Plaster Casted Tiki - 1st Attempt - General Tiki

DZ Doctor Z Tiki Socialite Jasper's Reef, Torrance, CA Joined: Aug 01, 2002 Posts: 1620	DZ Doctor Z Posted posted on Wed, May 21, 2003 10:39 PM Our carnival booth was a big success, thanks to our hand painted "Ku" masks! (Well, our custom made sign (hand-crafted by the one-and-only Tikifish), some carvings by Bosko and Loonatiki, and a few vintage beachcomber floats helped too!). Our school selected "Around the World" as our carnival theme; my class picked Tahiti as our country and the old carnival standby 'the goldfish toss' (y'know, toss a ping-pong ball into a bowl, win a goldfish) as our game. (Hence the tiki/fish connection, and Tikifish's involvement). We ended up with a more 'humane' version of the game, with stuffed plush fish instead of live goldfish, but had a line of customers nearly the entire time, nonetheless. As far as the actual painting of the tikis went, the kids had an absolute blast - the watercolors worked perfectly! No mess at all, despite the none-too-neat nature of my 5th graders. Interestingly, we had no brown paint, so they had to improvise - we ended up with some VERY creative paint jobs! In the booth itself, many folks asked if they were for sale and NONE of my kids wanted to part with theirs! Even after making all of the castings for my class, I had a bit of leftover plaster, so I made a few more. That makes more than 50 that I've made from the same mold (the same mold in Badmojo's pix - Biotron, is that the same one you have?) without the mold cracking or creasing or whatever - the last looks just as good as the first and the mold still looks brand new! I never applied anything to the mold before casting - the mold itself is very flexible and kind of 'slick' already and the castings basically just popped out when I flipped them over. I used just standard plaster of Paris that I bought at Michael's (a crafts store), for about 6 bucks for an 8 pound bucket. However, Bax sez to use 'casting plaster' available at building supply stores - about 15 bucks for 90 POUNDS - and you'll get the same results for a lot less! At some point, I'm going to have a little "arts & crafts" night and have some TC folks over to paint the rest (Velour's, Sabu's - this means YOU! Anyone else?) (Chongolio - e-mail me 'Offline' if you're interested in one!)

Our carnival booth was a big success, thanks to our hand painted "Ku" masks! (Well, our custom made sign (hand-crafted by the one-and-only Tikifish), some carvings by Bosko and Loonatiki, and a few vintage beachcomber floats helped too!).

Our school selected "Around the World" as our carnival theme; my class picked Tahiti as our country and the old carnival standby 'the goldfish toss' (y'know, toss a ping-pong ball into a bowl, win a goldfish) as our game. (Hence the tiki/fish connection, and Tikifish's involvement). We ended up with a more 'humane' version of the game, with stuffed plush fish instead of live goldfish, but had a line of customers nearly the entire time, nonetheless.

As far as the actual painting of the tikis went, the kids had an absolute blast - the watercolors worked perfectly! No mess at all, despite the none-too-neat nature of my 5th graders. Interestingly, we had no brown paint, so they had to improvise - we ended up with some VERY creative paint jobs! In the booth itself, many folks asked if they were for sale and NONE of my kids wanted to part with theirs!

Even after making all of the castings for my class, I had a bit of leftover plaster, so I made a few more. That makes more than 50 that I've made from the same mold (the same mold in Badmojo's pix - Biotron, is that the same one you have?) without the mold cracking or creasing or whatever - the last looks just as good as the first and the mold still looks brand new! I never applied anything to the mold before casting - the mold itself is very flexible and kind of 'slick' already and the castings basically just popped out when I flipped them over. I used just standard plaster of Paris that I bought at Michael's (a crafts store), for about 6 bucks for an 8 pound bucket. However, Bax sez to use 'casting plaster' available at building supply stores - about 15 bucks for 90 POUNDS - and you'll get the same results for a lot less!

At some point, I'm going to have a little "arts & crafts" night and have some TC folks over to paint the rest (Velour's, Sabu's - this means YOU! Anyone else?)

(Chongolio - e-mail me 'Offline' if you're interested in one!)

Post #35318 by Doctor Z on Wed, May 21, 2003 10:39 PM