Post #792855 by danlovestikis on Fri, Feb 1, 2019 9:36 AM

For years I planned to do a Diver's Helmet but it wasn't until Theo Stool made that his wish that I did them. I altered a bowl for each one and that took a day to do it. So now with so many wishing for one I decided that it was worth sculpting and molding one.
Here is the start of the steps.

Sculpting the Diver's Helmet / Space man helmet. I made a shape I can use for either. Both will be fun.

So I did a basic shape that I can then add clay too.

Robert Mitchell made these tools for me and I used them while sculpting the helmet.

Since Romo Clay is reusable I picked my volcano sculpt to destroy. But first I cut off the tiki that I like. Maybe a necklace one day.

I dug out the hold where the skull of the diver or alien will go.

I flipped it over. This bottom will now become the top of the helmet.

Romo Clay number two is the best for sculpting. However I started with four and then three. I'm still mixing them together. I did this with a hammer because 3 and 4 are super hard.

Next I want to make the bottom and this clay is so hard I use a knife and hammer

to remove a brick of clay.

I worked on the bottom to smooth it and then I

flipped it over to work on the top by adding and hammering clay into place.

Then I did the same with all the sides.

Now that the general shape has been formed I needed some number two clay that I would be able to smooth. I had to cut up my mermaid sculpt for this task.

I just started to fill in all the dips and indentations.

As I worked I cut more and more off of the girl.

I used Robert's tool to drag clay into place and to make it smooth.

This photo shows how deep the hole goes. It almost touches the back wall.

Here's the look with a flash.

I keep going over it looking for indentations and then I fill and smooth them.

The best part of sculpting is that I don't have to worry about trapped air pockets since this will never go into a kiln. It's just been made to use for making the mold.

I will be so happy when I can make these helmets with more time going to creating the do dads rather than the dent. Cheers, Wendy