Making Talos Awakes – Part 10 of 20
As soon as I had collected the restored Talos master from Ben we began preparing a mould. We based the design for our mould on the one which Ray had made for his 1990s sculpture of Talos. The picture below shows our model set up in a bed of Plasticine with an outer jacket of PU resin. Alongside it is the back half of Ray’s silicone rubber mould with a shellacked plaster jacket.
Ray’s silicone rubber & plaster mould | Our model on Plasticine with PU resin jacket
Understanding Ray’s moulding technique
The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation had loaned me Ray’s mould to produce our limited edition Talos sculptures. What surprised me was that there were no feeds to pour in the wax. We deduced that the front half of mould (the deepest half), would have been filled with as much wax as it could safely hold. Once sealed it would have been turned repeatedly to get an even layer of wax to coat the surface. We made a gimbal to spin the mould and created new plaster jackets so as not to risk damaging the fragile originals.
When we tried pouring the waxes this way they were too thin to cast into bronze and needed further layers of wax to thicken them. With a little trial and error we found the best way to do this was to leave the mould in the gimbal and open the back of one leg to expose the calf. We then cut away a small section of calf to allow us to top up the figure with more wax, resealed and span the mould again.
If you look closely at Ray’s mould (above left) you can see a small arrow Ray scratched into the shellac on the left hand side, next to the right calf. It must indicate where he partially opened the mould and cut the wax to allow for a secondary fill. I spotted this mark after we had spent rather a long time trying to fathom out how to do it.
A wax maquette of the Talos Awakes position
Once we had made our mould of the restored figure we cast several waxes for Ben to build a maquette of the kneeling position prior to him starting work on the new master. To gauge the correct position he studied available film footage: side on with head up (30:32), head turned (33:40) and from the front (30:35), supplemented with a series of photos of himself re-enacting the pose (which he won’t post (un)fortunately).
Ben’s Talos Awakes maquette on an early mock-up of the plinth
One half of the original sword mould
Helpfully The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation were able to locate one half of the original mould of Talos’ sword.
Central Scanning produced a scan of the inside of the mould. They then printed the negative space alongside a mirror image to create the two halves of the sword.
We moulded the two prints and cast resin copies to assemble into a complete sword from the two halves.
We then made a new mould of the sword from which to make waxes for casting in bronze. Ben included one of these wax casts in his maquette.
Wax Talos' sword for casting into bronze
3D prints | The original sword mould and constructed sword
Ray’s wooden plinth
Ray had started the sculpture of ‘Talos Awakes’ by building a wooden replica of Talos’ plinth. The Foundation kindly allowed us to mould Ray’s plinth. However, we had to make slight adjustments to the proportions of the plinth to match the comparative dimensions of figure and plinth from film footage. The height was perfect but we had to slightly reduce the length and depth.
Ray's wooden plinth for his unfinished sculpture of Talos Awakes
Adapting, moulding and casting Talos’ plinth
We made a wax cast from the mould and removed two 16mm vertical sections from either side of the doorway. Then removed another 15mm section to reduce the depth. Finally, we added the top slab, which Ray had marked out but not fitted to his plinth, and made a new new mould.
You can see the first wax prepared for casting below (left) prior to investment*. On the right is the same plinth immediately after casting.
Our first plinth ready for investment | The cast plinth with remnants of investment
* The investment is a ceramic shell, which you can see the remains of on the right. The shell is produced by repeated coating, stuccoing, and hardening until the required thickness is achieved.
You can never be guarantee that the lost wax casting process will work. So it was a great relief when we knew the casting was successful.
I will now hand back to Ben to explain how he positioned Talos in the kneeling Talos Awakes pose.
Simon Fearnhamm
Raven Armoury, Thaxted, England.
These sculptures were hand made by Raven Armoury in association with The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation.
Based on effects characters created by Ray Harryhausen for a Charles H. Schneer Production.
TM & © Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
