Well it appears I have created another one of my crazy crazy live demonstration characters for Blackburn College's most recent Open Event showing off what the college has to offer.
I love doing these events because I see them more as a chance to prove to prospective students who want to study media makeup what we can do and offer them. And I like to wow the crowds, its a case of "go big or go home" ... I get a little worried sometimes that I may not be able to top the last character but hey life's no fun without a few challenges!
This open day event was no exception and I aimed to top the last one...(which I'll admit I have not blogged about but check out facebook for the photos!)
A while ago I was challenged to recreate "District 9" prawn Alien, as usual, I don't back down to challenges so off I went designing.
Unlike the other characters I've done I wanted to create more costume/limb parts as well as play with doing a large silicone piece which I've never done before. (I've created small ones but never as big as this)
My design for this character was a mixture of the character, Wikus transforming into the Alien from the film but I wanted to take it bit further and give it a bit of "The Fly" sort of transformation with a full head prosthetic plus bald cap.
So the first thing you think about when you think of District 9 transformation...the hand...
As you can see it took quiet a few steps to get it right, starting with a washing up glove!
Add plenty of tape to get the shape of the fingers...
Little bit of good old latex and cotton wool to mould the details in the fingers....
Colour with Mel Products USA in delightful swampy green brown colours and voilà you have a "prawn" hand.....
So the next stage is the arm pieces, which as I mentioned before this is first time I have ever done a large scale silicone piece which was epic for me because silicone is one of those materials which can work out...sometimes doesn't. I've done smaller pieces before which worked out well so I figured why not!
For the silicone I used EcoFlex from Smooth On which I got in a starter silicone kits at IMATS last year....it was a very good kit, taught me a lot!!
First port of call...the casting of the piece....
As you can see I did multiple pieces just in case something went wrong or pieces didn't come out clean. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times...always be prepared for little whoopy daisy moments!
As you can see above...lots of just incases....
Now my favourite part of any character make...the face, cause its allll about the face face face baby!
Theres just something about sitting down for hours sculpting weird and wonderful creations that really puts me in a good mood.
With this Alien piece, there were a lot of logistics that needed working out...such as the bug eyes, the nose breathing hole and antenna.
Trial and error my friends....as well as some creative imagination whilst designing is the key to over come any problem.
Isn't he a delightful fella...I named him Fred...
Now I originally opted for a full face when designing but then decided to stop at the bottom lip as I wanted to create weird tentacle things to dangle down and disguise the lip. (Which you'll see below)
The bug eyes are in fact....Easter Egg packaging...yes that good old chocolate treat, I did have to maniple the shape a little to try and get that almond eye shape going.
And here's the bad boy casted out in gelatine... works well...I did have to scoop out sections to relieve some of the weight as gelatine can be pretty heavy at times. But I was very pleased with how it came out.
Next step is colouring in!
Another one of those tasks that just chills me out, and I love using my IWATA airbrush to painting it all up. Again using Mel Products USA...I love the products they are amazing and come in a wide variety of colours. Easy to use, can be used neat or mixed with their mixing medium for use in an airbrush/thinning. Totally recommend them!
The eyes were painted using glass paints...as you can see the middle part is left as when I came to apply the piece I decided to paint the models eyes black so when you looked through the eye it looked like a pupil.
(Plus visibility was a little foggy with the paints all over and I really needed the model to be able to see!)
As you can see the dangly bits over the mouth work as a clear way to hide the "real" lips but still allow the model movement of the mouth/talk/eat...breath...
Plus they moved with the movements of the model which I thought looked really cool.
As you can see below I had to try it out! ....
So there you have the making of...
I will be uploading the application process in a later blog but I think I've held you attention for long enough. All the photo's from the event will be uploaded to my Facebook page, so feel free to have a little gander over there.
There is also an application video up on my YouTube, if your feeling intrigued as to how it all turned out.
Tomorrow am doing another event at Blackburn College with my wonderful media makeup students for Comic Relief which involves full body painting! This will be blogged at some point and if I can get a camera, I'll be filming parts again.
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xRx
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