Lizard Skin Graft | clairegolbymue

Skin Graft: Reptilian Inspired

The idea behind this piece was that it would give me the opportunity to practise sculpting techniques and creating texture when sculpting to achieve a realistic finish.

Aside from looking at images of reptile skins, my main influece for the sculpture of this piece was a Stuart Bray video on how to sculpt reptile skin.

He showed lots of little ideas and methods which really helped, such as using clingfilm, melting the clay to be able to dot it and applying multiple small pieces and smoothing them down.

I tried to incorporate 3 different sections into the sculpt that all still looking congruous with one another; medium, large and small scaley sections.

For the top medium section, I sculpted straight into the clay and then worked into it with clingfilm and then lighter fluid and a brush.

For the larger middle section, I applied large pieces of clay in a preditermined shape and then sculpted them into the piece and then I did the small sections with the dotting method.

I textured the piece by taking some lighter fluid on a rough brush and ran it over the piece horizontally to create a slightly weathered look. I didn't want it to look like i'd done a bad 'rough' sculpt, but I did want the sculpt to look textured and worn.

I think the mould came out really well, it basically peeled straight off the sculpt with no clay in it, leaving the sculpt in mint condition.

I plan on running it in bondo, gelatine and silicone and experimenting with intrinsicly colouring all three. I also want more practise on painting these materials and hopefully airbrushing aswell.

The Stan Winston video recommended a mixture of acrylic inks, water and alcohol to paint.

Design

Foy, S. (1982) The Grand Design. USA: BLA Publishing Ltd. page 206

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stuart bray (2014) Sculpting Prosthetics: Reptile Skin [online] available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUh4VUAQlNQ [Accessed: February 5th 2015]

Running in Silicone

After cleaning up the mould I decided to run the piece in vaseline first, as I thought this had the potential to be the most problematic out of all 3 materials and I wanted to factor in time for error. After applying vaseline I did 4 layers of cap-plastic encapsulator and IPA in a 1:3 ratio, applied with a small brush to ensure it reached the more detailed areas. I did buy an oil spray diffuser which should have allowed me to spray on fine layers which would have been quicker, but spraying the mix through it, it spurted out in blobs rather than a mist.

I then mixed the silicone to 100% deadened. This was simply because I was also filling the other moulds at the time so I did it in one big batch to save time, but reflecting on it, given the hardness of lizard skin, I think that adding no deadener at all would have been appropriate. I also wanted to experiment with intrinsically colouring, so I used green and yellow silicone pigment to add a slight green tone. I had been planning on experimenting with greasepaint as a colourant, but was advised not to, as it didn't produce good results.

I followed with 3 more coats of IPA and cap plastic and then removed it gently with a brush and talcum powder. It removed really well, with a couple of unnoticeable little tears in the more detailed areas. I plan on prepainting it with skin illustrator, as, from my research, that is the most advised method of painting encapsulated silicone appliances.

Painting the Silicone

Even though I thought PAX paint might be a more appropriate way to paint realistic looking reptile skin (because of the opaqueness), I decided to paint this piece with skin illustrator, as I havent painted detail on silicone before and research always suggests painting silicone with skin illustrator.

It actually painted better than i'd thought it would. I got frustrated because I thought the colour wasn't strong enough, but I tried to remeber that its thin because you have to paint it and build up the layers.

I filled in all the darkest areas first, in the lines that i'd sculpted. I then did the highlights on all the highest points of the sculpt, and then went in adding detail with midtone colours. I used the dry-brush method to add rough stroke detailing onto the larger scales.

I found that the intricate rough sculpt detail i'd sculpted for the piece got pretty lost while I was painting. Because the little lines were so small, I couldn't really paint with them or into them, so I had to just paint over and around them. I think maybe oversculpting fine details a little more in future might help.

Overall though I'm really happy with this piece. Considering its my first time painting a detailed prosthetic, I think it looks fairly realistic.

Running and Painting Gelatine

I'd never run gelatine in a silicone flatpiece mould before. I vaselined the whole mould and then heated my gelatine, which I coloured with greasepaint. I didn't have much gelatine available, but I though it would be just enough, which it was.

However, when I tried to scrape off the gelatine to smooth out the piece, I found it was already very tacky, nearly dry, so I could barely do anything without distorting the whole piece, so I had to leave it a mess and hope that it was still useable.

The gelatine came out of the mould really easily and looked OK from the front, except for a couple of gaps. I neatened it up and proceeded to paint it with PAX paint.

Although I like my silicone piece, I feel the PAX painted gelatine is more accurate of a reptile-like skin. I guess because the paint is thicker, more opaque and can be blended easier with surrounding colours (rather then removing them, like skin ilustrator) it is more accurate for reptile skin.