District 9 "Prawn" Alien ... the application

In this blog am going to focus on the application process of my District 9 character that was created for a live demonstrate at +Blackburn College  's live open day event. Check out the previous blog for how I create the pieces!

I'll admit there was a little issues at the time of applying this character mainly due to the fact at the same time I was filming the application... bring on forgetting to press record as well as filming unnecessary parts of our break time! But it was done, we managed it!! On my team for this event was the fabulous Elly Booth modelling as well as Liv Makinson, Ben Slack and Chelsea Fox assisting with a little bit of Mel Nelson helping out.

Ok so here's what I had in front of me... transforming this beauty into this Alien!

 
Using these prosthetics and pieces....see the previous blog for more about how I made all of this...

 

So here are my crazy team of assistant makeup artist, Mel Nelson, Liv Makinson and Ben Slack. First step in this transformation was the application of the bald cap. Now my favourite cap to use is +Kryolan Professional Make-up  's vinyl cap...easy to blend the edges, easy to work with.

 

For this application the aim was to achieve the look of Elly in mid-transformation which meant that the head needed to look Alien but still have bits of hair poking through.

 

We coloured the cap using Mel Products USA , as you all know by now its my favourite way of colouring any prosthetics as it covers the piece 100% with excellent blending abilities. A must for any SFX artist.

 

 

The next stage is to apply the silicone prosthetic pieces, I used ProsAide to apply them but am looking at acquiring some Telesis 7 +United Makeup Artist Expo  which am going to this April as it is one of the best adhesives on market (or so I  have been told) But I'll use what I have for now which is my good old trusty ProsAide. 

 

 
The silicone pieces had to be patch worked together to give that impression that the skin was tearing apart and the alien skin pushing through...sounds disguising but that was my vision as it fitted with the +Weta Workshop 's aliens from the District 9 movie.
 

 

I'll admit I was so happy with how this turned out as this was the first time I have ever made a silicone piece this big! (Again check out previous blog for information on the products used to create this.)

Above is the final arm pieces all together with the hand piece attached...kinda looks like pounded meat...niiiice!

 

 

Next step is painting...

I did it all by hand with my assistants being wicked as always, I could of applied this via the airbrush but I had a mixture of level 2 and 3 media makeup students assisting me and the level 2 haven't covered airbrushing application yet so to make it fair, I kept it all manual.

 

 

Using Skin Illustrate from +PPI Premiere Products  , FX palette. This palette is the best SFX palette ever! I love it for creating gory, injuries because its so realistic!

 

 

Once the base colour is covered its starting to all come together!

 

 

Next coat, again using Skin Illustrator to add further depth, always remember that like a painting, SFX makeup takes several steps in building depth and colour for the effect to look realistic.

 

 

Tools used to paint the piece were from +Bdellium Tools  's SFX range; design by the amazingly talented SFX artist Thomas Surprenant. As stated in previous blogs this is must for any SFX artist out there, they really managed to create a brush for all jobs!

 

 

Add the blood; for this piece I used +bloodymarvellous scab blood as well as their thick dark blood which really pulled the gory together. If anybody is looking for a good blood check out this brand, they have a vast array of realistic blood, pus and blister products!

 

One of the lessons I always like to teach my students when doing gory injuries or wounds is don't go crazy on the blood application. If you splatter blood all over the shop, it will look like your hiding something. Its always better to 'position' the blood realistically to enhance the effect.

 

 

The join on the bald cap to the face prosthetic piece was achieved using silicone gel, moulded around the edges to give the illusion of the skin splitting. This design chose was specifically made to pay a little homage to the film "The Fly" which is one of those ultimate monster movies, as a SFX artist I love!!

 

So the finally...the finished character...

 

I would have to say that the final look is pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Obviously there are areas that I would do differently if I redid the look but am happy! 

 

Am loving how the arm turned out, I think it probably would of turned outa little better if I wrapped the bandages around the hand further up as well as round the arm but live and learn!

 

 

The head turned out better then I thought it would, the join worked out ok but am sure I would be able to figure out an even better way of blending. Its times like these that I wish I was able to use foam latex....still saving up....

 

 

The arm pieces came out wicked though, so happy with how my skills have improved in this area.

