There is a few things that I use to pour my Batman cowls
The outside of my mold, its been used for a year
The inside of my mold
First you need a mold which is pictured above. This mold is taken from the original sculpture and is made in silicone, with a fiberglass shell to ensure that it forms properly. This particular mold has been used for a year and has produce many cowls.
The cowl is made from Smooth-On's Vyta Flex 40 which is mixed in a 50:50 ratio. One Issue with Vyta Flex is the cure time. Curing is the process of drying and soidifying.
It takes 40 mins to set in the mold and thats a long time to be manualy Roto Casting. This is why I use Kick-It another Smooth-On chemical. Using only 2% of the Vytal-Flex's wieght. Then after those three materials have been put in a mixing bowl ad the Urethan pigment to make what ever color that you want.
To wiegh the materials I use a food scale from Wal-Mart only ten dollars and I mesure the componets in grams.
The scale!!
I am adding the black pigment to the mixing bowl.
I will usually do between 3-5 layers of 200 grams, depending on the size of the customer head. All molds are differnt so 200 gram pours wont work for everything. After the second coat I will use power netting in the cheecks. Power netting is a mesh that makes the cowl harder to tear. I add the power netting because since the cheeks on my particular cowl come to sharp points, it is easyer to tear the power netting adds tremendous strength to those particular areas.
On a completely unrelated note in this particular photo I had my hair braided at the Rennisanse fair.
Back to Cowl making: this is the Roto Casting stage. Once you have poured the Urethane into the cowl you have rotate the cowl in your hands covering the inside of the mold evenly. And then this must be done until the Urethane starts to set, makeing sure the urethane has completely coverd the inside of the mold. Once The urethane stops moving its time to pour the next layer until completion. After all the layers have been poured, then the cowl must sit for a minimun of 5 hours before being taken out.