Morgan & Grace living in the ’90’s (Halloween)

Grace has been my student for as long as I’ve been teaching. And almost that whole time she’s been giving me tons and tons of drawings of a muscular bunny she calls Buff Bunny. Why? Not really sure.

But it’s time I repay her.

Grace’s Buff Bunny sketch

I started by covering a wire & aluminum foil armature with Smooth-On’s FreeForm putty. I did two layers- first a base to provide the general shape and a hard form to build onto, then a final layer with all the muscles and details. I only had about 20 minutes to sculpt so my goal was to get the sculpture about 80% there.

Sculpting a figurine from FreeForm putty

After the putty dried I took some wood carving tools and carved in some more details and refined what was already there.

Carving the details with wood carving tools

Then to add more rounded, organic looking muscles and details I used a rotary tool with a tapered sanding bit and spent a lot of time smoothing the surface.

Detailing with a Dremel tool

Then sanding. And more sanding. And more and more sanding. The better the surface, the better the final product!

Lots and lots of sanding

I wanted the final silicone bunny to have a very smooth surface so I epoxy coated the clay figurine to give it a glossy surface. The epoxy I used is one of my favorite surface coating products- Smooth-On’s Epsilon Pro. I did two coats to really smooth it out and hide imperfections.

Epoxy coating the figurine

Look how shiny and smooth it is! Ready to go into a mold!

Look at that shimmering swimmer bod!

I needed a 2-part plaster mold for the silicone so I clayed up the bunny and built a cardboard mold box. I also made clay channels for excess silicone to flow out.

Clayed up and ready to mold

After I had the plaster mold, I shaped some 12 gauge house wire with a white rubber coating so my final bendy toy would hold its position. I brushed some tinted silicone into the mold and after it was set up I went ahead and poured the rest right over it. For this project I used Smooth-On’s Mold Star 20T because it’s super soft and very bendable, and I could tint it.

Pouring silicone over a wire armature

I made two bunnies. I knew the first one would be a little less than perfect so it was my test bunny. It turned out good enough to sit on my shelf, but the second one was way better so that became Grace’s gift.

Buff Bunny Bros!

Grace loved it and I hope you do too! Check out the video at the top of the page to see the whole process and Grace’s reaction!

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