Powertex Figures

 

I just wanted to show how you can make a powertex figure on a shoestring.  This is a dolls head from Poundland, it was £1.  I cut off all the hair.  The base is a wooden meat hammer from Wilko - £1.50.  The body is crushed tinfoil to shape, covered in masking tape (both can be bought for £1 from Poundland).

Then some bits of cotton fabrics, a dishcloth, an old woolen scarf and some odd pieces of t-shirt wrap.  But you can use whatever you have. You might have an old shirt or t-shirt, anything will work as long as it's 80% ish or more cotton.  The most expensive thing you will need is the Powertex, but it does come in various sizes so you can get a small bottle if you aren't sure about it. 

(100g - £7, 250g - £10 or 1kg - £17)

I made another one, but this time instead of a meat hammer I used a cardboard tube and a piece of wood that used to be a panel in our old gate.  As the heads are plastic, I painted everything in a coat of black gesso.

And as I fancied something totally different, I used red powertex with the dishcloth and the t-shirt wrap and transparent with the pieces of scarf.

And here they are finished.

Stone Sculpture

I made this piece from wire, tinfoil, masking tape and a polystyrene ball for the head.

I used Powertex and Stoneart to create the effect.

It looks rather light on the photo, but it does actually look like stone.

And the view from the back.

And another view from the front but the light was fading by this time.

Inspiration taken from a Pinterest post.

Powertex Figures

I made a new mould from a polystyrene shape of a bust and using wire and tinfoil I built up the bodies with it and used a polystyrene ball for the head. I put the head on so I could determine what size ish to make the body.

I started off by covering the pieces with t-shirt fabric and the arms with craft-t fabric as a base layer.

I added some more fancy fabrics and draped them over to make the clothes. 

I wanted to cover the arms by making some sleeves as opposed to just draping fabric or scrim over them. I also put cling film over their bodies and added the head so I could create some hair.

This is them from the back with all their hair. They were left outside in the garden to dry for a while.

Once dry I brought them inside and started too look at different things to sit them on.

As I had some Powertex left and also wanted to play with the mulberry bark to make some clothes I started on a third one. For this torso I just used wire and tinfoil and not the clay mould.

Once they were all dry I placed them on different sized bases.

From another angle.

And finally from the back.

After about two weeks I added pigments in rich gold and bronze gold Colortricx to bring out the hi-lights. I personally like to wait until they are totally dry so I can really attack them when dry brushing.

The base they are sat on is a piece of oasis painted in bronze Powertex, however the base hasn't hardened, it's just coloured.

And a view from the back.

And another view from the top which shows the hair better.

I turned the oasis around and placed the figure on top of the block.

And this is the smaller one sat at the same angle.

This is the smaller of the three and he's sat on the block. He won't sit on it the other way round as he's not weighted enough on the upper half as I didn't use any clay with this one for the core.

And finally all three sat on the block. 

I still haven't decided how I want to display them yet! I want to get a piece of fence post wood to make some blocks to sit them on to see what they would look like before I commit to anything permanent.