Fail Boating or Success?!

Today and the last couple days for that matter have been trying.  I have recently decided to give up on making a film.  I'm not enjoying it so I think it is perfectly OK to stop.  Since I have stopped I have started to feel less depressed, and I have motivation to start other scary things.  Today I made my very first mold.  EVER!  Here is the chronicle of my fail boat.

Below is the disaster of my first pour.  Before I got to this point I had a bit of a mold meltdown.  I was initially just going to use the wooden box and punch the military pins through some cardboard.  Well, the cardboard got stuck in the box, and I had to cut it out.  Then, being the lazy person I am, I decided to reuse the mutilated perfectly shaped cardboard so I coated it in clear tape, reattached my pins and placed it in the box.  Then I read the directions...

Once I read the directions I realized I couldn't use clear tape and I had to use something that was non-porous or varnished wood.  I had neither of these at this point.  I ran to my shop and got a giant ball of clay.  I used this as my mold base and just stuck the pins into it.  This entire process took me about 3.5 hours.

Not hot enough and not enough!

Due to my impatience I didn't let the Gelflex "moltenize" enough and this was my first pour.  It looked like I had cut up a ton of Gelflex but I guess not.  So I had to recut all of this and melt it again.

This fabulous device is a Ranger Melt Art.  Scrapbookers are genius!

My second melt was maxing out the container, was not enough, and again not hot enough.  Also, there was too much of the blue/large Gelflex resulting in lack of detail in my tiny military pins.  So at this point I scrapped it all recut just the delicate Gelflex (beige), took it into the kitchen and melted it in my toaster oven at 302 degrees for 2 minutes.  End result?

Success!!!

Once it cools I will add a picture of my final mold product.  Tomorrow I will attempt to use plaster of paris in small quantities and enamel resin for the first time.  Sweetness!

I also made an acrylic skin that turned out the wrong color, and a really dumb clay steelhead salmon/trout.  Back to the drawing board with these items.

While I was waiting for my Gelflex to melt I did some research and found two really cool artists:
Michael Rakowitz and Gina LeVay.

I also found some good articles on current military perception and OIF and OEF.