Prosthetics Making Process

Fujin; Making Process

Face Piece

Hands

Nails

Head piece

As I knew my model couldn't shave, as he was in a play at the time, I wasn't sure how much of his face I was going to be able to cast. Luckily his beard was quite short, short enough to include his lower face in the face-casting process. This means I will be able to do my facial design in 2 parts; the nose and above area and then the chin area. This will give the performer more facial movement when acting.

We covered his faciial hairs thoroughly with nivea before applying platsil gel10, mixed in equal parts with a little pigment to make working easier. We applied one thin detail layer, and then mixed up another batch with some polyfibres to make the face cast thicker. We then went over this with bandages and when they were dry, removed the cast from the model.

The silicone picked up a lot of detail and the cast came out really well. All the indents caused by the beard will be removable with a dremmel after fibreglassing.

I fibreglassed straight into the silicone, using a little blue pigment so I could see my surface clearer. I then used a dremmel to remove the obvious protrusions caused by the beard when casting the model. I extended the mould out slightly, which I will need to go back into and do neater, otherwise it could interfear with the moulding process later on.

I then started sculpting the upper face appliance in chavant clay. As there is essential symmetry in this piece, I kept checking it from all angles to make sure the cheeks and brows were level and ensure there weren't any indents or raised areas.

Once i'd sculpted the primary forms, I begain to add texture. I added texture in several way with all my pieces.

1. I'd press sand and salt into the clayto give that rough, grainy, statue texture. I did this mainly on the cracked sections, as I wanted them to be rougher than the rest of the statue

2. I'd press sandpaper onto the clay to give quick rought texture. This is did all over on most of the pieces

3. On any flat enough areas of the sculpt, I would actually push the sandpaper into the clay with the textured side faceing outward, so that the mould would pic up on the texture. There weren't really any large enough sections on the face, but I used this on the head piece a lot.

4. I would also use a sculpting tool to dot in some rought textured areas

I also added extra sections of clay on top of the sculpt to act as the flaking off cracked sections. I tried to do these predominantly in monster clay, as I thought that would maintain the thin shape better when it came to moulding, whereas I felt chavant might just bend under the moulding material. I then added the grounding and was ready to mould.

I then fibreglassing the face, releasing it with 3 layers of polywax and a spray of Mac Wax. I did about 2 layers of fibreglass matting. After I vibrosawed the edges clean I then drilled 4 holes in the semi-circles in the grounding. At this point I did accidentally drill straight through the cheek and thought i'd totally ruined my mould, but then I learned that I could just fill the hole with car body filler and it was totally fine. I also drew circles around any bleeder holes as they could be difficult to see amoung the fibreglass.

The mould came apart really easily and looked really good. I drilled an injection site into the nose, as that was the thickest part of the sculpt.

This was the method I followed from a youtube video on how to make claw nails.

Slide 1: I started with the acrylic nails and rounded off both ends so it was more rounded and less of a square shape.

Slide 2: I then sculpted on them with fimo clay

Slide 3: Finished nail ready to put in the oven

Slide 4: Finished set of nails. I measured them on the plaster positive of my models hand to check that they fit properly. I then put them in the oven for 20 minutes on 100 degrees. Despite testing one previously, when I took these nails out, a lot had cracked down the clay and started peeling away from the nail and others were still soft, completely unusable. I will have to use another method to make the nails.

I decided instead to make the nails from long fake nails the I would file down and texture.

Slides 1&2: Nails that I ordered

Slide 3: I cut down the nails to the rough shape I wanted and then used sandpaper to make them smoother. As there was the pointy end left from cutting them, I made another set of nails from the cut off ends, meaning I had 2 sets so that there would be lots of options so that they would definately fit my model.

Slide 4: I then covered the nails in superglue and dipped them in salt to add a rough, stoney texture which worked really well, as I didn't want them to look smooth like fake nails. I thought about building up the thickness of by maybe painting on some resin, but I think they'll be fine.

Slide 5&6: Finished nails ready for painting. I am going to paint them exactly the same as the rest of his body; green with some cracked areas.

I will attatch the nails with nail glue and blend them into the paint scheme of the hand pieces.

Running the Headpiece

Running the Face Piece

Painting the pieces:

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the finished painted pieces, But the all had approximately the same paint scheme. They were all painted with PAX paint, an off-white in the cracked open sections with grey and beige discoloured spots. I also added slightly different green tones to some areas on the hands and faces, to make the statue look worn and old.

I was slightly worried after reading in my research that PAX paint doesn't work on silicone, but it seemed to work fine on gelatine and silicone. The green definately dried a different shade to the colour it is when mixed.

I also added more texture while I was painted, by adding some sand and salt to the paint to make it look less smooth and more gritty. It stuck on because of the pros-aide in the paint.

I pre-mixed lots of the green and white PAX, putting them in airtight bottles so that I could use them on the day of the assesement. This way I didn't have to waste time mixing it on the day and I would have the same colour prepared.

I decided to paint the bald cap on the day.

Bald Cap

I also sculpted, moulded and ran a flatpiece along with the hand that was about the size of half a page of A4. This was going to be put on my models chest but once I realised he didn't want to be topless, I planned to put it on his neck area.

I also added slight discolouration to some sections to the paint, as I didn't want it to look too monotonous. I also wanted the statue to look quite old, so I added this discolouration to show natural weathering of the paint.

I decided to also experiment with silicone paint just in case it gave a better effect than PAX. I mixed up lighter fluid and unibond sealant.

I first tried mixing it with acrylic paint which didn't work at all, the paint just went really dotty and didnt mix at all.

I made a new batch and added in greasepaint makeup which seemed to mix in really well. I knew my silicone pigments would work and I wanted to experiment and the greasepaint seemed to work effectively.

I painted on the first layer, and it was very translucent - far to translucent for the affect I wanted to achieve.

After about 5 layers, the colour was building up, but nowhere near the opaqua look that I needed.

I can see how effective this painting style would be for other makeups, but it doesn't suit my design at all.

I think something that could have really helped me when sculpting the hands as flat pieces would have been to draw around my model's hands in sharpie on the board I floated the pieced onto. This way I would have had more of an indication where to stop the edges of the piece.

The edges on all my flatpieces came out really well.