verdantSculpts

Neal granted me access to this course in exchange for my feedback, but that aside, I would gladly have paid for it, and encourage any sculptors who want to add silicone moldmaking and resin casting to their repertoire of skills to enroll for access to this course! I consider myself to be intermediate in moldmaking, and thanks to these fantastic, clear, high-quality videos and Neal’s fabulously thorough and approachable voiceover, I now feel inspired and empowered to tackle advanced casting projects, especially knowing that I can take advantage of the forum system built into the course for help and feedback if I run into any trouble. Neal’s beautiful dragon sculptures and clean moldwork make each of the course's nineteen videos (ranging in length from roughly three to eighteen minutes, with most right around the ten minute mark) a pleasure to view, and learning from someone so experienced at preparing a Monster Clay prototype for molding is especially helpful to me, as it has become my preferred sculptural medium. Though he is thorough, his instruction style is never dry or confusing. I also appreciate his use of supplementary PDFs, including a complete materials chart with hyperlinks to online sources of all the materials and equipment used in the course, a brief introduction to several different sculpting media to which silicone moldmaking is well-suited, as well as an explanation of the use of waste molds in the resin-casting process. I especially appreciate the fact that Neal turns his few mistakes into teaching opportunities. A less thoughtful instructor might have chosen to re-shoot so as to omit flaws, but thankfully, students are allowed the opportunity to peek over Neal’s shoulder to learn additional techniques that could help to salvage a project, or prevent total failure. Mold-making can be an extremely daunting process at the outset, especially given the expense of some of the materials and equipment involved, but this series of videos and supplementary materials teaches good habits and useful techniques that will result in clean silicone molds and nice resin casings needing minimal cleanup, all while minimizing the waste of materials. Five out of five stars for a brilliant course!

I've been messing around with molding/casting for about half a year now, using info from websites online/ reading Tim Brukner's Pop Sculpture book / and watching youtube videos. I've always felt like there were bits that I was missing, that nothing really explained why you would do certain things, or how to properly troubleshoot and problem solve, or (in some cases) that it would simply be more helpful to see the process instead of reading it. After going through Emily's videos, I feel like all the things she shared have really improved my overall process and that I've experienced a lot less straining/forcing things and even less material waste. I've already remade a few of my molds and the cleanup time has gone from 15 minutes to 5. I can't say enough good things about this course! :D