Making Eyes from Polymorph
Health and Safety - Polymorph softens with heat such as boiling water or a heat gun. Protective gloves and eye wear should be worn as well as overalls covering bare skin. Always read the safety precautions before using.
- Polymorph
- Kettle
- Cup
- Spoon
I want Julie’s eyes to able to roll around in the socket of the puppet head as this will allow me to create a wider range of realism in my film. If I didn't have the eyes so that they rolled, I would have to sculpt different eyes and insert them every time she changed her eye movements. So instead I used polymorph to sculpt the eyes. I decided to use this medium instead of resin, clay or super sculpey because it dries white, making it easier to paint, and its also incredibly strong.
Polymorph comes in little pellets which have to be heated up either in boiling hot water or with a heat gun. Hot water is easier and much safer so this is the approach I went for. Firstly, I started by pouring some boiling water from the kettle into a mug. You don’t want too big of a bowl as this will allow the water to cool off quicker. I then dropped in a couple of spoonfuls of the pellets into the water. Polymorph can continuously be melted back down again and reused making it a very popular product. However I did find that the polymorph didn't stick well to itself once the drying process had begun. For one of my head moquettes, I experimented with sculpting it from polymorph. This proved rather difficult as it set quickly and didn't blend in naturally where I had joined to pieces together.
You can tell the polymorph is ready to start to mould as it goes from a cloudy white to opaque and also becomes more malleable. Next I took the polymorph out of the water using a spoon, and making sure to be careful of the water. Its important to drip the water off and not go straight into kneading the polymorph as there may be pockets of boiling water inside that could burn you. Once it had dried slightly, I then rolled a pea size ball in the palm of my hand. I already knew the size of the eyes that I wanted as I had already sculpted my head and scooped out the eye sockets. However, if I found that they didn't fit into the socket, I could simply have placed the polymorph back into the water until it turns opaque again. This dried almost instantly, but the process can be sped up by placing them into cold water or into a fridge. These were then painted with acrylic paint and placed into the eye sockets of my puppet head.
