Painting, Hair Punching and Application

To paint the head i used a mix of bathroom silicone sealant thinned down with naptha i used silicone pigments for the colour. i built up the colour using washes of thinned pigmented silicone. the first attempt at painting didn't go too well, when i was putting on the last layer i ended up pulling off an area of paint by over saturating it with solvent. so it had to remove all the paint which was not easy this involved wiping down with naptha. but it turned out to work in my favor because i was not really happy with colour it was too red, so it gave me another chance to get it right.
The second go at painting worked out much better, i built up the layers but was careful not to use too much red. i built up the colour with layers of shades of browns adjusting it with blues, reds and yellows the final layer was a wash of blue mixed with black. After the silicone calking washes i felt that it was a bit too dark so i used the Illustrator dark palette to lighten up areas on the cheeks , nose and chin. this was done by using washes of colours again and using a cut down layup brush i splattered the colour on by running my finger across the top of the brush so the paint is flicked on to the face in a random pattern.




i painted the ears and top lip using the illustrator palette.

HAIR PUNCHING

For the hair punching tool i took a sewing needle and cut down the eye of the needle so that one side is longer then the other, i secured the needle into a piece of wooden dowel and this became my hair punching needle.
For the head hair i used crepe hair which is usually used for making beards for theatrecal makeup, i used a mix of black and gray. when i punched the hair on the head i needed the insert a piece of foam behind the silicone because of the fiber glass core the mask sit over was preventing me from fully punching the hair through the silicone. I only punched a small area around the ears because the rest of the head would be covered by a head scarf.
For the eyebrows i used straight head hair and punched in the hair at an angle to try and simulate the way eyebrow hair grows but unfortunately this was not too successful and the hair still stood out much so i tried several things to style the eyerows but i found pva to be the best at holding the hair in the right position(PVA was used by punks in the 80's to create there extreme hairstyles).

Application

the first set of is to stick down the bald cap using pros-aid.
After the bald cap i painted pros aid over the whole of Rowen's head and face let it dry then dusted with talc. I did the same for the prosthetic i turned it inside out then painted on the pros aid then talc. the reason this is done is because pros aid works best as a contact adhesive and the talc stops it sticking to its self before you want it to, then you apply the prosthetic then once the prosthetic is in place all you have to is reactivate the pros aid with IPA.

so once the prosthetic was in place i used a brush with a small amount of IPA and went in through the eye sockets, ear holes and mouth to reactivate the pros aid.
Then i applied the ears in the same way.
when it came to the top lip i had some problems, mainly because in the process of casting the toplip the bald cap incapsulating layer i painted into the mould always became stuck to the mould to i ended up with the top lip but without proper blendable edges i tried to hide them as much as i could using pros aid but only to limited success, but this would be easy to fix using photoshop on the final photo. the same was also true of the blending edge around the eyes these were too thick and quite noticeable but could be fixed in photoshop and were not noticeable untill up close.
i had to hide Rowen skin colour around his eyes and ears were the prosthetic didn't cover fully.
but the grease paint make up i had bought didn't have a dark enough colour even though it is supposed to cover all skin tones, this is the problem with buying over the internet, but the Skin illustrator palette i bought had all the right tones but i couldn't use too much around Rowen's eyes because it is alcohol activated and irritates the eyes, so i would have to fix this with photoshop in the final pictures.


The Photo shoot

this is a photo before the photo shoot.
everything went well with the photo shoot. i had researched into lighting and how to take portrait photographs and it took awhile to sort out the lighting and my camera to get the right lighting and exposure. the first lot of photos, when the mask was fully stuck down, were too washed out and of not good quality but as i got more familiar with everything it all came together and the final photos came out very nicely. i also took some video footage top show the movement.



for the final photos i used photoshop to hide to colour around the eyes and change the eye colour, i also hid some the blending edges when they stood out too much or when there was skin showing around the lips where the adhesive had come unstuck.

injecting the silicone

Preparing the mould for injecting requires bleeder holes to be drilled, these are 1mm holes at high points of the mould they are to let air escape when injecting the silicone. these holes are extended by using carbody filler that also has a 1mm hole drilled into it these are then attached with more carbody filler and a pin in the hole to locate it while it sticks then the pin is removed.
a poor tube is added this consists of drilling a hole in the internal mould piece, the tube is attached using carbodyfiller at the base and further up around the neck area.


