The purpose of this flatpiece is to allow me to practise hair punching. I didn't want a complicated sculpt, but from research I found that there should be atleast 3-4mm of material for hair punching to be possible, so I sculpted a plain cubic flatpiece at about 5mm tall. It was a basic sculpt, but I tried hard to get a congruent heigh throughout and made sure the sides were straight.
The mould came out neatly so I neatened it up, applied vaseline as mould release and then applied 4 layers of cap plastic encapsulator and IPA in to 1:3 ratio.
I deadened the silicone 100%, as skin texture and moveability wasn't a particular concern with this piece, but I thought that deadening it much more than that might make the hair punching quite difficult with the silicone being so squishy.
I coloured it slightly with flesh coloured silicone pigment so that if the silicone shows through the hair then it will concur with the design of it being an animal skin graft.
The piece came out neatly and well.
Aside from my research, my tutor showed me how to hairpunch today. His advice was that about a third of the hair strand you're punching should go in and stay embedded. Also that the hair should be pushed about 1cm into the piece.
Hair Punching in Silicone
I actually found hair punching silicone much more difficult than i'd initially though. I'm not sure if it was just because it was 100% deadened, but I found that actually stabbing the needle into the silicone quite unwieldy, as the flatpiece would just move with the needle, away from me. So I have to try and hold the silicone down securely whilst piercing it. I also found that it made the encapsulated layer peel up a little a made the silicone look a little messy. I also found that because I was pushing so hard to try and make the needle sink into the silicone, that it actually came out through the bottom of the appliance a few times.
I then also ran the piece in gelatine and tried hair-punching into it which I found a lot easier. I think because the gelatine was so much less squishy than the silicone, and because it was slightly sticky, which meant it gripped to the work surface more, it was a lot easier to work with. Pushing the hair in and out was a lot less of a struggle, and the end result was neater because the gelatine didn't look distorted.
I tried both human hair and yak hair on both appliances. I think the gelatine took both hair types equally well, while the yak hair in silicone had a worse finish than the human hair.
I found that punching in multiple hairs at once wasn't a problem at all, with either material.
I think that a similar effect could be achieved with silicone if the piece was a lot less deadened -- if it all. I also think that maybe without the encapsulating layer, the end result might be slightly neater.
I had planned to apply these pieces as a furry skin graft, but I think punching in enough hairs to cover a whole piece would take out too much time. I am aware that another option would simply be to lay the hair onto the prosthetic.
Furry Skin Graft
Design
I would also add some puss to add to the infected look of this piece. I have some blister gel, but I think using some tuplast and maybe some latex, or mixing in some sugar may create an interesting crusty effect
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