Francesca, That hockey equipment is really well done, wow! I also love the folds/drapery on the figure. Great job.~Gary

That is SO nice! KUTGW!

Francesca, job on the figure !!! Looking forward to the next step in the project. Cheers !
Kenneth.

Thanks guys. I'm glad you like what I've done so far.

Anders: Still not sure who it's going to be. When I decide I'm going to have to alter the jersey a bit to show the logo and the surrounding wrinkles.

I still think the hem looks slightly off, so I'll probably bench this and go back to it in a few days with fresh eyes.

VERY nice Francesca! The equipment looks great!

Okay, I've been away from this for a while, so here's an update of how I did the goalie helmet.

Here's basically what I wanted it to look like:



So I took a casting of a head that I'd sculpted that had turned out badly and used it to build the form around:



Since I wanted the helmet to have scale thickness and to be removable for ease of painting (probably not necessary to be honest), I smeared some vaseline on the form and then placed thinly rolled layers of putty over it to form helmet sections that could be easily separated later.

Note: do NOT place such an item in a crockpot to dry - any air trapped between the form and the putty will bubble horribly like this:



I had to make several attempts before it turned out all right:



I checked that it actually still fit on the head properly:



and then it was onto the difficult part of the cage/face guard.

I had several good suggestions of copper wire since it's maleable but will still keep its form; however since I couldn't find any of the proper thickness I decided to try something else. I decided to make the individual bars out of a mix of Duro/MS over a positive form of homemade toy sculptor's wax that a friend had given me:



BTW, sculptor's wax is *awesome* - you melt it down, apply it with metal tools that you heat over a flame, and then carve and sand to shape... you can even use steel wool on it!

Then I scribed some channels into the wax in the basic shape that I needed to follow:



and placed the putty rolls into them:



When they dried, I placed the whole thing in the crockpot and the wax melted away. It was a little difficult at times to get it off of the bars because they're so delicate, but between the heat and knife, I was able to scrape it off. And here are the two parts separated:



I still need to detail some more of the mask itself before I re-attach the cage.

Ta-da!
Francesca

Ah, here's an additional shot of the body with the Maple Leaf on the front of the jersey and the temporary head:



Adding the Maple Leaf fixed a lot of the problems I was having with the folds in the front of the jersey as well.

As always, comments welcome.

Francesca

Great work on the helmet, especially impressed with how you did the bars. I heard of some one doing the same with a skeleton, made the bones over wax and then melt the wax. Super job!

Francesca, that sbs on the helmet was great. I'm impressed with the amount of work that goes into making the equipment. You cannot really appreciate the work that is put into it until you see the step to create them.~Gary

Thanks guys!

Anders: the wax is totally cool. It'd have been easier to use if I had some of these http://shorinternational.com/WaxerElectric.htm - but I made do with some heated metal spatulas. Worked out fine for this project, but if I wanted to do something detailed it'd be a bit harder right now.

Gary: I'd have loved to have made a mold of the helmet so I never have to do that again, but alas, I don't even know how I'd mold that properly.

So I ever make a goalie again (which, granted, won't be any time soon) I'll have to redo it all. I should print out my own SBS because half the time I forget what the heck I did... :lol:

Francesca

Francesca, excellent work, interesting technique with the wax.

Keep up the super work.

Cheers

Roc.

You rock !

Amazing work .

Thanks for the sbs. That approach is very smart and will be saved .

Francesca, that is incredible workmanship! And I'm not just saying that because I don't want to be critical. Really nice work.

Francesca,

Very well done! Your attention to detail is impressive and inspiring (as I really need to impove in that area). Thanks for sharing your sbs with us, it's very much appreciated!

BTW: I'd love to learn more about working with sculpting wax. Do you have any good reference websites? I'll check out The Clubhouse forum as well. Thanks.

-jim cox

That is friggin outstanding!

Francesca, great technique with the wax. Sort of an ad hoc lost wax process. Very effective.

The cage looks great!
Super work there.

So this is Cujo some time in the past I guess!!

Cheers
Andy

Thank you guys very much! I was quite pleased with how the mask turned out as well. To be honest, it was better than I expected. It was the part of the project I was dreading.

Andy: yep, Cujo before he sold out to Detroit.

Jim: I don't know of any websites that explain how to use the stuff unfortunately. The Clubhouse is probably the closest (if I find something else I'll let you know). Mostly, I'm just going by what people explain to me. I have yet to try it for an actual figure. It'll probably be great for detail work though.

Francesca

Oh, this reminds me - anyone have suggestions about how to make the actual goal? What could I use for good scale netting? I have some bridal veil type material that might work - it's got the right look for netting I think, but I don't think it's gonna hang properly unfortunately. It needs to be kinda loose.

Francesca

Francesca, you realize this is the most Hockey any of us have seen all season