next step is to apply the release agent. i used fairy liquid mixed with water at a mix of 50/50 it was painted on and left to dry, next a spray of apoxy par film. i used platgel 10 to encapsulate the prosthetic but you can also use cap plastic, Russel from mouldlife cautioned me against using cap plastic on a polyester resin mould as it can stick and be difficult to de-mould, i used a sponge to apply the silicone except around the eyes and mouth on these areas i airbrushed the silicone on, this creates a thinner layer for blending the edges. on the internal core mould i used strips of netting across the top of the head. the netting stops the silicone form stretching in none moving areas. the next step is to carefully piece the mould back together and then place the mould into a bucket to secure the mould for injecting.

The silicone:
to create a realistic feeling and moving look the plat gel 10 needs to be mixed with deadener. for this prosthetic i used 180% deadener to 50% part A and 50% part B plat gel 10, i also used a retarder to slow down the curing time because platgel 10 cures in under 10 minutes which is not enough time to de-gas and inject.
I mixed the pigment in to each component. to achieve the same amount of pigment in each component i drew a black dot on to the end of a mixing stick. this dot is used to know when the right amount of pigment is achieved. this is done by dipping the stick in to the silicone drawing it out and allowing the silicone to drain off, the dot needs to be visible but hazy if it is still too visible then more pigment is needed.

Injecting:

I used a total weight of 1200g of silicone and deadener. once i had the silicone pigmented i first mixed the retarder into part A then poured all the components into a bowl and mixed them altogether, then into the vacuum chamber to remove the air bubbles. Before i mixed the silicone i set up the giant syringe, which is just a drain blaster use for unblocking sinks from B&Q, into the pour tube. once the silicone is de-gassed i poured it into the syringe which is at a slight angle letting it drain down the pour tube then once it had drained fully i injected it slowly into the mould, and because i made bleed hole i new when it had reached to top, then i removed the syringe because the syringe creates a vacuum and could draw silicone out of the mould if left attached. I returned in the morning to de-mould. i placed the mould into a large tub of warm water, this activates the fairy liquid so the silicone is easier to de-mould.

it seemed to be working really well it came away from the mould easily and managed to remove the outer mould sections but when i tried to remove it from the internal core it became stuck to its self and unfortunately i was unable to save the silicone cast.the silicone should not have been sticky and could be the result of many things but i put a question out on the fxlab forum http://www.theeffectslab.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8554
and what came back was that i might of used too much fairy liquid, so i took the advise and mixed the fairy liquid with IPA at a much thinner mix, i painted it on making sure that there was no pooling of the liquid, then a coat of apoxy par film. this time when stippled on the encapsulating layer i made it thicker, i think that i had made the last one too thin and this contributed to the cast being sticky. I didn't airbrush around the eyes just a thin stippled layer. i used more netting on the head and down the side of the face close to the ear to stop over stretching. I only deadened up to 150% this time round, i think that it was too stretchy at 180%, there is a lot of weight on the cheeks and the the side of the head is thin so it needs more strength so i used less deadener. i did everything the same as before and when it came to de-moulding it came away even easier this time round it still seemed a bit sticky but is much better than the last one.

now on to cleaning up the cast. first i cut away the flashing and left a small trench along the seam line.
This trench is then filled with pigmented silicone which is deadened to the same amount as the cast, once that is done it is ready for painting.

The ears part two

This time i have gone for more coverage over the ears and been more aware of undercuts and possible trappings. I think a three of four part mould will be needed so as not to get locked together or a silicone mould.

I decided to try a silicone mould and test it out on only one ear first to see if it would work.
I used a layer of cap plastic thinned down with acetone and painted it onto both sides of the mould. then mixed up some silicone with no deadener as i wanted a stiffer result for the ears.
the test cast came out well so i moulded and cast the second ear which came out well.

The ears

To create the ears I cast Rowen's ears using a two part silicone putty, it is really easy to use just mix equal parts A and B and apply to the ear, it sets in about three minutes then once gently removed i cast straight into it with fast cast to create my positives onto which i will sculpt my ears. to do this i took the silicone mould and placed it in a bed of clay which came up level to the silicone i then used a styrene strip as the surrounding wall which was pushed into the clay.

i sculpted onto these with Chavant clay, i only really wanted to just extend the ear lopes so i filed in the rest of the undercuts with carbody filler. i then did the same as with the top lip and covered the rest with a layer of clay but leaving a small gap between this and the sculpted ear lope.
I then built up a clay base around it then made a styrene wall around the ear. then i poured in more fast cast to create the negative side of the mould.

