Figure 11.100 Overflow smooth as possible
Almost done!
The drilled holes have been filled with clay (Figure 11.101). The entire positive has been attached to a board with more clay. Make sure that no urethane can leak in underneath the positive. Add small, square, clay pieces that will create nice little holes where you can open the mold.
Figure 11.101 Drilled holes have been filled with clay
A thick line of red, made with a permanent maker around the outer edge, will help you find the seam when you are ready to take the mold apart.
Starting the Urethane Mold
Before starting the mold, apply a small amount of release agent to both the sculpture and the surrounding board. You can use Epoxy Parfilm 5 or a wax spray. Both work very well and aid in the cleanup of the molds later. For this mold, I used the same urethane system SG130 Component A and PURII Component B and refer to them below as A and B.
Layer 1: Urethane (Figure 11.102).
Figure 11.102 Layer 1
Mix 75 grams of A and 7.5 grams of Poly Fiber II mixed with 75 grams of B.
Apply to the sculpture.
Layer 2: Thick urethane (Figure 11.103).
Figure 11.103 Layer 2
Mix 75 grams of A and 7.5 grams of Poly Fiber II mixed with 75 grams of B.
When Layer 2 starts to set, add fiberglass flocking and keep patting it down until flat and dry.
Layer 3: Thick urethane (Figure 11.104).
Figure 11.104 Layer 3
Mix 75 grams of A and 7.5 grams of Poly Fiber II mixed with 75 grams of B.
When the mix has been spread around the mold, add strips of fiberglass tissue mat and push it down.
The negative mold follows the exact same procedure as making the positive mold.
Layer 4: Liquid urethane.
Mix 100 grams of A with 100 grams of B.
Pour the liquid mixture all over the fiberglass mat with gloved hands. Rub and pat until nice and smooth. Add a fifth layer if needed.
Layer 5: Very thick urethane.
Mix 75 grams of A, 15 grams of Poly Fiber II mixed with 75 grams of B.
Apply mixture. When you are done, the mold should be left to fully cure for a minimum of a few (three) hours before proceeding. Rushing will warp your molds and all of your work will be destroyed.
Waste material can run on the sides of the mold. If you followed the advice of sealing the sides, nothing will have run underneath the mold and cleanup will be easy.
When trimming the edges, use a vibrating saw to get the cleanest cuts (Figure 11.105). The red, permanent marker line drawn all around the edge of the positive now comes in handy. As you saw, the line becomes visible.
Figure 11.105 Vibrating saw
Pro Tip
When sawing into urethane, the temperature of the material gets quite high. As a precaution, I always wear a full gas mask to protect both my lungs from gases and eyes from debris. Don't forget to protect your hearing, too!
Before you take the mold apart, it is important that you drill holes through the new negative too (Figure 11.106). Start drilling straight through the clay filled holes on the bottom half and keep drilling all the way through.
Figure 11.106 Drilling holes in new negative
Don't forget the eye holes and any other holes that you may have added for stability.
Most face molds should always be opened from the top (Figure 11.107). The reason for this is due to the nose. If you open the mold from the bottom your negative mold will most likely get stuck on the nose, causing damage. Here the little clay squares at the top of the molds come in handy. They provide a perfect place for screwdrivers to fit.
Figure 11.107 Open the molds
Open the mold evenly. If you open for example from the right you will put unnecessary pressure on the cutting edge on the left-hand side. Rushing this step will only make failure a reality.
Opening a mold can be frustrating and time consuming. The clay inside the mold is hard and needs to be pried open slowly.
Sometimes it can help to submerge the entire unopened mold in warm water to soften the clay a bit.
Finally after about 15 minutes, the mold should open without any damage or undercuts (Figure 11.108). Don't let this be a guide, however; some molds have taken me a day to open.
Figure 11.108 Molds should open
Final
Clay can stick to the positive and negative. Separate the clay used for your face sculpt from the overflow sculpt. The reason for doing this is to give you a rough idea on how much silicone is needed to fill your mold (Figure 11.109).
Figure 11.109 Clay can stick
Cleaning the Mold
Cleaning the mold is a very important step in this tutorial. Use soft sculpting tools and wooden spatulas. Scrub the mold clean with dish brushes, tooth brushes, or anything relatively soft. Add lots of Fairy Soap liquid as you are scrubbing. Mostly, try to avoid using any solvents. Sometimes textures refuse to let go of the clay; if this happens, use a bit of solvent to dissolve the clay.
