Halloween Prosthetic Maddenss Prt 1 ZOMBIES!!!

Heyo my lovelies,

Its been a while since I've written out a blog for you guys but like always I have been a busy bee. For the first time this Halloween little moi designed all the characters and created all the prosthetics for a zombie run event held at Blackburn Youth Zone. I will admit this was a dream come true for me, its something I always wanted to do and its a new challenge for me.

Am going to do a series of blogs to cover this event as it was so massive and I want you lovely people to not be overloaded with words! So its split up into 3 different blogs...Zombies, Creatures and Creeps and the live event with final results.

The event which was held at Blackburn Youth Zone was a zombie run, in which groups of 12-18 year old started at the top of the building on the roof top and had to escape by completing various challenges to get out at the bottom and into a Halloween disco.

Promo video

 So my brief was to create 5 different zombies, 2 chasers (with the aim to be absolutely terrifying!), 2 grave diggers (which changed to mad scientists), a morgue victim with ribcage, clown, exorcist girl, 2 "butcher smilers" aaaaaaaaaand back up pieces for extra characters and staff members.

Designing has always been a lot of fun for me, I just zone out the rest of the world and design my characters looking at multiple ways of creating them. Its important to do this so you have your back up plan, just in case!
My zombies needed to be completely different from each other but look like they belong in the same environment.

Sculpting the pieces, as everyone knows is another of my favourite things to do, and I feel like my skills are progressing well, which is always a bonus! I've been trying to push myself with the textures of the pieces more which is what helps the piece come alive.

As usual am using wet clay as well as plastiline modelling clay, I would like to just use the plastiline for all projects but I don't have enough. Its one of those things that makes sculpting a whooole lot easier! Am also using Ken Banks tools for sculpting, these tools are amazing to use. Very easy to create smooth areas as well as textures quickly.

 

I decided to totally challenging myself with some of these characters being multiple prosthetics applications on one face. Which in the back of my head I worried whether it would work or not but what's life without a few challenges.

 

This prosthetic was my favourite to make!

I really wanted to try and create those muscle textures in the clay as well as bone. Took a lot of references pieces to get it to a point that I loved.

 

Jaw breaker, this one took ages to get right in my head. I wanted to make the zombie look like their jaw was unhinged and dislocated.

 

What's a zombie horde without a zombie whose all infected and lumpy. Lots of popped blisters and boils...yummy!

 

Of course we need to zombie brow...or two

 

My big daddy zombie, no face all rotten with bones and muscles on show and a funky boney nose!!

 

 I will admit, whilst sculpting and designing these zombies many many maaaaaany B horror movies were playing, Walking Dead and a lot of things with dead in the title. Its good reference...and makes for a fun day...night....week for all!

Sculpting took foooooorever with these zombies but once they were done, moulding began....

 

I decided for this prosthetic to use my fake dentist teeth to give the effect a realist look, they also clicked together when the mouth moved...added creepy element!

 

My beautiful infected, yucky zombie looking all green and full of oozy infection.

So happy with how this prosthetic turned out, really wanted to give that transition from bone to muscle as smoothly and realistically as possible and I think I achieved it. The false eye really set the piece off.

 

The trickiest prosthetic piece I did in this project, it was really difficult to sort the positioning out to make it look like a dislocated jaw with the torn skin around.

I was worried with this one, up until the actually application.

 

My absolute favourite zombie design, I really enjoyed painting this one up and the use of Bdellium SFX brushes really helped me add texture and blend the colours well. Unlike the other prosthetics I decided to sculpt the teeth rather then add the fake one's because I was worried about the movement of the actor being effected.

 

All the prosthetics were casted in gelatine that was purchased from PS Composites Ltd, this company are fantastic, they go above and beyond to make sure you get what you need. I find their products extremely good quality as well as great for the price.

 

Painted using Mel Products USA PAX paints and skin illustrator palettes predominately the FX palette. Love using these products as they work so well on the prosthetics, blend beautifully and cleanly with a natural look. Again its another product that is priced right for the job and well worth buying a kit or two from them.