But when it came to separating the moulds i found they had become lock inside, there was too much of an under cut and i had not used enough clay to counteract it.
after doing some research on creating prosthetic ears (http://illustrationrevealed.wordpress.com/category/prosthesis/) i think a i need to split the mould up into more pieces maybe into three or four parts.

Moulding the head

This will be a three part mould, one piece for the front, the back will be two pieces with a split running down the middle. I first started by spraying my sculpture with a clear acrylic lacquer then once dried i built a clay wall, added locating holes then sprayed two coats of lacquer, this is to seal in the moisture of the clay, on to the wall making sure to cover up my sculpture as i did so. then once dry i gave the whole thing several coats of macwax then once that was dry i dusted it over with talcum powder, this is to absorb any moister still there and to help the gel coat to grip on to the sculpture.

then i painted on the gel coat making sure there were no air bubbles or missed areas, let that cure for about an hour then start laying up the fiberglass.i first used some fiberglass tissue to get into the intricate areas of the nose, mouth and eyes just to make sure the gel coat was well supported without any air bubbles in those key areas. then i used three layers of fiberglass on the wall and two on the sculpture, the fiberglass was kept clear so that i can still see where to drill the bolt holes in the eyes, ears and top lip.

once the fiberglass had cured i removed to clay wall cleaned up any of the clay still left over on the fiberglass wall and sculpture, once that was done and all dried off i built the dividing wall down the back of the head and followed the procedure of lacquer macwax and talc but i also painted on a layer of jwax onto the fiberglass wall just for extra release when de-moulding, then i painted on the gel coat and then three layers on walls and two on sculpture of fiberglass.




cleaned up the walls and sculpture making sure to remove all trace of clay
no need for lacquer just Jwax on the fiberglass and several coats of macwax over the whole thing and some talc, then gel coat and fiberglass

moulding the top lip

i started by creating a wall surrounding the top lip using masking tape, using the same method as in the Neill Gorton dvds. i then used alginate to make a mould of the top lip and surrounding area. once the alginate had set i made a plaster casting of the top lip which i cleaned up and removed any imperfections, I then made a mould of the plaster cast using silicone,

I then made a cast in fast cast onto which I then sculpted the top lip, drilled some locating holes and covered the rest of the cast in a layer of chavant, this will be the area of flashing.

I then moulded the other half of the mould using fast cast.

sculpting part 3

I made some alterations to the nasolabial folds, completly resculpted the jowls, finished off the neck and just made final refinements to the texture before i start moulding.

sculpting part 2

i have removed the top lip which will be sculpted and cast separately but also the clay was getting too thick on the lips and i had lost where the underlying lips were, this doesn't help in visualising how it will look with a lip because at the moment it looks like it has a moustache! which doesn't look very feminine.
I still feel it needs some work, i might bring in the nasolabial folds this might help fill out the cheeks without having to add more to the width of the face which will make the eyes look too close together.

Sculpting

Before i started sculpting i drew up some concept sketches on photoshop. i tried drawing over a photo of Rowen along with altering the shape of his face with the liquify filter, i also manipulated my reference picture to fit the shape of Rowens face, it was a fun exercise but not that helpful i needed to spend more time on it but didn't have the skills to properly do what i wanted, below are the results of my efforts, they helped me in desiding what i wasn't going to do and how i didn't want the sculpt to look.

sculpture in progress.... work still needs to be done on the nose, lips and around eyes and just the general shape of the face but it is getting there. The head scarf is there to help me visualise how it will look when finished because i found the shape of the bald head too distracting.



After studying the reference picture and comparing it to my sculpt i think that i need to widen the nasolabial folds, define the form of the eye bags and upper folds. add more to the nostrils just to give them a bit more shape. The neck and jowls still needs a lot of work to create the wait and effect of gravity on the sagging skin. I think over all it needs to be a bit more feminine, softening the jaw line and work on the brow as well as making the lips a little fuller should help.