Molding and Casting fish heads fins and bodies.

I wanted to share how I will be doing some molding and casting work with this Large Mouth Bass fish. I am aware that this is a diverse subject but for a beginner who is new this might be of help if you want to challenge yourself.






The head has been molded and cast along with the fins. I am still working on the body, I have a few details to sculpt into it yet. I started out carving it in blue foam from WASCO page 181 in the 2008 catalog. I then applied bondo and fiberglass resin to the foam. This is just something I am doing, normally just carve the foam body smooth it and seal it with something of your choice or don't seal it.I will mold the fish body form and cast a foam body and have the mold for later use.


This is the carved body, the dark color is Bullseye Shellac, I was using it to brush on the form and after it hardens, I would sand the form smooth, I am getting ready to start puting some layers of fiberglass and bondo on the foam.


This is the first coat, I put about three light coats on.


Test fitting the head and laying out pectoral fin placements.



I have put two coats of white fiberglass resin on the form now. I still have finishing work and fin pockets to carve in. When it is finished I will coat it again, then scuff it up.



This is my bondo death mask, I use alginate to mold the fish head with part of the body to later use as reference when attaching the head and fin placement. It is also a great referance for setting your eyes. As you will see lower down the photographs I usually use plaster.



I use a contour gage, I bought from ACE hardware






I check the head juncture along with the width of the body at various spots



These are the various molds and castings that I learned in a semiar of Pescados on the fins, the head was molded and cast with Trashfish's method.I will as time progresses post a pdf file on the amounts of materials used in the molds and castings. This will give you the idea of how much product and cost in molding and casting fish. This is a 19.5" fish, so cost would vary with size.



Here are a few more of my death mask for referance. I will work on some of the death mask and when I get them cleaned up and better detail in them I will mold them to get my fish head from.



I need to finish up the form and go over the skin one more time and then I will slide it on. I still want to make a mold of the final body form before I mount the skin on it.






Well I took some time today to try and get the fins on the body. I am going to make some pockets and get them where they can receive the fin with little as possible finish work. I will coat the body for the final time with with fiberglass before molding it.



It is starting to take some shape, I need to get my referance photographs printed up, so I can look at them and make sure things are where they should be. Right now I am going to the computor and checking them. I want this fish to look like it is going to be resting.


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