Mercy Armor - Moulding and Casting using Alginate

PLEASE TURN SUBTITLES ON FOR A BREAKDOWN OF THE PROCESS!

My microphone ended up being muted the entire day we put this together so I've captioned the video.

Attempt one at casting Mercy's chestplate in a flexible polyurethane resin was a bit of a bust but I promised that I would film and upload! It was still a really good experience and we learned heaps during the process so I'm really pleased we had a go.

WHERE WE WENT WRONG: Alginate and water.

WHY: The water that leaks from the alginate while it shrinks was interfering with the polyurethane we used causing some serious bubbles. Initially we thought the extreme heat (it was something like 38 degrees outside) was creating the air bubbles as each layer cured, it turns out the resin we used doesn't particularly like a wet environment so alginate + plaster bandages was not ideal. We also had some minor bubbles in the alginate mould that you'll see us jam clay into after I had a mild panic attack. We could have called the project there and canned it because the mould wasn't perfect but it was good practice to see how the brushed layers of polyurethane worked.

NEXT TIME: I've pulled out my supplies of silicone and fibreglass. We're doing this solid and legit, none of this plaster and alginate business. It wont be a one use mould either... so I guess if anyone wants Mercy's chestplate cast that's a thing I can reproduce?