23 October 2015
The flying bronze man and underaged pilot are colour washed in yellow and brown.
More dough is used to make the bust and arm. Seated on a foam piece, it is drying before details are added.
5 October 2015
I did this with Paulinda Super Foam yesterday. About 15 minutes.
This is moulded on the other end of the plastic tube which has the pilot with head full of hair (so much that James called it underaged). I don't want to waste the effort of mixing 'flesh' colour paint nor the plastic tube.
This time I made it bigger. Thang said it is a flying monk, and James said it is one of the bronze man from Shaolin.
28 September 2015
On Saturday, I went to the nearby Popular Bookstore and bought some paints and pens and even chalk.
I start with the polystyrene pilot.
$2 for 2 sets of 12 colour pens (water colour) isn't bad at all.
Before long, it was painted. I used yellow and pink for the flesh tone. Brown for the flight cap and blue for the jacket.
A fine pen was used to draw the brows, lip and eyes.
The texture of the polystyrene shows and waterbased colour pens and the fine pen seems to have some interaction.
But it would be alright when under a canopy.
Still weighing 0.0 gm.
And by this time, the Paulinda Super Dough torso has lightened by 0.5gm. The weight is now 2.3gm. The torso seems to have shrunk.
I didn't want to bother myself with painting the torso. Which looks quite unreal anyway.
I tried making a spinner from Paulinda Super Dough.
I made a conical mould and pressed the propeller shaft into the dough. 
When dried, the dough was peeled out and trimmed.
0.3gm isn't bad.
It won't run true. The end product while usable is considered failed.
I made another pilot last night. This time, I want it to be smaller than the polystyrene's but has better texture and lighter then the fimo/paulinda super dough's combination.
I added more hair then normal this time.
25 September 2015
Yesterday was Hari Raya Haji, the air quality was in the unhealthy range, so I stayed at home and made little pilots (head of less than 1 cm).
I mixed a bit of yellow and pink to get the peach colour of skin (Regina thinks that 'colour of flesh' is too urgh!)I didn't use the 'flesh-coloured' clay because 1) I am running out of it, 2) it pales when exposed to sunlight, 3) there should be a variation of 'flesh-tone'.
Yeah, this mix will also lighten with sunlight.
The peachy lump was moulded around a cotton bud. This is to save clay and provide a holder. Some depressions and it was done.
A bit of brown was rolled into a thin line sausage. Bits of this was added to become the pupils and eye-brows.
Since I have the brown clay out, I made some squished round balls of it and applied it to the bald head.
I took some black, flatten the a thin sausage of it and applied it to the hair before adding two small flattened balls for the radio/ear muffs.I baked it for 30 minutes and weighed it. It was a bit heavy at 1.6 gm.
I used some Paulinda Super Dough for the bust. I test fitted it and weighed it again. It was heavy at 2.8gm before the dough was dried and it was too big.The Super Dough seems to have puffed up. To be expected, otherwise it won't be as smooth.
I want a smaller and lighter pilot and chopped one up from expaned polystyrene foam.It weighed 0.0 gm before painting.
How shall I paint it? White glue first before the 'flesh-tone' acrylic paint?
Pilot for the Kirby Cadet
I did this on 12 Sep 2015.
A short section of drinking straw was wrapped in polymer; first the flesh coloured, then the hood/coat because I have so little of the flesh coloured polymer left.
After baking at 110 degrees celsius for 30 minutes, I dotted the eyes and drew the eyebrows with a fine pen. Then I cut the goggles from a pvc sheet, and using the edge of a silver marking pen, painted the frame of the goggles. Not shown here is the short length of brown thread to simulate the goggle strap. It weighed 2.4gm.
(FUTURE) Farman Sportster Postale Carte
I did these on 16 Feb 2015. I want to make a RC Farman Sportster Postale Carte running on 1s cell, GPS-8mm gear motor. It's a two seater and I need two pilots, 1" tall as measured from the plan.
I started with blue foam because I don't want to use too much polymer clay. It's not the cost, but the ease of availability. I'd have to order some more from Banggood, but what I am really interested is the skin tone polymer clay. From these bases, I chose two and started with the face and then the rest of the head and finally the clothes.
The one at the back was my 1st attempt. It was done in about 30-60 minutes. Then, on my second attempt, my fingers grew tired and I was less focused, making a mess.
I searched the internet for information to see if the polymer clay might air-dry in a week and discovered that I have to either boil it or bake it at 120-150 degrees celsius.
