This sour-faced bird has a movable beak with which he pronounces his prophecies of doom. His body can be made out of any old speckled rag and bit of feather lying around the house. His head can be cast in plastic wood or in papier-mache. The overcasting in papier-mache explained earlier results in a loss of some detail, as the paper is built up over the model. But by casting the papier-mache inside a mould, as with plastic wood, you can retain most detail. However, papier-mache has to be cast in a more complicated mould—a shim cast mould.
Making a Shim Cast Mould
Shims are anything which divide; in this case, strips of plasticine. Divide your plasticine model head by drawing a faint line running through the center of the features and down the center of the back of the head as in A. Prepare strips of plasticine about 3/4 inch wide and 1/8 inch thick. Apply these strips along the line you have drawn so that there is a small, upright wall of plasticine running all the way around the head like a crest, as in B. Now lay the head on its side in a nest of soft paper. Take another long strip of plasticine and run it around the dividing crest so that it forms a sealed trough, C, that will contain the plaster. The neck of the plasticine model should stick out free of this trough at the bottom. Now heap plaster into the trough, making sure it fills in against all the features. Build up the plaster so that it covers the entire side of the head, D, then smooth it off a little on top so that when it dries and is turned over, it will sit flat. When the plaster is dry, turn the mould over and remove the plasticine dividers to expose the 3/4-inch plaster shelf or margin, E. With a pointed knife, scrape this shelf until it is flat and smooth, then into it dig three holes, F,
