Thread: Open Mouth Skull Mold

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Hi everyone. Im working on my first latex mold to reproduce my own skulls. I have seen the tutorials on how to make them. I see how to make the upper portion of the skull. I know how to make the Full skull using a plastic skull so I have the flat part for the lower jaw.(unless there is another way) But I would love to make open mouth skulls and just cant seem to figure out how to mold it open. The only idea I had was maybe making a upper skull mold and also making a lower jaw mold (If it can be done ) ??? Any ideas out there !!!

I am on my third or fourth attempt at making a good jaw mold. You'll need to make it a two part mold, with the halves being the front and back of the jaw. When I get home I'll post some pictures of my latest one. My last two trys were near successes, with success meaning it always looks good, never breaks in the mold, and my mother in law can use it.

I started from this how to on the effectslab forum, but their tutorial is vague in some places that makes you want to tear your hair out:

skull molding

Yea I have looked that link over and over and over and I got so frustrated tring to figure out where the hell they were going with it !!! Thanks it would be great to see some photos. Maybe you post pcitures of the molds as well as finished product. Thank you again !!!

So I can tell by the # of hits and only 1 reply that this is something not many have been able to do ?!?!?!

A seperate jaw mold would be the ideal way to go. I have yet to attempt it, myself. But would be willing to give it a go. I think it should be fairly simple for casting resin, but quite a bit more difficult with something more breakable like plaster. What material are you trying to cast this in?

Im willing to use resin,plaster,expanding, 2 part expanding foam. Whatever it will take at a fair price. I dont want to be paying more to cast then it would to just buy it.

Here are shots of my 99% correct mold. I'll detail what Ii would change after the pics:

Quick explanation of what you are seeing:

anything blue is silicone

anything silicone was once clay

white stuff is urethane plastic with chopped fibers call plasti-paste which creates a rigid shell to keep the soft mold from deforming when filled with expanding foam.



The holes you see here are where i poured silicone into the mold, they have no other function. The big one is where i poured it in, and the smaller ones are vents for the release of air, so it doesn't get trapped and make a void in the mold.



Here you can the front support shell has two parts, but inside it is one piece of silicone that fits in here.


Here is the view from behind. The dividing line between the mold halves is behind the teeth line, so there is no seam visable on the front. You can see keys here on the silicone edge where it locks into the mold. Good for most molds, but bad for this becaseu of its odd U shape. Don't key the silicone to the shell, just to the the other silicone half.



Here you can the original still in the mold half. The back support is one piece.


This is where the casting material is poured. It was made with a glue stick that was attached to the jaw during the mold making, then removed after the silicone cured. It can easily be plugged after it is filled with casting material with another glue stick. Those holes you see in the shell were vents from the silicone pouring to let air escape, however I have drilled thru them and thru the silicone. This creates vents for the the foam to expand and escape.



Here you can see the spout and ow it fits thru the support shell. If you look at the shell you'll see the are criss-crossing lines which are the mold keys. If i were to remake this mold, I would not have those keys. TO remove the jaw after casting without breaking it, you need to slide it out of the support. I cut off the keys on the silicone part and can pull it straight forward. I would just key the silicone halves to each other. You can see two small round holes behind the edge of the jaw in the silicone. Just make more of these to keep the halves aligned.

Check out his matrix mold how-to, it really illustrates the ideas used in this mold:

Hellboy bust and matrix mold making tutorial - Page 2 - ConceptArt.org Forums

Thanks for posting, i will review you pictures some more and reread the link you sent. I hope I can come up with something that works for me ...

You could also attached the jaw to your skull and fill in the voids with clay and make a 1 piece glove mold with dragonskin silicone. Then cut the jaw away when you need to and then use clay to patch the areas where you had to cut. I did this before.





DeadSpider has a good how-to one doing a glove mold from a skull here:

Molding Skulls with ‘Dragon Skin’ | AranaMuerta.com

Scourge999 also has a good one, but can't find his video.

Good pix DC. It's cool to see how other people make molds. I will try to remember to take pix of my jaw mold tomorrow when I am at the shoppe. I took my skull mold videos off line. To many problems with youtube Maybe I should try to repost them some day.