Since it is necessary to bake, the next thing I wondered was what would happen to the blue foam. I discovered from the internet that blue foam (XPS, extruded polystyrene) will reach it's 'glass transition phase' at 100 degrees celsius where it will be damaged. What this actually means, I did not know. I was hoping that it means it can be molded like heated plastic sheet into compound curve.
This time, I baked them on a piece of facial tissue (last time I used aluminium foil). I don't think that tissue paper will burn at that temperature, so I tried this experiment to confirm it. The tissue wasn't even charred, but at the 8 minute mark or thereabout, a bubble was seen on the cap of the 1st model and the blue foam seems to be pushing out from the bottom of both pilots. I continued and these were the result.
Instead of trimming the foam pieces nicely so they may provide a gluing surface, I found the foam pieces were deformed and became much harder than before. So I simply snapped the chest foam pieces out. The head foam pieces are still lodged in the head. For the torn polymer clay, I superglue the edges together. The polymer skin is not brittle, some flex is ok, but obviously not like rubber or silicone.
Here's the underside of pilot 1. A thin shell of polymer clay with some shiny blue foam 'fused' to polymer clay. This is an accidental discovery of making thin shell pieces with 'automatic' male form removal. I didn't weigh them yet but they appear to be light. They are much lighter than the one I did for the Blackburn Monoplane. I won't bother to trim the bust, figuring that it won't be necessary when I will use hot glue or UHU Por to spot glue them at a few spots on to the plane (future).
I like polymer clay because they are pre-coloured, they have good smooth surfaces (not 'hairy' or pitted) and I won't have to bring out my painting utensils and bottles of paint.
Super-Dough? Still to develop a use for them.
Blackburn Monoplane
"Be there soon."
Action pilot made from oven baked clay (www.banggood.com) in flight suit from Super Dough (Art Friend).
Right hand on steering wheel while talking on smartphone. Rolex Blue Oyster on wrist.
Every Plane Deserves a Pilot (or two)
I used the spoon end of the brass ear pick to make depressions in the head.
The ears were made by flattening smaller balls in the shape of tear drops.
Then it was sent to my toaster oven for hardening.
The hair were made from a mix of brown and black filmo clay. I mixed it roughly, flatten it, and apply them bit by bit to the bald head. More clay was added to give the hair volume, and that was the opportunity to correct the shape of the head.A sharp spatula was useful to flatten and apply the bits. I pressed the sharp edge of the spatula into the hair to make some linear expression and parting of the hair.
The eye brows were similarly applyed. The eyes were very small bits of clay applied with the tip of a needle. The lips were from vermillion coloured clay. I fabricated the hands and lower forearms from the clay. I made the iPhone 6 from clear plastic and magazine cutout and curl a hand around it. The fingers were seperated with the sharp edge of the spatula. The phone carrying hand also has a Rolex Blue Oyster at the wrist. The right hand was curled so that it may hold on to the steering wheel.
I made a mistake at this stage. Polylindah super foam (or something) was lighter than the Fimo clay, so I made the torso with it, and joined it to the head and the two hands. I thought it would be hardened by oven but I was mistaken. The super foam oozes out at a side so I ended up with slightly smaller torso after some emergency operation.I was watching a Korean tv programme, that might explain something.
Scrapping with a needle's point can remove excess clay. I removed a bit too much and had to rectify that with a permanent marker.
Apart from the application of a permanent marker, no painting was required, so no mess to clear up.
Not bad for a first try.
Gee Bee Sportster
My steps in carving a pilot bust from blue foam- size up a rectangular block, straight cuts with NT cutter, sawing motion
- draw the frontal silhouette on the back of block
- draw the side silhouette on one side of the block
- rough cut the side silhouette, first vertically and horizontally, then at those angled lines
- rough cut the frontal silhouette, similar technique
- chamfer the cuts to the head, neck, shoulders and chest/arms, to reduce sanding later
- rough sand, deploy a mini sanding drum on small electric screwdriver/drill
- approximately half way down from the top, a horizontal V cut, this is the eye level
- a nose is an inverted V with a straight cut connecting the V
- cut away the area below the eye level V and the inverted V nose
- cut away the mouth and chin portion from the bottom of the inverted V nose
- sand
- press with tip of blade to round the head or to deepen the impression of the eye/cheek areas
Carving is a subtractive method. I suppose a bit of addition method might be good too, if I have the materials at hand. I am thinking of those light yet flexible polymer clay that comes precoloured. It ought to be easier and faster. A few colours of those clay mixed in the right proportion seems less messy than painting.
Pou du Ceil
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