Making the Silicon Piece for Theatre
The sculpture in Figure 11.110 weighs 255 grams, which means that I will need about that amount of silicone too. The silicone piece that I am making here is a theatre piece (Figure 11.111). Silicone is easier to produce and is fast to apply during the performance. When doing prosthetics for theatre, you need to have five to seven new pieces every week. Most of the time tomorrow's prosthetic will be made during tonight's evening performance. Being fast and having a high rate of success is of the greatest importance when working for theatre.
Figure 11.110 Weighing
Figure 11.111 Silicone theatre piece
Before applying the silicone barrier layer, spray a thin coat of Epoxy Parfilm on both mold halves.
For this demonstration, I used PlatSil Gel 10 from Polytek. This silicone has a very fast cure time and almost never fails.
Step 1: Mix up a small batch of PlatSil Gel, 20 grams of A and 20 grams of B in a small cup. Add a small pinch of 2mm Persian Red (Pantone 187C) nylon flocking. The flocking will give your pieces a lovely skin tone and that little lovely unevenness that will sell it as real.
Step 2: Using a polyurethane sponge, evenly spread it all over the surfaces of the mold.
Pro Tip
It is very important to never use anything (i.e., utensils, gloves, etc.) made from latex when working with silicone. The latex will inhibit the silicone and it will never cure.
This thin silicone layer will form an outer skin on the prosthetic. This also creates thin edges that we will glue onto the skin of the actor.
Step 3: We are now going to make the soft filling for the silicone prosthetic.
For the filling, add a third component to the mix. This is called Deadener and was developed by the very talented Gordon Smith (Figure 11.112). The Deadener is a softening agent and slows the silicone in its reactions. You can add anything from 50% up to 250% Deadener to your mix, but I have found that a mix of 100% Deadener is perfect for most of my uses.
Figure 11.112 Deadener mix: step 3
• For 100% Deadener, mix: 1 gram A, 1 gram B (total of 2 grams silicone), and 2 grams of Deadener.
• For 200% Deadener, mix: 1 gram A, 1 gram B (total of 2 grams silicone) and 4 grams of Deadener.
• For 250-grams batch of 100% Deadener: Mix 62.5 grams of A with 125 grams of Deadener.
• For remaining 62.5 grams of B, do not add until adding color to the mix. Pigments will color your silicone into believable skin tones. There are a number of different products for coloring.
Coloring
For a long time my preferred pigment was mashed grease paint makeup and flocking. Sometimes oil paint would be used. Now I mainly use silicone pigments from Mouldlife .co.uk and 2mm Persian Red (Pantone 187C) nylon flocking from www.flocking.biz.
Test color intensity by dipping a clean wooden spatula with a black dot drawn onto it into the colored silicone (only Part A and Deadener so far). Lift up un
til you see the dot. If the edges are clear, then add more pigments. If you can't see the dot at all, you have added too much.
After you are happy with the color, finish mixing the remaining part B silicone. Be careful not to get too many bubbles into the mix. Pour mix into your mold from as high as you can reach, in a small trickle (Figure 11.113). Doing this will break bubbles in the silicone and give you a nice translucent silicone.
Figure 11.113 Pouring mold high
Slush the silicone in a thin layer around the mold (Figure 11.114). This will also ensure that you have no trapped bubbles.
Figure 11.114 Slush silicone
Gently put your positive mold down into the negative mold (Figure 11.115). Do not rush this! Let the positive slowly sink into the silicone and push any last remaining bubbles up and out.
Figure 11.115 Positive in negative
Set your drill to the lowest torque setting (Figure 11.116). Bolt your mold together using wing nuts on the back.
Figure 11.116 Set your drill and bolt mold
Put every other bolt on the opposite side of the molds. This will put an even pressure on the edges of your mold.
These molds are very strong but if you over tighten the bolts it may still break.
When you are done, leave your mold to cure for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on room temperature (Figure 11.117).
Figure 11.117 Let mold cure
Pro Tip
Since the silicone we are using is a platinum cure silicone, it is easy to quicken the cure by raising the temperature—a low heat oven, 60° C (140° F) is usually good. Doing so will decrease the cure time in half.
Open the mold for the first time. To aid in opening, spray water into the openings; this acts as lubrication (Figure 11.118).
Figure 11.118 Spray water to open
Figure 11.119 shows fitting with the mask. Flashing is still intact.
Figure 11.119 First fitting
Pieces Out of the Mold
Once out of the mold, wash the piece with detergent. Put the piece back on the positive to dry.
Very important! Never use any powder at any time when demolding a silicone piece. You will lose the piece's transparency and the edges will be very difficult to blend with the skin.
Figure 11.120.
