Life Casting — Hair Beware!

Body casting is not a difficult procedure as there are many YouTube videos to teach the newcomer. However,a bit more care is needed when molding specific parts of the face and head such as the nostrils, ears and especially the facial and head hair. Improperly applied mold material will result in a distorted cast, or worse tangled hair that will certainly tear the mold apart when demolding, not to mention upsetting the model.

In protecting hair from tangling in the mold material, the traditional method is to slather on petroleum jelly. However, though this will minimize tangling, petroleum jelly is difficult to remove from the model’s hair, often requiring three or four shampoos before it is completely eliminated.

The current method to add a mold release to hair is the use of ArtMolds® MoldEZ™. This is a water-soluble release agent that washes out of the hair the first time leaving no residue behind. This attractive smelling release is applied in two steps. The first is to add it to the hair and work it in down to the roots. The hair is then combed to style it be for mold making. Then a second coat of MoldEZ is added just to the surface of the hair.

The newer mold release doesn’t eliminate the need for using petroleum jelly, however. That is because the alginate molding material will press against the eye brows and actually eliminate them in the final casting. So, petroleum jelly is applied to the eyebrows to give them an appearance of more depth. By practicing this method your face or head cast will result in excellent looking eyebrows in your castings.

As an alternative method to protect the hair, special effects artists don’t often mold the hair, preferring instead to simply cover it up using a bald cap or even a swimming cap. All the hair is carefully pushed under the cap instead of applyingarelease agent. Here, the cap should be affixed tightly over the head; otherwise it may just start slipping under the weight of the alginate, exposing hair.

The artist has to be doubly careful about blending the alginate around the edges of the cap, as the seam lines will show up in the life cast.

These kinds of simple precautions make life casting a stimulating prospect for the dedicated artist. Working around these issues ensures that the final life cast turns out a high quality and artistic art piece.

Experienced life casting artists will never settle for anything but perfection — be it in their creation or the materials they use for the mold making. This is why most of them prefer to source their art supplies from Environ Molds at www.artmolds.com.