+xIs you plan to take a mould of the whole assembly? Because it's almost impossible to take a mould from the legs and body all together. I would make a mould of each leg, and a mould of the body/neck/head, but without ears, tail and horns. Instead I would implement some recesses to glue those parts in. I would reinforce the parts with wood wich I would bond with cotton thickened resin, at the places where body and legs meet. Than I would bolt and bond the legs onto the body.
drywall compound is a horrible surface to take moulds from. Use a thin layer of coating epoxy instead, and sand it smooth. This might take several tries.
I would still recommend to just wrap the foam structure. You probably aren't aware of the difficulties and expenses you will face just to create the moulds. Same for the parts itself. I will be far easier to rework some details on the positive layup.
hey Oekmont, thanks again for the feedback.
I was just re-reading your initial posts from earlier in the month -- really good.
OK I think you're right. I don't know what I'm getting into.. Here's a new plan:
A vendor in Toronto has a bunch of heavily discounted carbon fiber. Ordinarily I couldn't afford it, but it's 70+ % off.
My new thought is to wrap the model in carbon fiber and epoxy, possibly with a metal armature put in during assembly / pre coating.
Does that sound like a reasonable idea to you? What would be the minimum weight / layer combo of carbon to give any kind of strength?
Would a single thin 'veil' type layer of carbon in epoxy do anything?
I did a test last night with some much lower grade materials: lay two layers of 10mil glass veil dipped in some polymer gypsum I had laying around and layed it over some scrap polystyrene (low density white) and the shell was surprisingly decent. If a couple thin layers of carbon could do better than that, I might be good to go?