Sand Cast - Creating the mold itself

sprinkle talcum powder over the item so that it will ease the removal of the item from the sand cast.

Kim making the sand for the mold... a mixture of sand and silicon that will create heat when hardening. it's hard to see but she is wearing rubber gloves and a gas mask. Health first!


After pouring in the sand, use something flat (like a brick?) to flatten the top so that it is flat on its back when the metal is being poured in.

Came back later that night to remove the item from the mold...

due to the many layers of cardboard (to create the thickness for pouring the iron), I had a little bit of difficulty peeling it out...


as you can see some of the top bits got stuck in the sand, but I managed to pull it out eventually.


I have a feeling I did not compress the sand enough in the beginning when I was pouring the sand, resulting in the loss of details being written into the sand. the rough grainy texture also contributed to this loss.... It was here that I realised I was being overly ambitious and that sculpting something this detailed is not too suitable for this project. Should have done something simpler. I really need to learn to simplify my ideas... it's a bad habit, I think, to over-complicate things.

Sand Cast - Creating the item to be casted

So here goes the beginnings of the coral-woman's head.. using plasticine instead of sculpey. Again, on hindsight, perhaps I could have used sculpey to do the form, and after ripping it out, go back to work on repairing it so that I could bake it? I wonder if the heat from the sand when it is hardening will bake the super sculpey in the process, but I didn't want to risk not being able to pull out the object as it would mean that I had to create another sand mold.


I did not like how the face was turning out, and after re-working it at least 3 times (meaning ripping off the whole face to start again, which was a rather painful process), I finally was sort-of satisfied with the shape on the 4th attempt.. which meant I could start adding all the extra details and parts, which was much more fun to work with.

Casting - Ideas

For the Sand mold, since it was going to be iron and flat on one side, I wanted to create something that seemed to be emerging from the surface of whatever the sculpture was on. This led me to think of a creature peeping out from the surface of the water. The other idea was to make something floating on the top of the water, but my impression was that it would be harder to cast... On hindsight, I should have used a ready-made object but it was an interesting learning process nonetheless.


the water-creature evolved into a woman with coral parts..I was looking at Nervous System and seeing how they are inspired by organic geometrical patterns, I was hoping to incorporate that inspiration into my work as well, especially for the plaster cast.


the repetitive pattern made sense to attempt to recreate with the plaster cast, but at this stage I was still not very sure how I wanted it to look like.

Metal - Torch Welding

Kim gives Mike a demo on how to weld. :D

Hey Mike, I think you look really cool with those goggles. :)

Metal - construction

Bending the metal rods to get the exact curves I wanted was challenging. Also, as the round form of the rods make it hard to hold together, I needed a second pair of hands to help me hold it while I used the torch to weld it together.



Now time for the waves! Experimenting with paper a little bit.. I did not want to waste the usage of the metal, even though I had extra. Using Bristol board, I cut a sample shape. At first I was planning to trace the shape exactly, but I found it easier to free-hand the design.


With Mike's help, I learnt how to use the plasma cutter!The first few tries came out terrible...
... but after switching to the other machine with a better tip, the cuts became much more smooth.

before polishing and after polishing the metal.

note to self: don't wear rubber-soled shoes when dealing with hot metal..Did not take photos of attaching the waves to the main structure..which was also a struggle because again, due to the round edges of the rods, it was hard to hold together.
It came out alright, and again, I feel that if I had cut one more piece, it would be more complete.
overall, even though it came out quite different from the sketch, the piece turned out pretty well and I was able to utilize many of the workshop's metal tools.

Metal - Supplies

Alro's Metals!


because I was not sure how big exactly I wanted the sculpture to be, it was tough deciding how much metal to get.

man that's an awesome machine... munching metal!

The friendly guys at Alro's.
Thank you JiaWei for giving me a ride to the store! :D and Josiah too.

Metal - Joints & Sketches

here goes... here is the beginning of the process log of Assignment Metal.

Wahoo! almost done for the arc-welding exercise. It's hard to see through the dark mask and the rod kept getting stuck to the metal... but for a first time handling of these equipment, it's not too bad and I can get the hang of it after a while. Still needs much more practice though.

here's Mike making the metal edges real nice for the arc-weld!

If I had time... I want to make those edges smooth...

Below are my ideas for the sculpture. Since we have to "create a piece that uses some form of soft sculpture", I wanted to challenge myself to give the illusion of softness using just metal. Smooth flowing forms appeal to me very much, so I thought of using air and water as the theme, inspired by Chinese elements..

Below: I tried using wires to get a feel of how I want the metal to twist.