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.

The Cast

Molding and Casting the Mask

After I had made an ultra cal 30 mold of the mask, it was time for my good friend and very talented fx artist, Joe Amella, www.joeamella.daportfolio.com to take over and run the foam latex. He has a shop with an oven he uses only for special effects and foam latex. I had asked him to tint the foam red as to make the pant job go a little quicker. While Joe tackled the mask I kept busy making the molds and casts of the horns and ears. The horn mold was done as a two part silicone brush up mold using Smooth-on Rebound 25. The mother mold was made from Smooth-on Plasti Paste. A resin base with fiber glass fibers already mixed in. It's a great product with a short cure time of 3 hours. The ears were molded with the same materials. After the molds were set, they were cleaned with a bit of 99% alcohol. I decided to run the horns in Smooth-on rigid foam ten. It is a two part expanding foam that is hard and lightweight when cured. For the ears I tried my hand at cold foam. Kryolan makes a cold foam, similar to hot foam, that doesn't need to be baked in an oven. Really good ventilation and a carbon filter mask should be worn when using the product. The cold foam is not as soft and light as hot foam, but a perfect material for the ears. Just after the second run I had a nice pair.