Thank the lord for silicone!!!

Well folks I decided on Thurs that I would scrap everything that I had done with Henry's body, arms, and heads and start all over again. I was finding the liquid latex way too unpredictable and back painting latex is just insane. It worked for my lil old lady in The Owl House as she only had one head. Henry has 4 and they all need to be consistent colour wise.

Luckily I was prepared and had ordered some silicone (silastic rubber) from a company call Thompson Bros in Newcastle before hand. They were SO helpful and provided me with all the info I needed. I then needed to learn how to airbrush, oh and purchase one too. Luckily I have a dad who is like my knight in shining armour...I'm not kidding, he just gets things done. He got it for me as a gift and also bought me a compressor...I think I might be his pension? So next task, learn how to airbrush and research how to paint silicone.

I found it's not a straight forward process and you need to mix silicone pigments and silicone sealants with toxic chemicals...it's safe to say I had jumped in at the deep end. Help was at hand though and a quick phone call to my friends at Mackinnon and Saunders set me on my way. Sara Mullock, my super hero at M&S arranged for me to chat with Joe, one of the talented genius who paints up all the models. He was a great help and I felt confident to go for it.

I also needed to purchase a thinner called Toluene and found a local solvent company in Tockwith called LSS (Leading Solvent Suppliers). Thanks to a very kind gentleman called Derek Walker, I came away with just what I needed and free of charge... Derek also had to do a check on me to make sure I was not going to use the chemical for erm...other things.

Next job was to order some silicone pigments. At first this felt like a lost cause but then I stumbled across a site called ModelLife. These guys are great and they provided me with a load of pigments and a bunch of information.

So away I went and you know what, this was the best decision I think I have ever made. I have now 2 silicone arms ( I attempted to do this with latex and expandable foam around 14 times...each time taking 5 hours or more) I have 3 heads, two with animatable jaws and I'm just working on the final head and then I shall start on the Body...I am as happy as a monkey!!