During the summer I made a lot of models from molds using liquid plastic. We bought Smooth-cast 300 liquid plastic. It comes in two parts, A and B. Its really easy to use: you measure out how much you think will fill the mold, and do equal parts of part A and part B. Then you mix them together, thoroughly but quickly, and then pour in into the mold (which has been sprayed with mold release). You let the mold sit for about 5 minutes, and during that time the chemicals react to one another and create this awesome pure white plastic. Its super cool and you get great results in the molds-it gets all the little details. Smooth cast has a lot of different products that can be used to make molds and models, but they are slightly expensive. But the liquid plastic is awesome!

http://www.smooth-on.com/Urethane-Plastic-a/c5_1120_1209/index.html

Two artists Ive been looking at are Damien Hirst and Anselm Keifer. Hirst does incredible sculptures with animals that are super interesting. I also am so interested in people who do things in more than one medium-he does sculptures, paintings and all sorts of cool things.

Keifer does paintings and sculptures relating to the Holocaust (he's German). They're really cool and he uses a lot of different things in his paintings (straw, ash, etc.). I particularly like the images of what look like books or torn and rugged scraps of clothing. My eye is just drawn to them, and they give off such a sense of despair.

http://www.whitecube.com/artists/hirst/vitrineworksl/