Cradle, the Middle

This is the part where I tell you how we made this thing. The hands were sculpted in WED clay with internal armatures. Alginate and plaster bandage molds were made and the hands were cast in plaster. I could then sand and resculpt using a little joint compound. Once finished, production molds were made with Smooth-on Mold Star 25 and Plasti Paste. We had tried to cast the hands in quickcrete, and after a few tests, decided that a 2 part plastic would do the trick with a few coats of spray paint. Amelia fabricated the cradle with found and made objects. There is a charm bracelet with lots of little animals that were cut by hand, and many rings with set stones that were made. Many of the beaded areas were fabricated as well. We ordered a column mold from a garden supply store, vacuum cast styrene. Amelia built a few jigs so we could run a piece of PVC pipe down the middle of each column part in order for a threaded rod to hold it all together. After a few tests with different concrete mixes, we ultimately cast everything in plaster of paris. The bases are fabricated from MDF. A threaded rod was glued securely to each hand, and a nut was secured to the underside of the top of the base. With ease the rod slipped through each section and was easily tightened together. Every piece was primed and spray painted white.

Cradle, the Beginning and the End

Back in January, my sister, Amelia, www.ameliatoelke.com and I submitted a proposal for a show in Portland, Maine called Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. The guidelines for the show were, it had to be a collaboration between two people at different points of their careers. A perfect fit for Amelia and I. We came up with Cradle in no time at all. It was a perfect mix of our talents, mine with mold making and sculpting, and hers, in metals and construction. We had mapped out the project so I would construct the hands in Brooklyn and Amelia would fabricate what would become the "cradle", in Madison, Wisconsin. Before the install, we would get together and fabricate the columns and the pedestals in upstate New York. I have posted the original drawing from the proposal and the finished piece. We were surprised how it close the sculpture came to the drawing. The show opens at the MECA Library in Portland, Maine on June 1, and will be up for one month

My New On Set System

I finally started using this amazing "grid it" board by cocoon. A friend of mine had given it to me as a birthday gift nearly a year ago. I've been toting it along in my makeup kit ever since. It's the perfect on set touch up kit. I still keep my large set bag near by, with all the other stuff (band aids, straws, more powder, box of tissues, etc.) With this system I no longer have to run though tight sets with a large bag and everything is laid out and easily accessible, no more digging! The show I am currently working on has 2 male leads, one with some fx makeup (I'll blog about that later, closer to the movie release). This is what I have for touch ups.... Brushes for each actor, a small moisturizer, a small vial of blood, eyebrow groomer, tweezers, all matte, q tips, powder puff, small water sprayer, alcohol pen, powder compact with foundation colors spatulated on to the mirror side and a metal palette with alcohol inks in the colors I am using. There is a zipper pouch on the other side with some tissues. I think I might have to buy a few more of these!

Hand Photos

Hands!

Last April I was asked by the Univeristy of Wisconsin at Madison sculpture department to give a talk on molds to the undergrads. For the talk I prepared, ahead of time, a life cast, 2 part rubber and resin mold and a final silicone cast that I painted. The object, a male right hand. The talk went really well, but thats not what this post is about. Since then, I've had a wonderfully realistic rubber hand lying around. It's now, a year later making some money! I rented the hand to a television show for one of the discovery channels, then fabricated another hand for a feature film for a special effects gag. I've posted some set photos and some photos of the painting from the newly fabricated hand. For the painting I used a combination of mixol pigments in plat gel 10 and a few colors from fuse fx. Into the uncurred rubber, before the cast, it was intrinsically tinted with flocking and fuse fx pigment.

the painted mask

Painting the Mask

Once I got the mask from Joe it was time to paint. In order for paint to stay on the foam latex, you need to mix acrylic paint with prosaide adhesive. This is called PAX paint. Once the paint dries it will be a little tacky, but a little powder takes care of this. I used red PAX paint to cover the mask and the ears. The rigid foam for the horns was painted with straight acrylic paint in the same color. More PAX was mixed up in different colors for the mouth. I was in charge of only doing base colors for the paint job. On the shoot day, another makeup artist was in charge of applying the prosthetic and adding additional color with an airbrush. Not only was the mask applied, but contact lenses were worn and the actors teeth were blacked out to heighten the illusion.