u/Tough_Spring_5516

If you have ever had a morbid curiosity of what your favorite critter looks like with no fur and body, here it is.

Photo 1: left to right - Citrus Bird Adult, Raccoon Child, Grey Bear Adult, Dormouse Adult, Mole Adult

Photo 2: left to right - Maple Town Mouse Child, Maple Town Raccoon Child, Maple Town Sheriff Barney Bulldog, Baerenwald (Forest Families) Owl Adult, Baerenwald (Forest Families) Frog Adult

Photo 3: left to right - All Li'l Woodzeez Squirrel Child and Adult, Frog Child and Adult

Photos 4-7 Autopsy on the Citrus Bird Adult. This is really cool! If you can see under the flocking the texture of the plastic is like that of a lemon or orange. Epoch went all in on the Citrus theme lol! It is also interesting that they molded separate beak and feet pieces which are not flocked. The green on the top of the head and the white under the beak/cheeks are painted white. The body is two piece injection molded plastic, which I am not a big fan of. It definitely makes disassembling it more difficult.

Photo 8-9: Close up of the FF Owl. I really love the sculpt of the Forest Families and the Owl is one of their best. It blows my mind they were able to get great detail without the use of computers. Its also a shame that we will probably never know who those awesome toy makers and sculptors were. If you are out there I salute you!

Photo 10: FF Frog. Another amazing sculpt from Simba. RIbbit!

If anyone is curious, I am not taking these apart just for the fun of it. I plan to cast these into molds for making and customizing future critters.

Bonus Photo 11: Any example of a custom I did earlier this year. FF Frog Child head on SF mouse body. As many know the FF Child bodies have non-moveable arms, so I made a version that does. As you can see he is unflocked as frogs do not have fur. Trust me, I looked it up. His name is Jalapeño. Pronounced, Jah-lop-ah-no. It is an inside joke my friend made.

Happy crafting everyone!

There was a request in my first post to do a shoe tutorial. I make these only for personal satisfaction and fun. I do not sell them as I do not own the original sculpts. It took me many many months to get the process just right. Be forwarned that this is not a cheap, easy or fast process. If you plan on making many shoes and other custom items it is definitely worth it.

Tools used:

1. Pressure pot, vacuum chamber, (I have a two in one setup that is a pressure pot with an adapter to turn it into a vacuum chamber).

2. Air Compressor

3. Vacuum pump

4. Gram Scale that goes to two decimal places.

5. Wax pen and sticky wax pellets

6. 2 part silicone mold (I used Smooth On Mold Star 15 Slow)

7. 2 part Urethane Fleible resin (I used Alumilite Flex 80)

8. Urethane dye ( I used Smooth On So Strong colorant)

9. Mold box ( I used lego pieces)

10. Sharp hobby knife

11. Duct tape, masking tape

12. Paper cups, stir sticks

Directions

Photo 2: I have prepped my Lego mold box and placed the shoes inside.

Photo 3: This is the wax pen I used. It has a battery inside that heats the wire tip. I use this to melt "sticky wax" pellets to attach the shoes to the bottom of the mold box. You can use other things such as hot glue or sulfate free clay, but sticky wax is the best way for me.

Photo 4: The two part silicone used.

Photo 5: The gram scale used. The silicone is a 1:1 ratio by volume, but I use the scale to be more precise.

Photo 6: The silicone has been mixed throughly and is a uniform color.

Photo 7: The vacuum pump used

Photo 8: Cup of silicone is placed inside vacuum chamber, chamber is locked down and pump is attached with the air hose. Pump is switched on until a complete vacuum is achieved (29 bars). This step is very important as it eliminates almost all air bubbles from the mold.

Photo 9: Silicone is poured into the inside of the shoes first, very slowly and watching for air bubbles.

Photo 10: The rest of the mold is filled with silicone, again going very slowly.

Photo 11: After fully curing (about 4 hours) the silicone can now be handled. If you are making shoes with no bottom details, congratulations you are done with the mold! If you are making shoes that are not flat like the Wellington boots in this tutorial, there is still much to do. I have attached a few pieces of tubing (cut toothpicks work too) to the bottoms of the shoes. These allow any air to rise and prevent bubbles when the resin is poured.

Photo 12: More silicone is mixed, vacuumed, and poured. This time I used a 2 part clear silicone to make the cutting line easier to see, but more Mold Star is fine if you like mysteries.

Photo 13: The cured mold

Photo 14: I have started cutting the mold. I used a very sharp hobby knife to do a "cut mold" This takes practice but it is the best way to get the 2 part mold to line up correctly. I cut small jagged lines as close as I can to where the bottom of the shoes line up.

Photo 15: With the mold cut, it is completely done! Now ita time to mix the resin. This is the 2 part flexible resin. I mix part B with a few small drops of the colorant. To make one pair of shoes, it only takes about 10 to 12 grams (5-6 of A and 5-6 of B), so you can get many pairs from one bottle. You have only a few minutes until it starts to cure so make sure you have it all planned out before you pour the resin. Once the color is mixed with B, add A and stir for 30 seconds. Piur into the mold, use a toothpick to get any air bubbles out and then put the mold together for the pressure pot

Photo 16: As I said before, have it planned out to get the resin filled mold into the pressure pot ASAP. The pressure pot should already be hooked.up the air compressor ahead of time and it's tank filled with air. Once the mold is inside the pressure pot, lock it down, and fill it to 60psi. Keep it sealed until cured (about 30 minutes)

Photo 17: The shoes are now fully cured! They can be de-molded and the sprues can be cut off. There may also be flashing around the bottoms that should come off easily.

Photo 18 and 19: Additional photos of the mold halves and insides with original shoes.

Photo 20: The finished shoes.

And it's as easy as that.....

Here are a few helpful links to some great YouTubers that have a wealth of knowledge on making molds and using vacuum chambers/pressure pots. I learned so much from them, definitely check them out.

Robert Tolone Squish molds

https://youtu.be/NnEqHqzceKc?si=iVmFHswQZx1uJTO5

Crafsman Steady Craftin, Vacuum Chamber vs pressure pot

https://youtu.be/OWXeFvK\_PaA?si=nNhURAzgAALrtRJa

Have fun everyone!

Meet Mr. Digby Diggs, a mole from Burrowton, a steampunk city somewhere in the land of Sylvania. He is an accomplished inventor of all kinds of wonderous gizmos. This is my first completed SF outfit that I have done. I sewed a few practice items before I posting. The short, pants and vest were machine sewed (still getting the hang of it.) I made the shoes many months ago. They are made from 2 part flexible urethane and are a "bootleg" (hehe) casting from shoes from the SF shoe shop set. In the future I may make a post on how I did the shoes if anyone is interested. The hat and goggles were purchased from different action figure websites over the years.