Metal Casting!

Best for last, amiright?

I love metal casting. So basically, you can start with floral foam and sculpt it into anything you want. In this piece I sculpted it into a dog nose (or node as we call it around here because we're weirdos). Then I melted some wax and attached it to the back of the nose along with a short candle (e.g. the gate) and then a styrofoam cup to the candle. After that, you dip it into "unicorn blood" and silica several times a day for about a week. After that you put it in a kiln, and fire the piece which burns away the foam, candle and cup leaving the negative of what you sculpted. Since the gate is gone, it leaves an area in which you would pour your liquid metal into the void.

This is when I first started dipping, but the time I was finished you couldn't make out the nose, the gate or the cup, it kind of looked like a mushroom. I would dip it probably about 15 more times after this, you could only do it every 3-4 hours so it took quite awhile.

This is after it had been in the kiln and burned away everything inside.

Here it is after I poured aluminum into it. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the next part... taking a hammer and breaking the shell away. You're still left with some plaster that you have to get off with little picks, dental tools or basically anything that can fit into the crevices.

This is a little cleaned up, but I wanted some textural differences, so I spent about 15 hours filing and sanding it. I also used a dremel to define areas.

Here I am sanding the nubby gate area down. By the way, aluminum gets really effing hot, so you need to wear a glove!!

Here's the final piece. I welded it to an aluminum box that I painstakingly sandblasted.