Finally finished making Xamora's plaque. Took longer than expected due to anxiety and needing to learn how to work with plaster of paris. It's not perfect but it captured what I wanted it to. I'm looking for someone local familiar with plaster who can clean it up without damaging it.
I didn't find any specific tutorial on how to do this. I started with these two articles to help determine how long to wait for the plaster to set, and used this mixing technique. I waited about 2 min post mixing to set in Xamora and the flowers. Left her in for about 5 minutes but should have gone for 6 or 7 - a few things wound up smudged. Flowers should be removed earlier so the petals don't get stuck in the plaster. Letters shouldn't be removed until plaster has fully hardened - about 25+ minutes.
It's a delicate balance of adding and removing things when it's the right time to get the best impression. Even with all my testing I had issues scaling up - also I think whatever conversion I used to calculate how much plaster I needed was wrong because I made twice as much as I needed for my pan.
I did tests using some old skin I collected - saving good pieces for a future project. I had these silicon molds I had ordered for something else the same day Xamora passed, which turned out to be handy to quickly remove my test pieces.
I also cut up the stamps to get the kerning and alignment right. I needed multiple stamp sets because it all needed to be done at the same time and left to set.
Once this is cleaned up it'll be placed on my wall to forever commemorate my first bearded dragon.
Xamora, though your life was short, it was full of love. I won't forget you.
Additional progress pic below the cut - tw for dead animal.
