Using a Life-Cast & Cyborg Makeup

For my first attempt at creating a makeup with my life-cast face I decided to turn myself into a cyborg.
I started with the plaster face I made during my life-casting session/post.

After doing research into what cyborgs look like I collected some pictures that inspired me. I ultimately settled for creating a look in which something had been applied to my face rather than underneath it. 

My initial design had some flaws that became apparent after sculpting the idea.

First, the nose didn't really make sense; why would the nose-skin have grown over the metal piece? Also, the individual appliances on the face didn't quite make sense together if they were to be controlling me. After some thought and reworking the idea, I came up with this design

Here is the sculpt of the makeup (missing one of the forehead pieces)

and here is the sculpt with all the pieces of wire and bit of mother board embedded into the clay. it is important to embed the pieces before you pour the plaster so that they have a place to go into the latex. This was also a helpful step because all of my wire pieces were pre-cut to the proper length. BUT, take out all the pieces before pouring; you want indentations from the pieces. I also laid all the pieces out on a tray so that I wouldn't mix them up. 

Next, I built dams up around the sculpt. I decided to separate the sculpt into four areas

Once I made sure the clay was sealed onto the face and the walls were thick enough, I coated all the clay surfaces in baby oil as a mold-release. I then mixed and poured the plaster. You can read more about this in my previous post about making molds. 

After allowing the plaster to set for two hours I peeled away the dams. 

All of the parts came away easily and cleanly. I left the plaster pieces to thoroughly dry for a few days. I wanted to use gelatin for the molding process, but having so many parts became overly complicated and messy. I settled for pouring the molding with liquid latex following the steps from my previous post about latex.  Below are all the pieces as they came out of the molds. 

I trimmed the pieces and prepainted them with cream makeup. I powdered the appliances between coats of makeup. I then began gluing the pieces of wire into the latex. This process was a lot harder than I expected it to be. I used pros-aide as glue and I think it would have been better if I used something with a faster drying time such as hot glue. 

 I then began applying the pieces to my face. I started with the nose/forehead piece because its position dictated the position of the rest of the applications due to the wires. I applied the pieces with pros-aide, powdered everything, and then did some touch-up makeup and blended the nose application into my skin. 

Below is a picture from immediately after the makeup was completed. 

And here is a picture from a few hours after wearing the makeup. The chin pieces are starting to come loose due to the large amount of movement in that area.

Overall the makeup stayed on pretty strongly and I like the almost cartoonish feel the look has to it. If I were to do this makeup again I would make sure I hot glued the wires into the makeup and I would make sure the chin pieces were much more secure. 

Supplies:
Face
Clay
Clay tools
Wire pieces and mother board pieces
Baby oil
Plaster
Liquid Latex
Cream Makeup
Makeup brushes and sponges
Pros-aide

Bald Cap

This week I focused on applying a bald cap! I decided to attack the challenge of applying it to myself with minimal help from my professor. In this post I will be providing information about how I applied the bald cap and I will post some links to other blogs and videos that I used as research before tackling this project. Below is a recent picture of me.

As you can see, my hair is a bit longer than shoulder length meaning I had some work to do when it came to hiding it beneath a bald cap. After looking at many sites online the most common way to deal with hiding long hair underneath a bald cap is to create a low ponytail and leave it hanging out the backside of the bald cap. I did find one reference in the book Special Effects Make-up by Janus Vinther about putting the hair up such that it can be hidden completely. 

I attempted this style of hiding my hair, but my hair is relatively soft and it would fall down before I could even get the bald cap on. I decided to try the same technique, but with the addition of taping my hair down to my head. 

In the above picture you can see three bands of tape holding my hair. Each piece of tape had a strip of baby wipe in the center of it so that I didn't cover my entire head with tape. After attempting to put the bald cap on, I added one more piece of tape going vertically from my neck to the top of my forehead for extra security. (You can also see my work station in the back ground behind my head)

Next I put the bald cap on, positioned it, and drew lines with my brown brow-liner pencil. 

 

This step is important because this will determine how the cap will ultimately fit onto your head. When the cap is on, pull the ear flaps down and forward toward your chin. Hold them there while you are drawing the lines. You may need help for this part, but I was able to use one hand to hold the cap by stretching my thumb under my chin to hold the other side. The picture on the right is from the instructional video that Ben Nye created that is sold with his makeup kits. This was by far the most useful video I have seen on applying bald caps. The ear cut out is kind of an upside-down U shape that is drawn about 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the ear. I also wanted to trim some of the cap away from my temples and forehead for a better fit.

Once all the lines are drawn on, cut off the excess latex. I used blunt-nosed scissors (the type for trimming nose hairs). You can either take off the bald cap to do this or leave it on. If you are leaving it on, I suggest having someone help you cut out the ear pieces.

The next step is gluing. There are various materials that can be used for gluing. For my first application I used spirit gum. This method was alright but it requires drying time and the bald cap can peel up if you don't sit long enough with pressure holding the cap to the gum. The second application I tried out Pros-aide medical adhesive and I fell in love with this product. It requires very little drying time, and is incredibly effective at adhering. Gluing can be done by folding back the cap and applying glue directly to the cap or directly to the skin. I prefer the skin method because it is easier to get it smooth. If you are sealing the cap all the way around, do the neck portion second. Move on the the above-ear section, and then below the ears. You don't need to glue all of the latex down, but instead you can cut off the excess once the glue dries.Below you can see where I cut off excess latex around my ears.

                                         

after the entire bald cap has been secured, seal the bald cap onto your head. For my first application I did this with latex and a sponge by blending the cap's edge into the skin, for my second application I did this with Pros-aide and a q-tip, creating a bead of glue along the edge of the cap. I prefer the Pros-aide method because it create a smaller edge. 

My next step was to cover the entire cap in pros-aide. I did this based off of this blog's suggestions. By doing this you are creating a surface that will not absorb the cream makeup as readily as the latex will. After this is dry, powder the sticky glue. 

Apply makeup to the cap with a torn sponge (no sharp edges) and a blotting-motion (rather than sweeping). You may want to start with a color lighter than your skin tone as a sort of under-painting method to help hide the cap. Stipple some highlights and lowlights to create texture. Apply makeup to your face as well and use the same highlight/lowlight stippling. 

Below is the picture from my first attempt. I was super disappointed with how this turned out. 

And here are two pictures from my second (more successful attempt)

The second picture was taken outside. This picture shows some of the areas where I didn't brush off enough powder OR could have used more of the darker stippling. I also added in a "beauty mark" near my temple (where I actually have one) for more realism. Here is the link for a high quality photo (for zooming)

Supplies:

Bald cap (mine is from Woochie, ordered on Amazon)

Tape (for long hair)

Brown brow-liner pencil

Scissors

Adhesive (I prefer Pros-aide medical adhesive)

Sponges (foam and stippling)

makeup (I use Ben Nye products)