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This week I managed to make three of the armatures for my E4 project. After having a few problems with Grannys armature I made sure that this time I twisted the wire as tight as I could get it. The armatures have proved to be a little bit of a chore as I need to get them all the same size so that they fit in the mould I make.

Yesterday I covered one of the armatures with plasticine to flesh out the body ready to make a mould from it. I made the neck longer than it would need to be so that I can trim down the silicone and attach the heads afterwards. I did the same thing with the feet as these too will be added afterwards. I'm making the feet out of Polymer clay so that I can add tie downs as these can not be glued to the silicone afterwards.

So to make the mould I first made a box from card (with the help of Mr Folwell) and filled it with a layer of plaster. Once this had dried I placed the plasticine model on top of it and added another layer of plaster, filling from the corners to flood the mould, filling it up to halfway up the side of the model. Once this is dry, slip (water and clay) will be added to the top layer before adding another layer of plaster to stop the two layers bonding together.

There are a few areas on the mould where there is some undercutting, hopefully the silicone will be flexible enough to remove without causing any damage to the mould.

Mondays plan is to get some oil paint on the way to college to colour the silicone, add the 1mm wire to the armature to make the fingers and cast them with the silicone. I also plan to make another two moulds, another male figure and a female figure, so that I can be casting 3 figures at a time. Hopefully i'll have a few models to be working on over christmas to make clothes for.