Before mold making could even come into the picture, I had to explore the medium I was making a model in. The plasticine clay is soft but workable, though overall doesn't lend itself well to tremendous amounts of detail. After fooling around with it's capabilities, I selected an object to replicate. I choose a childhood treasure of mine, Little People Chicken. This chicken was glued to my hands as a child, creating a "dedicated chicken hand." leaving only one free hand to work around. The end of the Little People Chicken era came when I received a second one, in which my rights were revoked as I then had two dedicated chicken hands and no free ones. The love Little People Chicken got created a dirt layer on the figure, preserving it from becoming sticky like the rest of the Little People we owned, allowing it to remain with me as it withstands the test of time.
To me, the chicken embodies that child-like obsession and wonder that objects have, where one toy can be what an entire life revolves around with little consequences or reason. Only in childhood can you cling to a toy and have it be socially acceptable, which feels strange based on how much joy one little item can bring. I can only image the comfort of the chicken's constant presence especially with how naturally my hand curled around it, a comfort I will never being able to recreate as my hands have grown significantly and the mindset the chicken worked best in has passed. However, the Little People Chicken is still adorable and I still retain a soft spot for that pudgy face.
Little People Chicken lends itself well to mold making as it was originally created with a mold, though based on it's composition, it'd assume a different process than the one I was about to use. Based on brief research, the chicken likely used hollow casting, in which a seamless object can be produced by putting the plastic through a hole in the bottom. This method is done with an industrial setting, where any medium can be used with ease (metal, plastic, etc.) However, the chicken is simple and has rounded edges, making it perfect for creating a replica with any medium. In the end, my version came out ever so slightly bigger, likely due to the softness of the clay preventing full accuracy.
When it came to mold making, the process was simple: create a temporary clay half to embed the chicken to pour the first side of silicon, remove all the temporary clay to pour the corresponding half of silicon, then plaster poured on each side to keep the mold secure from wobbling during the casting process, and finally cutting it open to create pouring/air channels to make the casts. I ended up with four complete chickens, which I decided to paint various different colors (with one being a replica of the original colors). I suppose I wondered if someone else held a chicken just like me, and making different colors was a call to think of the different journeys their chickens went on.
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