 

Each piece was definitely made with love ... blood, sweat and tears but I think I have got better then my last work which is all I aim to do...get better and better and better.

 

Next weeks blog will focus on the other characters...the "Creeps and Creatures" and how they were sculpted and casted, followed by a blog focusing on the event and my Halloween creations that I did on myself!

 

I am planning to get more regular with my blogging, once a week...maybe more if your good!

 

 This weeks teaching is the introduction of Airbrushing techniques with my lovely level 3 and continuing Body Art assessments with my Level 2.

 

Get a sneak peak of the photos head over to my Instagram or Facebook page...like me, follow me, stalk me what ever to stay up to date and current with my work.

 

xRx

Pirates of the Caribbean makeup tutorial

Ok so here it is finally, the blog to go with the video!

My apologies for taking sooooo long to do this blog, its been a hectic couple of weeks due to the start of the new term, my new gang of creative makeup artist as well as my previous gang of new makeup artists becoming my official "crew". I've been uber busy working on a kick ass series of workshops for my makeup artists in training to get their creative teeth into.

I have been meaning to do a lot of product reviews in Inglot cosmetics as I seem to have a small collection of their eyeliner gels but its just been so busy and you know me I'll fit it in some where, keep checking in and subscribe, like, follow my other social sites for up to date posts on what's going on.

Ok so on with the Pirates of The Caribbean goodness, this character was originally inspired by coral, I wanted to create a coral monster ... which I am still going to do at some point but whilst I was sketching some ideas out Bootstrap Bill popped into my head so I decided to do a character inspired by him.

First port of call was the sculpting, now I am trying to challenge myself further with the details within the sculpts and I think that am slowly getting there.

 

As you can see from the above image, I wanted a focal point on the character with a lot of detail going on and then less detail on the other side of the face.

 

Casted the sculpt in the normal way, with my plaster and created my gelatine prosthetic piece. For once it came out clean with little tidying up required for the piece to fit, I was slightly concerned with the fit around the eye but figured I would patch it up on application creating another "fold" to the coral.

 

 

The other pieces which were attached to the opposite side to the coral consisted of limpets, starfish and those ickle sea anemone which I thought would fit nicely around the coral piece just to give some more texture. Plus I thought they were cute, fiddly to make because the tentacle bits had to be made and place separate to the body.

I created all these piece in the same way I created the main piece, sculpted them, casted them then ran them in gelatine.

 

The above was the tester piece I did for the limpets. With this character I was using a mixture of skin illustrator palettes and @MelProductsUSA to colour the pieces as well as building up the edges with silicone gel.

It seems to have worked well, my intention was to create the illusion that the limpets were poking though the skin, growing up out of the skin. I think it worked, what do you guys think?

Unlike my previous characters, this one was handed painted. I didn't use my airbrush machine for this one and I think it looks just as good.
The textures was perfect for the character as well as the colours that I used (Brilliant, #MelproductsUSA monster kit!)

 

My favourite part of the makeup was the veins on the neck, I used #Bdellium tools SFX brush set for the application and their thin brush teamed with Skin Illustrator FX palette worked a treat for making these veins.

 

I would definitely recommend investing in a set of the SFX brushes from Bdellium because they make it so easy to get the detail in and colour on in a realistic way.

 

I am contemplating doing this character as a short course to teach at Blackburn College but am unsure. Would like to learn the skills to create a character like this? Is it something your interested in? Let me know!

 

So there you have it, my Pirates of The Caribbean Inspired makeup, its a short blog but if you look below this one to the previous blog their is a link to the tutorial video up on my YouTube Channel now. Check it out.

 

More images of the prosthetic character can be seen on my Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

Up to date images of my current projects can be found on my Instagram @ ruthemouldenmua

 

xRx

Pirates of the Caribbean Bootstrap Bill Inspired Makeup Application

Here it is my application video for my latest character creation, check it out. There will be a blog about the making of this very soon so stay tuned.



Don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you like what you see and check out my other social sites for up to date information on my latest work.



xRx

Dragon Lady Character - prosthetic sfx work ala Game of Thrones!

