CREATING A BODY CAST
In this section I will show you how to pull a bodycast of a human figure. The process is relatively simple yet very dangerous. You will be working with Fiberglass Resin which is a deadly chemical, if not ventilated properly, and you will be confining a human into a plasterbody cast that could get stuck onto the model if not properly applied to the subject.

I recommend that you have 5 people present for the plastering of the model. 1 as the model, 2 as the Plasterbandage Wetters and 2 more to lay the bandages on the subject. We only had 3 people for the plastering and it took us 3 hours to do the cast. More people would have cut the time down considerably. The model needs to be IN and OUT of the cast as fast as possible. IT is not easy standing there in one place for along period of time.

For the fiberglassing of the Plaster Cast you will only need 2 people. More may be needed but is not necessary. I HIGHLY recommend you to do the fiberglassing in the outdoors. The fumes created by the fiberglass resin is prettybad, dangerous too.

IF everything goes well you should be able to do the bodycast in ONE day. It took me two days to do mine becuase of poor planning. I did the Bodycast one day and the fiberglassing the next. I figure plastering the model with bandages should take 4.5 hours with preparation included. The fiberglassing should take about 4 hours total. Give about 2 hours for eating and rest inbetween projects.

LETS BEGIN WITH LOOKING AT THE MATERIALS NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT


Note: A bodycast is not necessary to sculpt a costume. You can buy a mannequin if you are inclined to use one. Just make sure it is fairly close in size to your own body.