The Last Of Us - Clicker Prosthetic

This is a old post that should of been done a while ago but because of my health issues it sort of got put on the back burner. Better late then never!

So last Halloween I was hired to create the characters/monsters for a zombie run at a local Youth Group. This event was your typical zombie run, where groups solve puzzles to move on to the next area where they will be challenged again, the cool thing was the Youth Centre is massive...I mean multiple floors with indoor and roof top football pitches so the amount of characters needed was a lot.
One of the areas in the run was a maze, which the groups had to navigate through in the dark...it was one of my favourite rooms. I thought the best thing to have in a maze in the pitch dark, a Clicker. Those of you who play The Last Of Us will know exactly what a Clicker is. Those who are not familiar, its a zombie like person who has basically been taken over by a fungus (think that picture of an ant with a fungus bit growing out of it!) and it makes clicking noises, really creepy croaky clicking noises that tells you one is near. Having this in a maze in the dark was amazing!! It freaked everybody out, including me and I created it!

Here's the sculpt that I created, there will be a fast sculpting video of me creating this on my YouTube Channel on Thursday so make sure that you are subscribed to me on there.

 {{{ https://www.youtube.com/user/RuthMouldenMUA }}} 

And here is the fabulous Katie modelling the prosthetic piece applied on the night, thanks to my assistant Lisa as well!

Honestly, I love how it came out. I think she looks creepy and Katie did the clicking noises perfectly!

I love this image, I think it totally fits with the whole The Last Of Us style and Katie definitely made it even better in the maze!

Most of the prosthetic products used were purchased from PS Composites Ltd which included the Monster Clay used to sculpt the piece. I also used tools from Ken Banks and some cheap clay tools from Amazon.

It was coloured using all Skin Illustrator palettes and splattered with blood from Ben Nye (dark blood)

I will be trying to post a blog and video more regularly now, so am thinking Monday's are blog uploads and Thursdays are YouTube uploads, so make sure your following me on both as well as checking out my Facebook and Instagram @Ruth E Moulden MUA

See you next time,

xRx

Walking Dead Style Zombie Prosthetic

Hi Guys,

Its been a while hasn't it...lately I just seem to be all over the place and I will admit, I have been neglecting my blogs and YouTube and all of that lovely social goodness that keeps me connected to you guys.
Today's blog is all about a new prosthetic piece that I've created, using some of my new toys which I will be writing a review on all of them individually in more detail.
I've also been toying with the idea of doing some hair blogs/videos as I have had a few people comment about wanting to learn how I do my hair so that's something to look forward to!

So on with the zombie goodness!

As usually I start off with my clay and my Ken Banks tools. For this sculpt I used my new Monster Clay which I got from +PS Composites Ltd when I went to +United Makeup Artist Expo this year.

The clay has consistency similar to that of hard plasticine but was easier to sculpt then my other clays and I found myself able to add a lot more detail into this sculpt then any other prosthetic piece I have done before. Definite thumbs up for this clay!

With this Zombie, I was looking at working on my skills in adding texture to the skin as well as taking a more walking dead style vibe. As you can see I was testing out moulding the teeth rather then putting in my resin teeth. I didn't like it. I think it was the shape of the mouth that just didn't sit well anatomically...felt a bit cheesy B Movie zombie rather then Walking Dead Zombie.

The first initial sculpt went well but when I sat back and took another look the next day, I decide that there were certain aspect that didn't work (such as the mouth as mentioned before.)

So keeping with the first sculpt as the "base" I built up. Am always telling my students that test runs and taking time to perfect a character is a must; that time you take to really sit back and study what you just create will enable to you self assess. Self assessing is always good because it means your taking ownership of your work and building your skills based on you instinct of what works and work you see as needing practice or reshaping or whatever.

 

This is the "rebuild" sculpt. As you can see there are plenty of changes from the original.

The mouth is a little more atomically correct with a better shape for the face, I feel anyways. I had to keep referring back to medical books for the shape and placement of the teeth.

 

More texture was added to the skin with deeper wrinkles and lines to add a bit more of a rotted, aged zombie look. This zombie was not fresh!!

I really went deep with some of those lines as I wanted to make sure there was enough detail to work with on the final piece.
The eye bags were a little difficult for me as I tried to sculpt them stronger and then they went too strong and then they disappeared sooooo this is what I finally ended up with.

In the next blog I will be focusing on the colouring of the piece, for some weird reason I forgot to take a photo of the piece after I casted but as you can see from the below setup...it came out pretty well. The plaster am using at the moment is a bit rubbish but it still didn't ruin any of the detail work I laid down.

Please stay tuned for the next blog, as you can see I will also be reviewing the Sigma FX brush set and Skin Illustrator palettes, pictured above with my prosthetic.

Bye for now Lovelies!

xRx

Halloween Nightmares at Blackburn Youth Zone...SFX, gore and monsters oh my!

Hello all,

Its been another busy week of prosthetics and SFX gore gore fun! Which I will be creating posts for very very soon. This week has literally been a router of teaching, reading, practicing, creating...which is my sort of work week! As a makeup artist it can be hard balancing all the work that needs to be completed as well as all the practising/trial runs but if the passion for the artistry is there then it makes it all worth while.