Here is it my Dragon Lady character which did take me quite a while to make as well as find the time to apply it!

I've been wanting to do a dragon character for a long time, its a way of challenging my sculpting skills with all the smaller scale details but also I love Game of Thrones so dragon lady seemed to be the best way to go. This character is half human/half dragon, the Queen of Dragons. The design I had in mind was slight more futuristic in style using the spiral dreadlocks to create a kind of dinosaurs bump down the centre.

So the first step is the sculpting, I'll admit this one did take longer then my previous ones due to the smaller scales and layering of the centre pieces. As you can see I kept the sculpt to the centre of the face with the idea to use my airbrushing skills to give the illusion of scales on the cheeks.
Like my other sculptures, the video of the making can be viewed on YouTube---> Dragon Lady Sculpture

I was worried about the casting of this sculpture just because of the layered scales, there was a major risk that the cast would break in these areas or not fully casted the areas. This is when using a silicone mould material would work best and then adding the layer of plaster. But with a lot of care I managed to get the cast pretty clean with only a few areas that required patching up.

Below you can see that moulding process as well as the finished prosthetic piece in gelatine, which was purchased from PS Composites. Again I would of like this character to be in silicone but I don't have enough to do this size piece and I don't think I have enough skills in silicone to do a big piece like this.

Some cleaning out was required with the final gelatine piece, with some scales needing to be remoulding manual on to the piece but everything worked out well.

 

Once the prosthetic is done and cleaned its time for my favourite stage...painting.

Below is my general setup for colouring my prosthetic pieces, I like to sit at the table to do this stage as well as mix manual application with airbrushing.

As you can see I used my Iwata airbrushing system with mel products, my brand new PAX paint products that I bought from IMATS.

 

I was very happy with Mel products PAX paints, thinning the paint out and using the airbrush to paint was very easy and enable me to build up the colours as well as cleanly mix them. The other good thing about them was that I would paint manually to add the finer details to the piece. I was very pleased with the selection of colours in the packs that I got.

 

The colour scheme was something that took me forever to decided upon, first I thought of going darker, with gold tones...then I thought about a blue toned dragon with green features. Finally I decided the red tones with gold and yellow highlights. I think that the colour scheme works really well as well as enabling me to create those darker tones of red to contouring and give the illusion that the scales are deeper then they actually are.

Another new toy that I bought from IMATS and used for this application were my new bdellium tools, sfx set, which consist of 12 fantastic brushes, each with specific uses for texturing and detailing you work. Love them! I don't know what I did without them!

The hair styling was a simple faux hawk using red and black dreadlocks, which you can view the how to here ------> Faux Hawk Hair tutorial
I tried to create those bumps that you get down the back of dragon's back, because of how big the front of the prosthetic was I had to push the hair back quiet a bit hence why the hair is a little more lose.
The dreadlocks were given to me by a good friend and I promised her that I would make good use of them, because they are so fantastic am sure I will be creating further characters using these extensions.

 

The final look...I am pretty pleased with how all the elements of this character have come together. I think it worked and I have further challenged my skills since my last character create which as I mention in alot of my blogs this is my main aim. Because I can't afford the SFX school just yet, I want to make sure that my skills are challenged and developed with every character creation.

I wish I could do something further with the ears but unfortunately I didn't have any ears to attach. Contact lenses in yellow would of also rocked this look further but work with what we have and I think it had worked well.

 

I am very happy, my new products have worked fabulously and I've learnt some good skills as well as some lessons through my mistakes!
Here is the Application YouTube link this shows all the steps for the application.

Hope you guys like the videos and blog!
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Check them out for more up to date uploads of my work!

xRx

My first Silicone prosthetics and silicone mould making!! Yay!

Silicone has been one of those prosthetics materials that I have been dying to try out, as you all know from previous posts I am saving up for a sfx prosthetics course but I'm determined to continue to experiment and challenge myself further in preparation.

The reason why am so interested in silicon is because its a material which closely mimics skin, if the prosthetic is created properly. Out of all the prosthetic materials (that I know of) its is the most realistic for skin's translucency and therefore is used often to create skin effects, casualty effects, ageing etc.


