Walking Dead Zombie Paint Up Using Sigma FX brushes and Skin Illustrator.

 

Hey my lovelies,

 

Todays blog is a bit of a review as well as the second part of my zombie prosthetic...the paint up!!

 

A couple of weeks ago the marvellous people at Sigma send me this fabulous package of makeup brushes and makeup to test out.

 

I am so unbelievably thankful to +Sigma Beauty for sending this fantastic package of beautiful goodies, am one lucky makeup artist!

 

The brush set was sent to me was the SigmaFX brush set which consists of 11 specially designed FX brushes, all suitable and specially designed for a different aspect of SFX applications. The brushes were designed by makeup artist and founder of Hollywood Makeup Lab, Bruna Nogueira.

 

The makeup was a welcome surprise, as I didn't think I would be sent extra's. I thought it was just the FX brushes but yay!! Thankie Thankie Sigma!!

I will review these products in later blog, promise!

 

I love all the brushes and for this prosthetic application they were perfect. I have created a quick video looking at each brush individually as well as a little bit about what each one could be used for.

Check out the video here: Quick Sigma Fx brushes Review 

 

I decided that for painting up my zombie prosthetic I would use manual and that the Sigma FX brushes would be perfect to do the job...as well as enable me to review the brushes as worked.

 

 

So here is the setup...my freshly pulled prosthetic piece, Sigma set and skin illustrator pallettes. Normally I would be using my airbrush gun but as I have just got a few new palettes from +PS Composites Ltd and +PPI Premiere Products (All aquired when I went to +United Makeup Artist Expo this year)

 

So the first palette is "American Horror" created for American Horror Story's Makeup Dept. Head, Eryn Krueger Mekash.  The palette contains two colors specifically designed by Eryn Krueger Mekash's makeup crew for the American Horror Story series.  'Coven' and 'Assylum'. Costing $80 from +PPI Premiere Products  or £69.80 from +PS Composites Ltd 

I've been wanting this palette for a long time and finally I got it!! This is my first large palette from Skin Illustrator as all my other palette are the small "on set" palettes.

 

The next two palettes that I used for the prosthetic was my "NecroMania" and "FX" which as mentioned before are my smaller "On Set" palettes which have the same colours as the larger palettes just small...

 

These are available for +PPI Premiere Products for $55

The FX palette is perfect for any casualty stimulation or FX bruises/cuts, I have definitely recommended to my students that they should buy this palette for their kits.

 

So I first used #melproductsUSA in "Corpse", airbrushing this base down using my #mistair airbrush gun.

 

I then proceed to layer multiple colours down manually using the #sigmafx brush set. My idea was to get inspiration from "Walking Dead" by using post- mortem style colours to give a rotting flesh sort of effect.

 

I've been working on building my painting abilities for a while and I think I achieved in this project.

 

 

And there you have the final look of the prosthetic. You can check out a video of the full application HERE

 

For more photo's of this prosthetic and to stay up to date with all my projects and crazy madness in the makeup industry check out my facebook page: HERE

Twitter: HERE

Instagram: @ruthemouldenmua HERE

 

xRx

 

 

 

United Makeup Artist's Expo 2015

Last couple of weeks have been Easter Holidays and even though I had time off teaching (obviously the odd lesson to plan and the odd assignment to mark) I was busy with the freelance side of makeup artistry, from Wedding trials to designing for up coming events/demonstrations, its a continuing work schedule for me...and I love it!

One of the delightful days off was at United Makeup Artist Expo down in London which I attended this time last weekend. This was my second visit to the event and its still as awesome as ever!

I love going to this event as it really is tailored well for makeup artists in the industry, as well as the awesome stalls, makeup gurus doing live demonstrations and experts to talk to the event also holds multiple educational sessions in which you can learn new methods, skills, about new products etc by the industry experts! Learning from these artists is a dream come true for me and it really does inspire me to push my own skills and designs.

The company's that attended were (in my opinion) some of the top supply companies in the industry along with some of there expert artists on hand to help explain the new products as well as suitability of products for you projects.

At the PPI  booth there was the amazing makeup artist Kenny Myers (who has done the makeup for films such as The Prestige, X-men, The Return of Living Dead and many many more) doing a live demonstration. I watched for quiet a while whilst he create this amazing Troll/Orc style warrior. It was amazing!

 This was what was eventually created, however I was unable to take a photo of the finished look.

 

 PPI, Premiere Products is a brilliant effects company that supply a range of products; from bloods, skin illustrators, adhesives, Fleet Street products and more. They are based in American which is why I always go straight to their booth first...I would have to spend a fortune to ship there products plus a large amount cannot be shipped via airmail. If you have never heard of this brand I strongly suggest that you check them out!

One of the other artists there was Stuart Bray, who has an wicked website which teaching some methods of making prosthetics... http://learnprostheticmakeup.com/ its extremely useful website. He's work can also be seen in such films as Shaun of The Dead, Tv series Game of Thrones as well as Blade II and Tv series Dr Who.