Last blog I talked about the casting and creating of the creeps, monsters and zombies used in the big Halloween project at Blackburn Youth Zone's live haunted house/ scare run event; now am going to share the application as well as the end result. I loved doing this project and hope to do many many more in future; seeing my designs come to life and run around scaring the crap out everyone...including me!...was amazing.
For the event I brought backup in the form of my fabulous media makeup students from Blackburn College (VRQ Media Makeup) This event was a chance for the students to experience working in the industry, my aim was to treat them as assisting makeup artists rather then as my students. All of them rose to the challenge, threw themselves into it and come out with big smiles on their faces from seeing what they helped achieve.

The first characters that we began applying makeup to were those playing the Scientists. The whole idea with the Haunted House/Scare Run turned into a storyline about Mad Scientists creating monsters and zombies so the "Grave Digger" characters turned into the Scientists.

The fabulous Katie and Lydia completed this makeup on one of the scientist characters, the design brief was to create a crazy mad person whose been up for days working on experiments.

 

I think you would agree the brief was met!

We created this look by using cream based foundations to create the illusion of ageing around the mouth, forehead, brows as well as contour her face shape to look a little more gaunt. Around the eyes we wanted to over exaggerate the redness and veins as these characters were performing under bright flashing lights as well as coloured spots. The eyes were the focus so they needed to be brought out.

Products used for this was Ben Nye's Master Bruise wheel and Master Death Wheel.

 

One of my favourite and biggest prosthetics of the night was the full face zombie. This prosthetics took ages to create and I had a specific look in mind for it. I wanted the character to look like he had torn his face off and all that was left was rotting muscle, bones and tissue.

Here Kate is working on apply the blood around the sides of the piece and applying around the eyes after it had been blended out using the silicone based product, Sculpt Gel.

 

Another one of my favourite prosthetics, well two, the torn mouth piece and the zombie brow. This did have to be tailored in a little as our model had a much smaller face in comparison to the original model. But that's the life of a SFX artist, working on the fly and get it done!

Here myself and Rhianna are working on blending those edges out and lining up the features so its a smooth seamless transition between the models skin and both prosthetics.

 

 

 Kate and myself found the jaw prosthetics a little trickier to attach in comparison to the other prosthetics, this was mainly because of the weight. It weighed a little more then is should of so, any, a little cutting was required to remove some of the bulk from inside the prosthetic. The adhesive that I used to attach all the pieces was MouldLife's Aqua Fix. I have used this for almost all my prosthetic creations as I find its the best, it also doesn't irritate the skin as others in the past have. Other bonus is that its a cheaper adhesive but still works well!

 

Selfies...a must for any Zombie creation!

Myself with my fabulous assistants Shannon and Rhianna with the most happiest and cheerful zombie I ever did meet.

 

 

So here are my two zombie characters all done up, they wore boiler suits which we covered in blood! Have to admit two of my favourite SFX Zombie characters, completely inspired by the Walking Dead!

So happy that my view came to life!

I think if I did it again, I would definitely change the positioning of the teeth on the girl Zombie, they totally look out of line and goofy!

 

 But you live you learn and that's how you grow!

 

 These two scared me!

They were the Chaser characters, and they ran after the people walking around the place. So its kind of fitting that they were utterly terrifying. One of the reasons behind this was that they chased after you with chainsaws, and these were real chainsaws with the chains removed so the noise that they made was UNREAL!

There were a few issues with one of the pieces not sticking to the actor, which resulted in use applying and reapply frequently.

 

Loved how they turned out.

My students haven't even completed there Media Makeup SFX unit yet and I think they did a super job at helping me bring my designs to life.

 

 Broken Jaw Zombie came out pretty damn well in the end, it was tricky due to the weight of the prosthetic piece but we sorted it out with a few little alterations. I think I want to play around with the attachment of this prosthetic further in the future. I want to redesign this one, so watch out for Broken Jaw Zombie 2.

 

This was one of the Crazy Crrrrrraaaazzzzy Scientists, the sharp teeth prosthetics piece worked really well even if it was originally meant to be one of the Minion characters.The mouth needs a dark black to disguise those lips but it came out pretty well!

 

All characters were done using Bdellium tools brushes, SFX range created by Thomas Surprenant who is an amazing effects artist, I had the pleasure to watch him create some fantastic characters at IMATS last year.

 

Like always we managed to get our self in the newspaper with the characters. This is the photo that they used which also included the "Exorcist" character in the middle, she was a blasted to know.

 

All in all I think it was a pretty successful night for both me, my students and Blackburn Youth Zone. The event brought a lot of people in and raised a lot of money for the Youth Zone, which I was glad to be apart of.

 

If you want to see more images from the night check out my facebook page @Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA and don't forget to like and follow me.

 

Also check out my Instagram @ruthemouldenmua

 

I'll be attending Manchester Vintage fair tomorrow with my popup salon, often some fabulous pampering treatments including manicure, gel nail polish as well as makeovers and hairstyling. Check out my Facebook page for more details on the event!

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.

 

 

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