Open Casket - starting over and loosing control of my balls

As I alluded to in my last post, I made the decision to at least attempt a new cast from scratch. Getting home from my trip today, I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I decided to just go for it. A bad idea, but one that ended up being ok!

This time I cut a very simple 'grave' shape in the foam, and filled it with polystyrene balls. I soaked a piece of a dust sheet - made I think from unbleached cotton - in 3kg of plaster of paris. I laid it out over the balls directly, and then laid a second piece of the same fabric (wet but without plaster) over the top to stop the plaster sticking to my body. I then climbed onto it, being careful to sit straight down. I lost a few of the balls when I put the fabric on, but I felt a promising moulding as I lay down.

I lay for almost an hour. It was very cold and damp at first, tending to warm and wet as time went on. My daughter came and stared at me like I was an idiot, which was fair, and the cat came and tried to climb on my chest, but my daughter kindly stopped her.

After about an hour I very carefully got up. The fabric felt reassuringly firm and kept it's shape as I flumped out onto the kitchen floor.

I'm much happier with the shape this time. It's a bit hard to make out from the photo because the right arm filled with balls as I got out, and because the balls below my hands are pushed out into little mounds, which makes it look like I have saddlebags! However, the same is much easier to 'read' in 3d so I'm not too worried - yet. One slight setback is that the head is missing - it's actually more 'missing' that it appears in the photo as the plaster material layer is significantly lower down my neck than the fabric covering layer was. I need to decide if I roll without a head, or more likely pull some of the loose covering material up to make a bit of a head shape. I might even attempt to 'mould' a head like a hood, but I'm not sure if that would end in tears.

I'm looking forward to getting my kitchen floor back, but I think I'll need to leave it for a few days to dry at least, before I dare to remove the supporting material.

Although this is much closer to what I was originally imagining, I am not writing off my last effort let - but I feel I've 'scratched the itch', and it's good to have options. I feel much more interested in keeping this version in my house after the final show, so perhaps that's telling it itself?