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

 

 

 

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

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

 

Dangerous Beauty Workshops: Creative Makeup Class ... with horns!

Hellooooo my lovelies,

In this entry am going to talking to you guys about my recent workshop at +Blackburn College  with my wonderful level 2 Media Makeup students. As most of you know I teach part time at Blackburn College; covering Media Makeup Level 2 and 3 but every so often I like to go off curriculum and do a fun workshop class or demonstration of the things I love to do in my freelance life. These workshops were planned as part of the college's Industry Week in which people from industry come to the college and hold workshops....hence me doing my workshops!

So this workshop which I decided to name "Dangerous Beauty" (always have to have a theme from all my workshops...yes I know am a nerd!) and focused on using dramatic contouring and eye designs to create edgy pieces. I also decided to allow the use of my headdress for this workshop, my antler and roses one as well as my new rams horn headdress.

Headdress are a new thing for me, but I love being creative so why not! The rams horn one was relatively easy-ish to make but very fiddly do create.

As you can see a lot of wires to fiddle with, the bulk of the horns is made from an air drying putty but my previous "horns" have been made using an oven bake clay...its much lighter but either works.

 

I realised after I painted up the horns that I made one slightly longer then the other...ah well! Painted up using acrylic paints and a little varnish for a smooth/shine finish. I wish I more 'dangly' bits to add but this was all that was in the craft box.

So the workshop demonstration used a mixture of airbrushing techniques, prosthetics and manual makeup...I wanted to demonstrate the variety of skills learnt in Level 3 Media Makeup as well as how to cross over SFX into Fashion Makeup and visa versa...

 

The prosthetic used was just a flat mould textured piece that look like scales...which went with the whole demon lady look.

 

 

Airbrush based using the fantastic #Iwata airbrush gun, its my baby...I will admit am aiming to get an upgrade when I go to +United Makeup Artist Expo this weekend. The foundation used was #mistair which are a silicone based foundation, very light as I wanted the colours on top to pop.

 

Eye liner detail work using +Inglot Cosmetics  eyeliner gel.

 

 

Black eyeshadow by +illamasqua #obsdian This is the blackest of black eye shadows, fantastic to blend, beautifully dramatic. You want a true black eye shadow this is your product!

 

 

The manual contouring was done using +Sugarpill #burnheartpalette ... in particular the red which is called #+love Fantastic palette to do dramatic contouring with as its so pigmented and you can build the colour up so easily! Am pretty sure one of my first review blogs was one this palette so look back through time and check that out if you want more information on the product.

 

 

The colour airbrushing bits, red/black was done using MistFX Aqua paints which can be used alone for body art or mixed 1:1 with distilled water to run through the airbrush gun...which is what I did. The product is brilliant for work like this as it comes in a variety of colours and covers extremely well. No patches or flaking! One piece of advice however make sure you shake the bottle fully and mix the water to paint ratio well other wise you will get a blockage in your airbrush gun.

 

There is an awesome stencil for creating those veins on the neck buuuuut I wanted to demonstrate to the students free hand work.

 

 

Black lipstick by +illamasqua , one of my favourite lipstick to use as it looks beautifully dark and doesn't look patchy as some black lipsticks do ...

 

Studs were pulled out of headband...I tried to find lose ones at my local haberdashery but they didn't have any so, use what you can get....

 

And the final outcome....

 

 

I think it turned out pretty well...the headdress makes it along with those studs down the cheekbones and forehead.

 

 

I love airbrushing...I love mixing it up with manual techniques but the smooth application of the Mistair products looks amazing...my models skin looks beautifully smooth like porcelain.

 

I did another of these workshop with another group of level 2 Media Makeup Students, this time using a blonde model....

 

 

 

 I think both models suit it and am so happy with my new headdress...

 

Huge thank you thank you to the stunning models used...Amy and Simone, you both rock as demonic dangerous ladies!

 

For more photo's from the workshop check out my facebook page @Ruth.E.Moulden.MUA

Also check out my instagram and twitter for more up to date photos and happenings in my crazy creative world!

 

 

Bye for now!

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