Archive for the “Old Man Mask” Category

Another pic of the old man mask and also a video.

Here’re some pics of my old man mask which I’ve been painting.  I’m quite pleased with the way this one has come out, looks quite realistic.  Slowly getting the hang of painting silicon!

I had intended to post some casting pics when I was doing the zombie mask but didn’t quite get round to it, so I thought I’d do it here.  The sculpture was done over the same head as the zombie mask:

The two halves of the mold are placed over the ‘core’.

Silicon will flow through the mold within the cavity between the core and the outer pieces of the mold.

The two halves of the mold are then bolted together and ‘bleed holes’ are drilled.  These will allow air to escape the mold as the silicon is injected so that air bubble do not form.

The molds then turned upside down and a large syringe which I made out of drain pipe is inserted into a cavity within the core.  The silicon flows into the mold through the top of the head and up through the interior.  The bleed holes are blocked off with blobs of clay as the silicon reaches them.

Once the silicon’s set the mold is cracked open.  Here’re some pics of the silicon cast fresh out of the mold and also with a coat of flesh coloured paint.  It doesn’t look quite so orange in real life, think it’s the flash that’s done that!

The painting’s not finished but I’m quite pleased with how this has turned out so far.  Painting silicon is abit of a pain and it’s only recently that I figured out how to do it – there’s very little info out there detailing this.  The only thing that sticks to silicon is silicon, nothing else will adhere, so if you use any type of regular paint it will either not dry or flake off once it has.  You therefore need to actually paint the silicon with silicon.  You can’t actually buy silicon paint (well that’s not technically true – there is one company that I know of that does it, but it’s quite expensive) so what you need to do is mix a pigment with silicon and use that as your paint.

I’ve found the best way to do this is to use silicon bathroom sealant mixed with oil paints and thinned with white spirit.  As the bathroom sealant cures it will chemically bond with the rubber making your pigment part of the piece.

This works well with the silicon I’m using as they’re both tin based silicons.  Some silicons such as Platsil, which is used extensively in the FX industry, are platinum based so I’ll need to experiment to see if this method will work with those.

I’m working on the hands that go with the old man mask sculpture at the minute.  I’ve made a fibreglass mold of the head now and I’m just cleaning that out ready to inject the silicon. I’ll try and post some more complete pics of the process than I managed when I was doing the zombie mask. Once the cast is ready I’ll be painting it and punching in some hair round the back of the head and some eyebrows.

For the hands I’m sculpting them in chavant over life casts of my own hands.  This is to ensure they’ll be large enough to be worn as gloves.

First off I made an alginate mold of my hand and forearm.  Alginate is a life casting material that’s made from seaweed.  It’s commonly used by dentists to take casts of teeth.  It sets to a spongy consistency which is ideal for taking casts of the body.

It’s a little difficult to take a pic when your arms’ encased, but here’s a pic once I’d got my arm out. The mold was then filled with plaster.

As the casts were going to be used as part of a mold once I’d done the sculpture (they’ll sit in the middle of the mold in order to create a cavity) I reinforced them with some wire inside the plaster and by adding a layer of fibre glass on the outside.  Here’re some pics.

Here’s the final sculpture for the silicon mask I’m working on.  Just waiting final approval from the client and I’ll start making the mold.

I’ve also made a cast of my hand and arm over which I’ll start sculpting some hands as well.  The cast came out OK, but I’ll be doing my left arm on the weekend which I hope to get a nicer cast of, nice enough to take some pics of anyway ;0)

Here’s some pics of a sculpture I’ve been hired to create.  It’s sculpted in chavant and will be cast in silicon rubber as a wearable mask.  There’ll also be two ‘gloves’ to go with it with aged flesh as well.