Roman Military Research Society

Todat I went to the Lunt Roman Fort in Coventry to visit the "Roman Military Research Society" who were training at the site. After some email communication I learned that the re-enactors would be training there over the weekend. I enquired about the presence of wolfskins and found out that there may have been an opportunity for me to see a real one.

Fortunately this information was correct and I was able to meet with some of the members of the society and photograph and measure one of their wolfskins. Below are some of the pictures I took for reference.



In addition to the photographs I also made notes on the various sizes and dimensions of the different parts of the wolf's body.

This particular wolfskin measured 5ft from the nose to the tail.
(5ft length)

Its Front leg span was 4.5ft including paws.

The girth of the wolfskin was 18 Inches just before the front legs.
21 Inches under the front legs and across the back.

The length from the arm pit to the beginning of the back legs was 22 Inches.

The length from the nose tip to the back of the skull was 1ft (12 Inches)

The ears were situated at the back of the skull and were 3 Inches high and 3.5 inches wide.

The tip of the muzzle was 2-2.5 inches wide

The mouth was roughly 6 inches in length from the tip to the corners.

The legs were 4-5 inches wide

The back legs were 13 inches (damaged)

The tail was 9 Inches (damaged)

The distance from the nose to the beginning of the front leg was 21 inches

The length of the fur varied around the body:

The muzzle hair was about 5mm in length

The paw fur was about 10mm long

The fur running along the back of the front legs was about 1 inch in length

The fur on the back was about 3-4 inches long.

Sculpting

With the armature finished I began sculpting the skull on to it. I have decided to use chavant clay because of its positive properties. These pictures show the sculpt after about two days.

Armature

Before I began the sculpt of the wolf's head I needed to make an armature. I Began making the armature out of blue foam, and mounted it on a piece of MDF. I then padded out the shape a little more with some foil. Once I had the basic skull shape I decided to vac form it. My reasoning behind this is the fact that I have bought some taxidermists wolf teeth. When they arrive I want to be able to see if they fit inside my skull cap structure. I therefore thought If it was a shell, that I would be able to see if they fitted before I moulded and cast the final skull, and possibly make asjustments before it's too late.

I am now using the vacuum formed skull shape as my armature and am sculpting on top of it.

Moulding

This week I took the nose sculpts and moulded them in different ways. I first moulded one of the noses using a simple silicone mould. This method is fine but takes up quite a lot of silicone. Although not a problem for the size of the nose, when I mould the whole head it will take a lot of silicone which would be wasteful. The pictures directly below show the noses I cast in fastcast. I used varying quantities of black pigment to colour them.



The other method of moulding I tried this week was a cavity mould. I had not tried this method before so it was a good experience, and beneficial to my project and learning.
First I took one of the nose sculpts and covered it in foil. I used a layer of foil to protect the clay nose underneath. I then covered the foil in a layer of clay and formed some locators and a pour hole. Once this was done I Covered the clay in a layer of Gel Coat about 2-3mm thick. Once this was tacky I began the process of fiberglassing the mould. After a few layers of fiberglass I left the mould to dry over night.
The next morning when the fiberglass was dry, I Drilled some holes into the fiberglass and baseboard, these acted as locators and a fastening point for re-ataching the fiberglass to the board for the next stage of moulding. After the holes had been drilled I Removed the fiberglass jacket from the board and removed the clay and foil. I then placed the fiberglass jacket back over the master (nose) and fastened it with bolts and wingnuts.

The next stage was to make and pour some silicone into the pour hole I made in the fiberglass, therefore filling the cavity made by the clay and surrounding the master inside. I left this over night to set and the next day I took out the master leaving me with the finished cavity mould.

Noses Noses Noses

As one of the most detailed fleshy parts of a wolf's body I have decided to concentrate on sculpting the nose. This will be one of the only exposed parts of the final sculpt. I have spent a few days trying different sculpting materials and different styles of wolf nose and textures.

So far I have tried; soft chavant, Airdry clay and Wed clay. I found the chavant quite slow going, but the results seem to hold a good amount of detail. The Airdry clay was very soft and quick to work with. However, getting detail into the clay was a little more tricky due to the responsiveness of the clay. The Wed clay I found to be very similar to the Airdry clay, it dried a little quicker and kept detail a little better but had a similar responsiveness to the Airdry clay.






I will now observe the moulding qualitites of the sculpting materials by moulding and casting each nose and comparing the quality of the results. I will hopefully from these tests be able to choose my final sculpting material.