When I went to IMATS this year I was focused on purchasing the products, equipment for creating silicone prosthetic pieces; not massive full face piece just small casualty style pieces, start small and work up. I was delighted when I found Form X's booth, they had put together a kit for creating silicone pieces which contained everything for sculpting (minus the tools), creating the moulds and creating the pieces.


The kit contained; Mould Star parts A and B for creating the mould, Ecoflex parts A and B for creating the silicone, clay, form cap, silicone pigment tint, red flock and a ickle tub of vaseline. Everything needed  for creating a silicone prosthetic.
 

 

The first step in this endeavour is to create what ever it is you want to turn in to a prosthetic. As usual I came up with a million and one different ideas...just to test it out!

I though casualty effects would be the best effect to create to test out the realism of the product as well as help me improve my realism with these sort of effects, it also allows me to play with my Skin Illustrator palettes.

 

So here are the two sculpts for the moulds, I made a cut (above) and torn skin (below) effect. Pretty basic but remember this is the first time I've ever done this so I wanted to build up my skills first.

 

The next step is to prepare the Mould Star which will be used to create the moulds. Its important to measure equal parts of A and B in order to ensure that the moulds set properly. This can be done on weighing scales (make sure you reset the weight when you put your container on the scales) or use measuring cups, which is what I did.

 

 

Make sure that you create a barrier around your sculptures, this needs to be pretty secure to make sure the Mould Star doesn't run out. I used card board and strong tape which I attached to my tile board.

What you need to remember at this stage is that to avoid air bubbles you need to pour the mixture from a height, obviously take care not to pour it all over the place!!

 

I'd say it took about 45 minutes for the mould to harden fully and was pretty easy to release from the sculpture without any problems.

 

The mould is very sturdy and flexible, it also appears to have done a good job capturing the detailing in the sculptures without any problems. Even the tiny areas are detailed.

These next few steps were pretty tricky to get right, and it took a few go's to find the right methods and measurements.

 

The products need to again be measured in equal parts using the same methods as outlined above. More Ecoflex can be purchased from Smooth On or Bentley Advance Materials however other prosthetic suppliers do have their own similar branded products e.g. PS Composite Ltd. If your experimenting for the first time you will definitely need to top up on products, the brands mentions are ace plus they don't mind you asking questions if your unsure!
 

Once you've got the 2 parts equally mixed added a little red flocking and skin tone pigment. These two components create the translucent skin tones, the multi tonal effects. The problem with this step is its all trial and error, there is not an exact measurement to follow. I took a few tries to get this right and it changes with each batch you make. So my advice is ... don't get frustrated if you don't add the right amount and it comes out too dark or too light!! Start small until your used to the measurements and mixtures.

 

 
To prepare the moulds you need to make sure you have properly ensured that the prosthetic piece can be easily released from the mould. Add Vaseline to the mould followed by spraying several layers of "FormCap" plastic (used to create bald caps) mixed with acetone to thin the mixture using an airbrush gun or paint the layers manually. This step is very very important to do right, if you don't you will never be able to release piece from the mould ending up with rips all over the shop!

 

To make it easy for yourself in both application and releasing attach a thin card board frame around the prosthetic, this will give the piece a little structure and help you when it comes to applying/blending the thin edges.

 

 

As you can see, I made quiet a few attempts at getting the silicone piece just right!

I either made the piece too thick or didn't put enough product for releasing or the pigment was all wrong!! Eventually I did it though, I finally got a batch right!

 

The application process is quiet simple, you just need to take your time and be care with the blending process. In this application I used a piece that was slightly too thick in areas around the edge, the thinner the edge the easy the blending is.

I used Pros-Aide as my adhesive just cause its my go to in most instances, once you have positioned and glued the piece (frame and all) in place you can begin to blend the edge. Use some isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud to melt the edges away, in the process melt the frame off the piece as well. Once you've done this you can seal the edges with Pros Aide, dry and powder with translucent powder.

