The Golden Stag Gets Plastered - Part 2
The The Plaster Positive - The next step after making the mold is to create the positive image of the face.  The mold is filled with plaster and allowed to dry, which takes about half an hour.  We gave it an hour just to be on the safe side.

The important thing here is that the plaster positive needs to be poured fairly soon after the negative is done.  The alginate will dry out over the course of about a day, and as it drys, it shrinks.  The end result is a negative mold for a shrunken head.  As long as the plaster is poured in a reasonable amount of time this isn't a problem, but you do have to be aware of it.

The interesting thing about this is that as the plaster drys, it heats up.  Not a lot, but it is noticeable to the touch.  Pretty neat actually, and we did have one actor comment that she could feel the warmth of the plaster strips as they dried on the back of the alginate mold on her face.
 
 
 
 



The Life Masks - Well, this is what the whole mess was about, creating the life masks.  These are three of our actors faces sitting on our fireplace.  As I write this, there are nine faces.  The cleaning lady didn't know what to think. <G>

From this point on the actors don't have to get all messy anymore, but there are several steps yet to complete.
 
 
 


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