Silicone Rubber

My professor Tom and I decided that working with silicone rubber would be an excellent way to round out my advanced makeup learning experience, so we went and ordered some from Smooth-On, specifically the Dragon Skin FX Pro trial size.  It comes as a two part process, both are clear and goopy.

The instructions are pretty simple, mix equal parts together. This particular product starts to set in about 15 minutes and fully cures in 45 minutes. I excitedly mixed some up and poured a sample amount into a Wilton silicone mold that I bought off Amazon. I tried one bird with mold release (baby oil) and one without. They both came out easily.

While the birds were curing I used the remaining silicone to create a cut on my arm. The material was harder to work with than videos make it out to be. I applied the silicone with a popsicle stick. Once cured, I powdered and applied makeup and a little blood. The makeup did not want to adhere to the silicone, and the blood was even more difficult because the silicone is so resistant to water.

Next I wanted to try out attaching a piece of silicone to skin. I picked out one of the birds and applied it to my arm with pros-aide, coated it with pros-aide, applied makeup, and powdered. By coating the appliance in pros-aide it made it a little bit easier to apply makeup to the silicone.

This makeup stayed on fairly well, but the bird started to peel off after only 30 minutes. The pros-aide does not seem to work very well with the silicone, and the packaging suggests using products such as Skin Tite silicone adhesive or medical grade pressure sensitive adhesives which, according to my research, come as a tape product (can be found here and here and with a basic Google search). The Pros-aide was fine for a temporary situation though, and I will probably continue to use this method. 

Finally, I poured some more silicone into my mold and will be using them next week for a design!

Guest Makeup and Air Brushing

One of my professors, Josh volunteered to have me to apply makeup on him for my class. I was very excited when he offered his time (and face) to me because I had never really worked with a male face for makeup. I struggled with the design process because I didn't have any idea of how to do a masculine makeup. I also had the additional challenge of adding air brushing into the look and the only color I had at my disposal was green. I also had a pre-fabricated Woochie "Pixie Nose" that I wanted to try out - I had never worked with pre-fab prosthetics before.
I began thinking about fairies and the color green. I ended up doing a lot of research on different masculine looks as well as a general google search for male fairies, this search provided me with a lot of art works that ultimately helped me understand how to makeup a male face. I decided on a look that was mostly natural because I want more experience blending prosthetics into skin tone and to achieve smoother edges.
Here is a picture of my professor:

I did this makeup while also giving a lecture to the (beginning) makeup class about prosthetics: the different types and applying them.

I started by applying the nose with pros-aide.

I then did a brief demonstration on air brushing to the class before moving forward with the rest of the makeup.

For this I used a mixture of 50% green Ben Nye liquid makeup and 50% Ben Nye Liquiset. I used a Paasche airbrush similar to this one, but a bit older and it has a few different accessories. I have also experimented with PAX style makeup (liquid makeup mixed with pros-aide), but I don't like it as much because it easily clogs the airbrush and is much harder to remove from skin, but I can see why it would be useful for airbrushing a latex mask or appliance. 

After wiping off the green example, I moved on to applying underpaint, base, and shading on Josh's face. 

I then applied more green airbrushing and stippled highs and lows. 

I also added in some pink tones to bring some life to the nose appliance and some details with wrinkles. 

Here is a close-up of the edges on the nose appliance.

I was super happy with how smooth the edges came out! Overall I was happy with the look and had a great time working on this project. 

Here are some more photos from different perspectives

The edges on the left side weren't as good, but I was still very proud!

I put on the appliance slightly crooked, oops!

A few classmates, when critiquing the look, suggested that I should have taken the green paint farther by making it darker/bolder. I think I agree with them, I was a little hesitant because I didn't want it to be too much.

But as I said, overall it was a great experience. Thanks, Josh!

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

Pros-Aide Cream

While shopping around online for a source to purchase pros-aide cream, my professor and I stumbled upon mehandi.com. We were both excited about the idea of doing henna with pros-aide and glitter so we ordered some right away.

We ordered the large jar of pros-aide cream and four colors of glitter. I used a plastic baggie to "pipe" the pros-aide onto my skin and applied the glitter by tapping the container above my skin. First, I drew on an initial design with a lip liner pencil. 

I then filled my plastic baggie with pros-aide cream. For this I used a piece of paper plate cut into a wedge-shape, but you could use a plastic spoon or other disposable item. 

Then I cut the tip of the baggie with scissors. The first time around I cut it too much and had a large opening, be sure to cut off very little of the tip because you can always make it bigger.

I then began piping the pros-aide onto my arm following the design I drew. This was a difficult step because there is a learning curve (as always) to getting smooth, straight lines. 

After completing each set of lines I wanted for each color, I applied the glitter and then let it dry a little before moving on to the next color. 

I started with purple, then gold, blue, and red. I would suggest doing the darkest colors first just in case the glue isn't fully dry and picks up some of the glitter. Also, apply the glitter over a trash can or something to catch the glitter, it goes everywhere otherwise. 

The above picture was taken once everything was dry. As you can see, I smudged part of it on the right side, and there is still glitter everywhere. The remaining glitter came off easily after about half an hour and the glue had completely set. 

The look lasted for about two full days before parts of it started peeling off.

Below is a photo of the application after two showers and two nights. 

 I ended up peeling the whole thing off rather than using remover because it came off very easily.

Supplies:

Pros-aide cream

Scooper

Plastic baggie

Lip liner pencil

Scissors

Glitter

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)