Another Artist present was Shaune Harrison, whose Academy in Manchester is my current goal to go to...still saving those pennies. He was doing an awesome demonstration of a bird like hybrid, which was so popular I found it extremely difficult to get a clear picture of the making of.

 

Photo of the prosthetic by Shaune Harrison without any colour...

 

Finished character, how cool are the contact lenses!!

 

Full character, loved the beck piece. Looks amazing!! Seeing this makes me want to go to Shaune Harrison's Academy even more...I totally want to learn how to do this!!!

 

Some of the educational seminars included mainly SFX, but I did attend one by Kryolan, with the wonderful Leanne Simmons which was entitled "Special Effects meets Fashion" which was incredibly interest and has really inspired me.

The main focus of the session was showing how you can use special effects to create high fashion looks, for this demonstration Leanne's design drew inspiration from Tim Burton fantasy. She used a variety of techniques from bald cap applications, blocking out eyebrows, facepaints and blood. She also showed us an extremely clever use for gelatine (or gelafix skin by Kryolan) by creating 3D eye brows with it. Looked so effective!! 

 

 

How amazing is the overall look, to make it more impressive Leanne only had limited time to create it as there were a few problems setting up the room and getting the model  but she did amazingly well and I learnt a lot!

 

Like I mentioned before as well as the educational seminars there were live demonstrations from each of the booths with some amazing artists; from body art to fashion makeup as well as special effect characters. 

 

Kryolan booth had this toxic body art creating using the same gelafix method shown within the educational seminar. I love the 3D effect it gives!

 

I didn't realise it until the model turned around but there was a screen on his back which was playing Kryolan adverts...how cool is that!!

 

One of the other Educational seminars that I attended was one held by Brian Kinney who taught us about "Prosthetic Casting with Flat Moulds." He showed us these Hurt Boxes that he developed and created for fast creation of cuts, scars, grazes etc and they looked amazing! I really wish I could find the booth they were being sold at but alas I'll have to order it! 

 

I did have an awesome time at the event and bought some awesome things which I will be using very soon as well as doing reviews on them.

 

 

 As you can see its a good mixture of stuff! Which I can't wait to use.

 

Don't forget to take a look at my facebook page for more images from the event as well as more up to date posts on my crazy creative life as a makeup artist @Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

If you want to buy your tickets for next years UMA expo; check out their website here: www.umae.co.uk 

 

Bye for now my lovelies,

 

xRx

 

District 9 "Prawn" Alien Special Effects Makeup Video

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

 

Creature From The Black Lagoon SFX work

This creature creation has been something that I've been working on for a while, just because of all the different elements connected to making it work plus I've fairly busy these past couple of days! 
 

It was done for a live demonstration at Blackburn Market with my students using the theme "under the sea", I decided it would be a good idea to challenge myself by doing a complete head prosthetics with "add on's!" I had the fabulous Alice Ashley assisting for this one as well as the equally fabulous Alex Gillet modelling for me…it was the dream team!

So it all began with the sculpture, which I used my shiney new tools that I got from United Makeup Expo back in April by the extremely helpful PS composites, http://www.ps-composites.com/ .Love them, they are so easy to use and create such definition in the sculpt. 

 

I did create a video showing my sculpting of the piece which can be viewed here .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYXxT4IrZ0

 

After I casted the piece in plaster, I created the piece from gelatine...also bought from PS composites. I have to say that this prosthetic looks a lot better then my others, so am really happy with the development in myself. I think it was down to the tools I used as I was able to apply more details within the clay this time.

 

 

The next process was a DIY moment, I needed to make fins for my creature and a Mohawk fin. So I thought wire was the way to go. Just normal garden wire, bent into the shape of fin and then I used tan tights pulled over the wire frame and stitched it on to the frame.
To get that fish scale effect I added liquid latex all over the fins then left them to dry.
To paint them I used my brand new Skin Illustrate palette, which I bought from PPI http://www.ppi.cc/

 I used the NecroManic palette in Darth Moss and Vile Bile over the fin and then the FX palette in Aged Blood to highlight the "veins." This is the first time that I've used these products (its taken me a while to save up for them!) And I love the build up of shades that you can create with them. Brilliant product to use for dimention.

Once the fin's were done, I started colouring the piece using similar colours as well as airbrush work on the base colours and contouring of the creature using Temptu Dura Liquid Pro Set - Trauma (http://temptu.com/pro/dura-pro-liquid-pro-set-5024.html), in various colours. This is the first time I've used this set and it worked for what I wanted to do. It was easy to build up the colour and mix for added dimention.
I also used the Skin Illustrator palettes for more detail and added dimention.

 

 

And here is the final look, Alex Gillet model for me and I had the lovely Alice Ashley assisting with the application.

It was all done live at Blackburn Market and although there were a few moments of "improvisation", it all worked out.

 

I am happy with the way it turned out, there are ,obviously for me!, areas that I want to work on and challenge a little further but am happy.

 

 There is a video of the application which can be viewed here: http://ow.ly/x95cw

 

I have also uploaded more images on my facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

 

Let me know what you think.

xRx