Sculpture sketch

An ongoing experiment. A while ago I tried casting a pig head and didn't want to waste anything, so thought I'd find a use for skulls, always fascinating. Lots of soaking, boiling, scrubbing, to clean them up. Much of it was left to maceration and natural decay to clean, but because of the freezing winter this took forever.

Fresh out of the bucket.

Dry and de-stinked (mostly).

Primed and ready for painting (the initial plan).

I had been playing around trying to get a rust effect on different surfaces, and wondered how it might work on one of the skulls, so painted on a layer of resin and dusted the surface with iron powder. This was sprayed with  vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and salt. More weathering and treatment is needed to get a little more depth and variation in the rusting but I think it might turn out quite well, if you're into that sort of thing.
The teeth were removed for bleaching, haven't decided whether to leave them white and pop them back in, or give them the same treatment.