experiences with foam enlargements

[dilida]

Hi ya'll

I am interested in any comments about proceedures and techniques about working with urethane foam enlargements. I work at a foundry and as a service for our artists, I put together and sometimes complete the computor cut enlargements. I've done about 8 of them now and am still learning about the proceedure. Some questions,

What tools do you prefer?
How do you aproach the project? one piece at a time or as a whole?
Do you carve as much as possible, then coat with a small amount of clay or wax?
Do you change very much from the original, or stick very rigidly to the small piece?

Any comments or thoughts about the process would be welcome. Thanks

[BMBourgoyne]

to see something about my procedure for foam enlargements, you can go to
http://www.bourgoynestudio.com/bourgoyneSTUDIO/BMBSculpt_enlargements.html

For low cost enlargements, I use a bare-bones computeraided approach, where I scan the model, cross-section the digital model and plan the armature, print out the cross-sections, cut them out of foam sheets, glue them in stacks to make each section, assemble the sections around a steel armature, finish carve, seal, and cover with clay. Basically a computer-assisted sliced bread approach. But very cheap and easy.
--brad

[Daniel]

Hi,
I have assembled and cleaned up a few foam enlargements at work so far. I would say that one important thing is that the maquette to be scanned should be very well executed. Any sloppy work or inaccurate proportions that can slide by on a small-scale piece will look much worse on the large-scale sculpture. The machines will reproduce exactly the model, whether it is fantastic or lousy. Garbage-in-garbage-out.

Also, the milled foam pieces for these projects all took much longer to get than had been promised, causing the delivery of the final fiberglass sculptures to be late. I don't know if this is typical or just our bad luck. I could have sculpted the pieces full-size by myself for far less money and less time.

[dwright]

How much longer did it take? How late were the pieces?
I have considered using this process, but havn't yet.
Meeting stated deadlines is something I personally consider to be pretty important.

[dilida]

I've seen the enlargements take a long time to get also, but so far we have only worked with one business so it wouldn't be fair to say all companys have this problem. Just like with our foundry it seems to be feast or famine, too much to do- the pieces are late. Or not enough to do-we can have that for you next week. When carving detail into the foam, what type of tools do you use, or do you do most of the sculpting in clay? Verses carving, I mean.

Do you get the tightest fit possible before gluing the pieces together, or do you rely on clay to hide joints?

I've seen pictures where it looks like wax was used to seal the foam before any clay was put on. Seems like that would make carving a little more difficult, I have always started with melted clay.

Do you stay very true to the original or make quite a few changes? I'm working for other artists, so I follow their desires, but if it were mine, I like the idea of just using the little one as a means to get your enlarged armature.Yes I know, expensive armature, I just think it's a mistake not to let the large piece take on a life of it's own because your trying to make it look just like the original.

Which leads me to my main question, in anyone's opinion, Do the finished pieces look like stiff large replicas? Can you very experiened artists tell if a piece has been done as a foam enlrgement or sculpted on a more traditional armature?

Each piece is different, so I know there is no formula, but I'm always looking for better techniques. Thanks!

[BMBourgoyne]

I've never enlarged a piece of my own without making revisions or refinements. Thats why I the process I use is optimized for reproducing proportions and major details accurrately, but also quicky and cheaply. I also try to design the armatures to be easily modified after assembly.

The other advantage of the process is the tasks that involve the most time (the cutting of cross-sections and gluing them up) do not require special equipment or skills. All you need is a scroll saw and a drill and be able to follow a line while cutting- thats it. So if I get bogged down, that work can be farmed out to assistants or the client (when its for another artist) can take the plans and do it themselves. The specialized, skilled work (the scanning, digital cross-sectioning, and armature design on one end, and the final assembly and hand carving on the other) is the work that can be accomplished relatively quickly.

When I do enlargements for other artists, I can charge much less for the foam work than a CNC shop will charge, and can include both the scanning the steel armature (which most CNC shops won't touch), still for less than what they do for just foam.

cheers,
Brad M. Bourgoyne
www.BourgoyneSTUDIO.com