm the sculptor it is no trouble whatsoever for me then to clean up and redetail those areas I had to attach.  That way it's actually not that difficult to mold such a sculpture as long as you don't mind some assembly.  I can easily put a piece like this together and do all the initial clean up and resculpting in about an hour or less.  Then back into the wet box for slow drying to prevent cracking as he has some uneven thickness in some areas.
To facilitate easier molding I can also flood some minor undercuts such as the tail bow, and simply go back and hand detail those pieces again after casting and assembly.  It does mean I spend a lot of time with post casting but on the other hand I get thousands of dollars per piece once completed so it's well worth my time to make them the highest possible quality I can. 

I am so happy that you are able to spend so much time in your studio.   I hope you are able to get some big bucks for your works of art.  It is always nice to know that someone appreciates your work and are willing to pay for it.  I think I will make a sculpture of my dog when I finish making some repair tiles for a mural.  He is a Chiweenie  so he is on the small size,  I could fit a life size sculpture of him in the kiln.  My last dog would go crazy when I was working on a portraiture sculpture.  I'd better start taking some photos,  he looks like the dog in the old RCA ads.   I think I will try that pose.   Denice

Beautiful work Hyn Patty. Can't imagine molding it.
Years ago a gent sculpted an Akita dog with as much detail. About the same size as your project. Nightmare project but he was happy with the molds when it was completed.  (He was a breeder and brought several dogs when he picked up the molds. Super strong animals but very well behaved.)
Have you ever heard of Breyerfest? For several years I worked at a pottery shop that made promo mugs for the event. Had no idea what it was until I looked it up. 
Here in Minneapolis the big collectible was little porcelain buildings made by Dept56. Had no idea there was another type of collectible out there.
 

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while.  At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition.  I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year.
Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture.  Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year.  Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces.  This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size.  He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better.  Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later.
So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand.  Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him.  Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey!  This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event.  But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic!  I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done.  I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes.  The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet.  They each fit down into little  holes I have drilled down his neck.
I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall.  I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while.  At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition.  I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year.
Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture.  Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year.  Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces.  This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size.  He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better.  Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later.
So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand.  Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him.  Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey!  This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event.  But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic!  I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done.  I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes.  The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet.  They each fit down into little  holes I have drilled down his neck.
I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall.  I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand.  Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him.  Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey!  This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event.  But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic!  I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done.  I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes.  The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet.  They each fit down into little  holes I have drilled down his neck.
I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall.  I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

Now, to give you a sense of what 'curio' scale means here is the same bisque shown in my hand.  Here I have airbrushed on underglaze in greys and black and I am now dappling him.  Once fired with a clear glaze over this underglaze, he will be a dappled grey!  This is a sales piece that I will be offering at auction probably next weekend while I'm at a live show event.  But for now there's a lot of work to do to him to get him ready to be the new sample of my sculpture in ceramic!  I'll post more photos as I go so you all can see the finished boy when he's done.  I work in many layers, fire a number of times, and will also work in over glazes.  The upright mane ribbons will be added later after he's completed and are going to be enameled metal but I haven't finished making them yet.  They each fit down into little  holes I have drilled down his neck.
I am also making mold pieces for a larger 'traditional' scale version of this boy that stands about 8 inches tall.  I hope to have that one casting by June in time for a huge international event I'm attending in July at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

This is Porths, my first version of this sculpture I started way back about 2007, almost completed in 2009 before illness derailed my studio for a while.  At any rate, I FINALLY finished this boy last year and released him in a resin edition.  I've since gone on to do a 'hairy' Pasture Porthos who's a bit chunkier, and with more feather, thicker legs, long mane and swishy Fabio tail who's casting in a resin edition this year.
Anyway, I've been busting butt to make MOLDS for these two versions of my Porthos sculpture.  Currently I am having the hairy Pasture Porthos molded and cast in England in fine bone china, though I'm also about to start testing slip and settlers for fine bone china pieces here in my studio later this year.  Meanwhile I'm focusing first on using finely ball milled earthenware with talc to cast some pieces.  This first one I've molded right here in studio is what we call Curio scale, a large mini in size.  He's my test cast to see if my mold worked (it did first try!) and to help me figure out how I want to rework and clean up my mold pieces to work even better.  Then I'll be making rubber molds starting next week of each plaster mold piece so I'll have a master from which to cast as many plaster replacement molds as I ever will want, later.
So here's my first ceramic bisque of Porthos with his original docked tail version (mane flights to be added later), an American Percheron with tail bows.

My hands and my eyes (and maybe my mind too) are all irreplaceable in my work.  Everything else?  I can get by without, or replace, or just remake.  A lot of my tools I've made or reshaped to fit my needs.  Denise!  Your heavier than usual wire cutter for example is likely stupid easy to make a replacement. 
I use dental tools, clay tools, tiny knitting needles for fine hair texture, etc but the one dearest to my heart is my solid brass slide rule - because my father, who was an aeronautical engineer of some renown, gave it to me when I first started sculpting so many years ago (almost 50 years ago now).  I use it like calipers for smaller pieces I need to measure and check proportions on - great for making sure the leg bone lengths match, or checking the length of the head against the length of ... well, anything else.  And so forth.  So sure, I can just run out and buy another slide rule but ... this one is special.  I'd hate to misplace it.

Nope!  It's just an old fashioned slide rule, no frills.  I don't need it to be SUPER accurate down to the ... whatever for the kind of work I do.  I would love a real set of calipers but the kind I like are expensive, not cheap plastic, so I still don't actually own any.  When I need to measure larger proportions I whip out string or a measuring tape.  Real live horses don't mind too much.  Pretty high tech, right?  But it works!  For little stuff this old slide rule works fine.   I really should keep an eye out for some old fashioned ones at the local antique stores.  I might find something cheap that'll work well enough.
In other news I FINALLY got another 100 lbs of Pottery Plaster into the studio!  Whoo!  Who would have guessed that it would be difficult to find pottery plaster and dodge having to pay through the nose for it?  Geesh.  Crazy.

Seeing (just a minute ago) there was an update on this thread, thought of some of my Parents' and Grandparents' tools that I treasure.
The needle/pin tool I use most in the Studio was made from a small screwdriver that my Dad ground down to a point; it's a convenient length, and I like the handle as well.
There are several, err, a few dozen potential replacements in the bad screwdriver bin, but the one I'm using is special, because.
That's a nice caliper Hyn!
Is there a vernier on the inch scale as well?
I've several of Dad's calipers. There's a large one (it's big!) he bought when we were in Italy, and several smaller ones, both the vernier and dial indicator types, which will get you within a few thousandths or so.
In the Studio I use inexpensive plastic calipers, similar to the brass one depicted in Hyn's post, above, except the jaws for measuring inside are opposite the outside jaws. When it wears out, there's several more queued up for "next"...