My lovely bird, all sprued up and ready for me to make a rubber mold out of it. The sprues are the dark parts in this photo. When I make the mold, it will be solid rubber apart from where the bird is and where the sprues are. The hole left by the sprues leads to the edge of the mold - this allows me to shoot the hot liquid wax in from the outside. Once the wax model is cast into silver, I saw the sprues off.
Casting my own designs is a pretty involved process, but it’s a labor of love!