Experimentation: Make your own Model Magic

For starters, Pinterest will be my undoing but in the meantime of my demise, I have picked up some really cool Hallowe'en ideas from tons of other pinners.  I wanted to start making some heads for some new characters but ran out of Crayola's Model Magic, my medium of choice.  I can't use papier mache, the stuff hates my guts for some reason and no matter what I do, it doesn't work. Period.  The stuff takes one look at me and never never ever ever never never ever never dries or does right.  I could place it on the corona of the sun and 2 weeks later it still will be damp and mooshy.   Stick it right in the middle of the 9th layer of Dante's hell and it still will need another day to dry...FOR ETERNITY!  But, being that it was 235 degrees below zero last night, I decided to not run to mecca (Hobby Lobby) and get some Model Magic. BUT, I had the ingredients that some pinner said made homemade Model Magic. Without getting into the preparation, here is the link to the article.

First of all, the ingredients are cheap, water, corn starch and baking soda. and the preparation wasn't too hard at all.  I did everything according to the directions and placed it in a ziplock overnight so it could cool.

 After letting it come to room temperature, I kneaded it a bit to make it smoother and introduced it to the fellow down below who was someone else but I decided that he needed a total facial reconstruction.

 For better or for worse, here's his new face.

 With a rather fetching profile I might say!

And here is Rastus Bezeebus sitting on the sourdough bread starter on top of the hot water heater where he will be drying.

As far as workability, I was very happy; the mixture smoothed out well, worked very easily and was softer than Model Magic.  Downside so far, it has a kind of funky smell and the author of the article said a couple of drops of peppermint (I'm guessing that any essential oil would work nicely) counteracts the weird odor. If this stuff actually works out well, I will probably totally switch to this material. 

More to come when Rastus dries....