Molds from Lars Noren's Orestien at Folkteatern Gothenburg, 2010
Painting a PlatSil Gel 10 Prosthetic
How much prepainting is needed depends on the size of the prosthetic. A nose or a scar does not need any work until it is ready to be applied to the actor. A large alien mask would need to be prepainted.
Remember, work under forced ventilation, use a gas mask, and under no circumstances should solvents be inhaled. This method of prepainting is done only on the appliance, and never done on the actor/performer.
Make sure the base tone of the appliance matches the skin tone of the actor as closely as possible. Too much paint on silicone and you will lose the wonderful translucent look of the silicone.
Painting
1. Choose your grease paint palette.
2. Take a small amount of grease paint in a plastic bottle, dissolving the paint with generous amounts of heptanes solvent.
Note: You can find this solvent in most paint shops. Using grease paint instead of pure pigments skips a lot of hassle since these colors are already perfectly mixed.
3. Mix a small batch of Smooth-On's Psycho Paint—10 grams of component A plus 10 grams of component B and mix well. Add a small amount of heptane to slow the setting time.
4. Divide the Psycho Paint into small plastic cups. Add the pigment mix until you get the desired color.
5. Apply the color mix with an airbrush.
Flocking and Beard Stubble
In theatre it is important to simulate the missing blood in a prosthetic; flocking is a great technique for doing this. Add flocking whenever you can. I add flocking into the outer layer of the prosthetic in the Deadener filling. Flocking also helps hide the edges of the prosthetic, so I add a small mix to the glue. Textures created by flocking will blend and mimic the appliance and the surrounding skin. Flocking adds that little extra life to the piece; my preferred flocking is 2mm Persian Red.
Note: Painting with Skin Illustrator or Tattoo Inks is the same for theatre as it is for film. The only difference is that in theatre you will paint heavier in the red tones.
Should you need beard stubble for your actor, apply with a toothbrush by flicking it off with your gloved hand. This creates a random pattern.
Blood
There will be many times in your career when you will need to create blood effects. What you use and when to use it will have a big impact on how successful the outcome will be. When a scene requires the use of artificial blood, many departments are involved in creating a realistic effect. In some cases, you will need to camera test the color of your artificial blood. Some blood products will register too dark or too bright under certain lighting and film-processing conditions. These situations are classic examples of working with other departments on a film or television set. You will need to coordinate with the costume department, the prop department, the special effects department, and, in some situations, the stunt coordinator. Discussions about the blood effects start during the prep with the director. Then, at the production meeting, the first assistant director will address any issues, with all departments present and having input.
After the production meeting, there are sidebar meetings with the various departments, at an agreed-upon time, to further discuss the issues.
Pro Tip
Sidebar meetings provide excellent opportunities for fine-tuning conversations and designs with other departments involved, and not subjecting departments that are not involved to a long discussion.
The blood products that the makeup artist chooses should be color checked with the prop department and special effects so that the color of blood will be consistent. A sample of the blood product you have chosen should be given to the costume department, to ensure that it is washable and to check for stain factor. The prop department and the art department will also need to know the products, particularly how to clean the blood products off props and how to remove the blood from the set. If the props or the sets are expensive and cannot be damaged or stained, this will be discussed in the production meeting, and will affect your product choice. In some situations, the makeup department will provide the blood products for other departments (such as the costume department), or will give the other departments involved the name of the blood product and where to purchase it. If the makeup department purchases products for other departments, just note on the invoice or receipt showing which department it is going to, so that the accounting department is able to allocate the cost to that department. Doing so will keep the makeup budget intact.
If you do not coordinate with others, there will be no continuity in the color or texture of the blood, as well as lead to confusion among departments on the set. These are moments in production and on-set when everyone works together to help each other out to achieve the desired effect. Before we talk about choosing the right blood products to use, it is a good idea to understand how blood functions in the human body.
What Is Blood?
The human body contains about five liters of blood. Blood transports oxygen from the lungs to body tissue, and then transports carbon dioxide from body tissue to the lungs. Blood contains red and white blood cells and is about 55% plasma. Plasma is a liquid and contains 90% water. Plasma is a vehicle for blood cells and platelets. Plasma also functions as a carrier of minerals, potassium, and antibodies. Red blood cells also keep blood clean and deliver oxygen throughout the body. Hemoglobin is a protein that is red in color. Blood is constantly recirculated throughout the body. White blood cells fight off infections or germs. Blood platelets are also found in blood. Platelets help to block blood flow around wounds. Clots can form in blood. For example, scabs are clots found on the outside of the body, whereas bruises are clots formed ins
ide the body. Clots that are dangerous form inside blood vessels.
The Makeup Artist Handbook Page 27