 

 

And here is a crazy picture of me and my team...trust me, thanks to Ben there was a million photo's taken that day...many many baaaaad photo's of dodgy angles buuuut check out more via my facebook page @ Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

You can also check out the application video on my YouTube channel @Ruth E Moulden MUA

(http://goo.gl/xTVLHq)

 

That's all for now, don't forget that +United Makeup Artist Expo is happening very soon...April 11-12th to be exact! ... Can't wait!! My next blog will probably be covering that event...so stay tuned people!

 

xRx

 

Halloween "Creeps and Creatures" designing and creating the prosthetics.

Am alive!!

I have to apologise for my absent with this blog, there has been a ridiculous amount of work going on which caused me to stop updating this blog BUT fear not I have returned with many creations and application that I want to share with the world!

So in this blog I will be detailing my Creeps and Creatures creation that were sculpted, casted and creating for the purposes of Blackburn Youth Zone's Halloween event. This has been the best job to date, I absolutely loved creating all these fantastic characters and I would not complain if this was my full time job; just creating monsters and creatures! Dream job.

Like with any creation, it all begins with a brief and whole load of doodles and design plans. The characters that I was given to create for where these rather marvellous nightmare delights....

We have "Exorcise character", Morgue victim, Grave Yard/Guide, Clown and "Chaser." Now there was a few changes on the day to these characters and a few adaptions needed due to the models changing which is a valuable lesson to anyone thinking of becoming a makeup artist or tackling this sort of project. ALWAYS HAVE BACK UPS!

Now my "Exorcise" characters was designed with the intent to use all manual effects to create the character. Ridge Collodion was my go to, this is an amazing product for creating fantastic realistic scars and indentations in the skin. I also aimed to use contouring and highlighting to give the illusion of sunken in features and an overall haggard look to the model.

The "Graveyard digger/Guide" was the character that was intended to guide the public around the areas of the "Haunted House", showing them the puzzles and making sure they took the right turn. This was one of the characters that changed on the day to "Mad Scientists", which was easy to adapt. I did create prosthetics pieces to change the features of the model.

 

What creepy demonic character isn't complete without a demonic brow ala Buffy The Vampire Slayer, this was part of my extra's kit for just incase I have an extra characters or the existing prosthetics don't fit the model. Everyone loves a demonic brow!

 

 

Quickest easiest way to change someone's face is to alter the shape/size of their nose and chin, which is the design plan I came up with for the Grave Diggers. I had the idea of character with sharp features (and teeth) similar to that of the Penguin from Batman. That creepy look with extra cuts/scars all over the face and again using highlighting and shading to contour the features to more sunken effect.

 

The next character I was brief on was for a character that chased the people around the event. I was told to do whatever I wanted but it has to be scary. So I came up with the cage face, as in the design plan behind the cage needs to appear black and the eyes need to be very dark.

As you will see soon this character once applied and the actors were in their costumes, scared the crap out of me!

 

 

Morgue Character was a cool one to create, they wanted my rib cast that I created for a different character. They wanted the model/actor to be led down on a morgue table with a cloth over them and to jump up when ever anyone was in the room. So they wanted a gruesome looking person rather then a monster. 

 

 

 The ribs took a while to create, as they made from latex rather then casted in gelatine like the other pieces. I needed the piece to be lighter then gelatine which meant using cotton and latex to build up in the mould rather then filling up the mould with latex.

This took about 3-4 days to fully complete and drying fully.

 

 

Love sculpting skulls, so I just had to have a clean half skull face for this morgue character. Teeth are enamel. 

The next characters was a bit of a homage to American Horror Story: Freak show, Twisty the clown. Love that character and it always instils fear into most people. So the mouth was inspired by that character with a few changes to the shapes.
The reason of the features are all manual applications with thick blood and manual cuts.

 

This character was my mad scientist one, well one the mad scientists. I had several actors who needs to talk so the makeup was kept manual on these characters and the big mouths were used on the ones that chased.

 

Here it is all painted up.

 

I had an absolute blast designing and sculpting these characters, in the next blog I will show you the end result and what happen on the night.

 

Don't forget to check out my Facebook, Instagram for up to date information on what's going on in my crazy crazy world.

 

I'll be trying super hard to keep up to date with this blog.

 

Any suggestions or requests just contact me in the contacts form.

 

 

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

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!
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter --->https://twitter.com/RM_Makeup
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Check them out for more up to date uploads of my work!

xRx

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

 

Tumblr: http://ruthmua.tumblr.com/
 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RM_Makeup

Instagram: http://instagram.com/ruthemouldenmua

 

Bye for now,

 

Ruth x