Now, ready for painting, I used my fabulous Skin Illustrator palette from PS Composites. The FX palette has some good colours but the basic one will also do.

 

 

You first aim when painting the piece is to get the skin layers just right, especially the colours of the fat and tissue layers of the dermis. Its important to make sure you understand the real colours, which means a bit of medical research is necessary when doing SFX, if your squeamish its not a good area go into!

 

Once the colours are just right, you can continue with the blood. I got some bloods and wound fillers from Bloody Marvellous who were at IMATS this year. 

 

 

As you can see the bloods are very realistic with good texture. I love those product and I can't wait to use the other bloods in future projects!

 

I even had a bit of fun after with stiches just to test out just how realistic silicone is to skin. The stiches went through so easily and the movement that was created was very close how skin would react. There is a video clip up on my instragram, if you want to have a look and am sure at some point I will be putting up the full video on youtube.

 

I have to say silicone is an incredible material to use, the way it feels and moves works very well for recreating sfx. Although it is difficult to use at first, practice defiantly makes perfect. I would like to continue practicing with these products and perhaps make a larger piece for the face.

 

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out my other social sites;

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RuthMouldenMUA

 

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/RM_Makeup

 

Instagram: http://instagram.com/ruthemouldenmua

 

Bye for now,

 

Ruth x

IMATs London 2014

It was that time of year again, the 3 day weekend that every makeup artist makes in the uk…IMATS London, the conventions for makeup artists held not only in London but also in LA, Sydney, New York, Toronto …  all over the place.

A few weeks ago (I have been really busy hence the delay of this blog!) I attended IMATs London, armed with savings and a "loose" plan of action! This is an event that I have been going to year after year and it always surprises me how they managed to shake up the format and add new stalls and suppliers that I have never heard of or was only able to look at their websites and drool at all the fabulous products I could not receive due to airmail restrictions.

 This year I was incredibly excited to see that some of my idols in the industry such as SFX artist like Thomas E Surprenant, Chloe Sens, Tate Steinsiek and others where attending. In makeup there was Shrinkle a.k.a. Amy Doan, Amelia Arsenic (who are my brightly coloured makeup gurus!) of Sugar Pill Cosmetics as well as David Horne and Spob O'Brien from Illamasqua. It was a fantastic few days full of new information and shiny new things to play with! The only problem is the days seem to go too quick and at the end of the weekend you feel like that there are areas that you missed and stuff that you should of bought but didn't!

So here is are a few photo's from the fabulous time I had at London IMATs! I wish I took more but I was too busy chatting to people and generally shopping for pretty and gory stuff (which you'll see at the end of this…)

 

How cool is the top piece, I might challenge myself and try to recreate this one. This stand was from FormX which I bought my big spend item from...

 

Absolutely amazing character creation which one day, I hope to be able to do, a full complete prosthetic  character is one for when I get on to the sfx course!

 

 

Fantastic colour and seamless application! Loved it!!

 

 

Zombie piece from Nimba Production. Thought it was pretty damn cool!

 

 

 

 

Look familiar?

 

 

 
The above piece is from Thomas E Surprenant talk on applying multiple prosthetics, it was a very interesting and insightful demonstration where he recreated the Terminator character using a cool prosthetic piece (see above), the eye lit up red! Below is the finished piece, he even showed us how to apply the lace wig.
Awesome guy!

  
 

 

And finally my haul!

Below are the images of the products and goodies that I bought, I love going to IMATS but I always feel like I should bought more....shame my budget doesn't cover for it!!

Ah well! I will be doing product reviews for each item in the future so stay tuned for those.

 

 

 

I recommend that if you have never been to IMATs get yourself down there next year!, start saving now though cause I guaranty that you will be overwhelmed with all the pretty things that you want to buy!

 

Don't forget to check out my  other social network sites, at the moment am working on my "dragon" lady which I'm pretty damn pleased with how its turning out so keep checking in for more updates on this piece.

 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RuthMouldenMUA

 

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/RM_Makeup

Instagram: http://instagram.com/ruthemouldenmua

 

Bye for now,

 

Ruth x