Special thanks....

A special thank you to Harley Rainey for being such a wonderful model.

Check out his modelling site;

http://www.harleyrainey.co.uk/

The Demonic Nightmare is unveiled....

 

 

 

 

Application...

Below you will see a step by step I prepared on how to apply the piece.

Step by Step of applying the demonic nightmare prosthetic.

Step one: Tell the model to place the contact lenses in there eyes, if they want the make up artist can place them in.

Step two: Clean models face with a small amount of toner.

Step three: Using a cotton bud and some pros-aid apply the prosthetic piece working from the centre outwards. Apply the pros-aid over where the nose is in the prosthetic piece and also across the centre of the forehead are. Repeat this process on the places on the models face this will anchor the piece to the face. Place the piece on the face whilst the glue is still wet this give you the chance to move it into place. Once the pros-aid drys it will not move about.

Step four: Work your way outwards repeating the same process as above, for example after the centre of the face, apply pros-aid to the upper lip area followed by the chin leaving the edge. As said before continue to repeat the process working your way out.

Step five: Once all is secure, start sticking the edges down take your time, you could use a clean cotton bud and roll it over the edges in an outwards motion. Do this with all edges including the eyes.

Step six: Powder the eye lids, to ensure they don't get stuck open. This step is important for that reason.

Step seven: Check the prosthetic piece is secure, ask the model to make some facial expressions such as; frowning etc.

 

Here are some images of the applied piece from different angles.

 

 

 

Practise take two....

The solution is here. After my concerns on using a alcohol activated palate I decided to practise the demonic creature look using grease paints. This time around the look took an hour, making grease paints the best option to use on the day of application, along with the fact I've used this product multiple times meaning I more confident with it unlike the alcohol activated palate. Below are some more images of the piece. The aim is for the overall look is to make the model look gaunt and hollowed out.

 

 

 

 

Practise makes perfect....

 

Practise makes perfect. Unfortunately I couldn't practise on the actual model due to distance and schedule, but a compromise was made by simply painting the piece on the cast of the models face. With an alcohol activated palate used a flicking technique where I used a paint brush to flick speckles on the prosthetic piece, slowly building them up to create a fleshy tone. The colours I used were mainly skin coloured but I also used red, yellow and blue. The process overall took an hour or two to complete which concerns me with the time limit we have been given to complete the demonic look on the day (two hours). A quicker technique that I am confident with will be needed.

 

Stay tuned for the solution.

Preparing the prosthetic for application; base layer...

As a safety precaution I decided to apply a test patch of the pax paint to the prosthetic piece to ensure it was the correct shade when dry. It was so I will move swiftly on to how the paint will be applied to the rest of the piece.

 

The pax paint was applied using a latex sponge using a dabbing motion, evenly distributing all over the piece.

 

The end result looks like the image above. For storage I simply powdered the piece down using translucent powder, to stop the piece from sticking to anything, remember pax paint is an adhesive.

Preparing the prosthetic for application; Making pax paint...

The prosthetic piece will have a base coat painted with 'pax paint'. Pax paint is an adhesive based paint it's a blend of pros-aid adhesive and pigments. I made my own, here are some images to show what I did.

 

First using acrylic paint I tested different base shades, mixing colours such as; white, yellow, red and burnt sienna. Once finding a few shades I liked on paper I tested how the shades would look on the piece.

 

Out of the four tones you see above in the image the red and peachy pink would be most suitable as a base. There is a lot of red naturally in the human skin, since the finished piece will be a flesh colour natural tones would be best. I plan to use alcohol activated paints, so the chosen tone was the peachy pink, the other reason for that particular tone to be chosen was in terms of applying makeup peachy tones brighten the complexion which I thought would compliment any further colouring or shading the piece.

 



Now that the tone has been found, its time to produce the pax paint. To the pros-aid I initially added a flesh tone and red acrylic paint but it resulted in looking more pink unlike the chosen tone so to combat this a small amount of burnt sienna was added. Eventually the correct shade was made, I left the shade slightly lighter then I'd want based on knowing acrylic paint dry's darker then when its wet.

In another post I will be talking about how the pax paint will be applied to the piece!

Fresh out the oven....

 

After the process which was shown in the last post on foam latex the next stage would be to put it in the oven for three hours. When taking it out the oven it is important to do it slowly and gradually so that the mould doesn't crack and to let the foam latex cure, if the mould goes from hot to cold too fast it could crack.  Once it had cooled it was time to get it out the mould.

Foam latex...

Within this post the use of foam latex will be spoken about. Foam latex is a light, flexible material that allows air through it and is easily painted.

To mix up the foam latex you will need to use;

• 300g of foam base (latex)
• 60g of  foaming agent (20% of base)
• 30g of curing agent (10% of base)
• Gelling agent (10%-15% of base)

The gelling agent is affected by temperature, the warmer the surroundings are the less of the gelling agent and the colder the surrounding temperature is the more gelling agent you use.

An electric whisk is used to mix the foam latex. Put it on the maximum speed for 4 minutes after turn down to the lowest setting and refine for 6 minutes. After this the gelling agent is evenly distributed through out for 2 minutes (using a syringe helps). Using to much of the gelling agent will cause the foam latex to set fast. When i made the foam latex the room was 24 degrees (warm) so i used 37-28 of the gelling agent.  

Once the foam latex has finished being mixed promptly place some of it into the centre of the mould spreading out all over the mould making sure to get into all the details once this is done put a little more into the centre. Once this has been done get the cast and press it down into the mould like the images show below.