Apoxie Sculpt Dark Mark

**gundamaniac** · 01-07-2009, 10:59 PM

One of my friend's birthdays is coming up. She's a Harry Potter fan, so I figured I'd make her a little lamp based off of the Dark Mark (the mark of the evil Lord Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters).

This is the Dark Mark from the Harry Potter Movies:

I plan on mounting a little clip-on lamp inside the snake's mouth, as if the snake were eating the lamp. The lamp will point up at the entire structure, illuminating the skull and snake from below.

The Dark Mark as described in the novels is a snake coming out of a skull's mouth...but the movie version is missing the lower jaw. So my interpretation of the Dark Mark will feature a snake twisted like the one in the movie as well as a skull complete with the lower jaw.

My medium of choice? Apoxie Sculpt! If you didn't already know...this stuff is pretty neat. It's non-toxic epoxy that is sculptable for three hours and sets in 24 hours.

Here is what I had finished on the first night (note the tub of Apoxie the skull is sitting on!):

The second day, I finished the lower jaw. After letting that sit for just under 24 hours, I took a Dremel to both parts of the skull to carve in some "teeth":

That's all I have finished so far. Yes, that is a piece of 1" thickwalled polycarbonate under the skull. I plan on using that to prop the entire Dark Mark up on a circular base.

Here's a pic of the skull lit up from the bottom, like it should when I finish the project:

Hope you guys enjoy! More progress pics to follow in the days to come...

**Alcfalath** · 01-07-2009, 11:09 PM

Niiiiice cant wait to see the rest

**LeMoel** · 01-08-2009, 04:09 AM

awesome! where did you buy the "epoxie skulpt?

**gundamaniac** · 01-08-2009, 10:14 AM

Aves Studios. Try googling Aves and Apoxie Sculpt...you'll find them

**Sethski** · 01-08-2009, 11:56 AM

Looking good so far, I think your friend is in for a treat - and handy to know about the Apoxie Sculpt stuff (which I found is also available here in the UK - seems popular with taxidermists).

**Barmic Rin** · 01-08-2009, 12:25 PM

GM, you are TOO skilled man!!! Do keep us updated with pics!

**gundamaniac** · 01-09-2009, 04:45 AM

Well, I just finished making the base. I ended up finishing off a batch of Apoxie Sculpt molding the base alone...to put that into perspective...I have never used up a batch of Apoxie Sculpt yet...and I just exhausted my supply of "natural" colored Apoxie Sculpt (slightly under 4 lbs worth, because I used some of that batch on other projects).

So...the base of this thing is around 4 lbs...which is good because the skull is mounted rather high up and is quite heavy itself. The skull is about a half-inch layer of Apoxie around an aluminum foil wad. The base is solid Apoxie with rocks embedded in it. I'm hoping the base is heavy enough to offset the weight of the skull+snake...it's looking good so far with just the skull....haha.

Anyway...pictures! I was going for a sort of paved-stones look for the base, and I'm reasonably satisfied.

...and yes, that is a mini knit me next to the unfinished Dark Mark lamp =P

**gundamaniac** · 01-10-2009, 07:40 PM

Alrighty...almost done. I just need to rush out to Michael's right now, pick up some acrylic paints, then give the structure a light sanding and paint the snake up tonight. I abandoned the lamp concept after realizing that the lamp actually had to be about 10 inches away from the base of the lamp to light up the skull the way I wanted to...so now it's a giant statuette (read: paperweight lol)

Here's the finished sculpt from two slightly different eye-levels: