Make-up Exploration
Webbed Monster Hands
Nature Reference Images
Birds of Prey
Mallards' Feet
Crocodile and Alligator Hands
Painting the piece
Originally i was going to paint the prosthetic similar to the crocodile style paint job i did on my hand, but because i feel like that came out so well already, i wanted to try a different kind of paint pattern and colour on this piece. therefore i decided to look at more exotic creatures such as the ones below.
Research
- Amazonian Lizards
The Blue Wood lizard. (found in the Peruvian Amazon)
Red-throated Wood Lizard
The Gila Monster
Iguanas
To colour the piece i used the flesh tone pigment because i did not have any other coloured pigments. so instead i tried to colour it with green and yellow flocking.
Colouring Silicone Experimentation
I especially want to take reference from the two species of lizard above because of their origins in the Amazon, this is also where the gill-man is supposed to be located.
I particularly like the colours on the blue wood lizard. as i think using the brightcolours like the reds on the red0throated lizard may look a little cartoony on a prosthetic.
The pattern on the lizard is also very interesting, the way the colours overlap the scales, and are not confined to one colour per scale. Its almost like the skin underneath is pigmented. I hope to use this in my paint on the monster hand flat piece.
The Gila monster is situated in the southern united states, such as mexico, which has a very desert like climate.
This is the reason for the colouring on the lizard. Because my creature is set in the amazon/jungle areas and not the desert i will avoid using this colour theme or anything with pinks/oranges like this.
However i was particularly interested in the specific symmetrical pattern of the lizard's colouring. It is similare to the blue wood lizard of the Amazon in that way, and I can imaging the same sort of pattern that
What i think it really interesting is the definition of the colours. If i was to replicate this with makeup, Pax paint, painted on with a brush would be really mimic this well, rather than airbrushing, or using greasepaint that may smudge.
I discovered the texture in the feet of birds of prey when i was researching about claws.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.
Colouring with Acrylic Paint
Colouring with Drawing Ink
Colouring with Flocking
Pre-Painting, silicone flat piece with PAX paint.
Airbrushing With Aqua Colour
Pre-colouring the Piece
The idea for this part of my exploration is to try and make webbed hands. The designs and the idea come from the Gill-Man in the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Below are 2 different images from the film, one is a closeup of the hand in action in the water and the other is the hands found in the wall in the film so they are supposed to be prehistoric fossils. these ones have a little more texture and are broken downa bit.
I think webbed hands would suit my monster well considering it is a fish/man hybrid.
Making claws
I wanted to include claws in the makeups and experiment with them because i believe it would make my makeup for authetic, complete and fearsome.
The nails are acrylic and i probably should have had a go at making them myself by vacuum forming, this would by one possible way to do it.
However to create these nails and this makeup i bought the nails online and hope to cut and colour them the way i want.
Trying Latex and Greasepaint to create webbed hands.
Context: Because of the length of time this makeup took to apply i dont think it would be practical to use on a film set where you have such limited time to apply makeup, and where you have to make it look the same everyday, however i think it would work well being encorporated into a body paint because the latex was very durable and stayed on well, and the edges were practically invisible, if it had to be paraded on stage or close up you wouldn't even see the edges and would work. Or for a photoshoot because not much editing would need to be done, and as long as you had the time beforehand to create it, it would work.
This is my low-budget version of a webbed hand makeup, you could also do this latex webbing if you did not have any access to prosthetics or if your model/actor did not like to have prosthetics applied to them.
Unfortunately i did not take any photos of the first 2 times i tried this, because it was very messy, but this is the 3rd attempt. It was a good test because it was quite tricky to create this, i needed to lay my hand on plastic and then sponge latex between and onto my fingers.
The first time i tried it, i just poured the latex on in a thick layer rather than sponging it on precisely and it was so messy on the underside of my hand, and also was so thick it didn't peel off the pastic well.
The way i got it to finally work is by sponging light layers onto my hands and then after 2/3 layers i peeled it off and then carried on thickening it, and powdering the layers in between whilst my hand was up in the air. This worked a lot better becuase then the palm of my hand didn;t get messed up. and the latex was thick and secure.
I feel like the latex blends really well and especially after you put the paint on, you can barely see any edges at all.
Using a Flat Piece Prosthetic to create Webbed hands
In order to make the nails look more menacing and realistic i did not want them to be shiny, and i wanted them to be a bit chipped and broken down, in order to break down the nails i sanded them with sand paper. first i used a smaller grade but it didn't work as well as i wanted to, for this you really have to use gritty paper. but in the end it worked well.
I know that you can buy silicone pigments and use them to colour the piece. But i didnt have the money and thought that i should maybe try some test samples of colouring silicone to get the right colour i wanted. For these test i just used 50:50 A and B silicone with no deadener added.
I heard that Acrylic paint made silicone change its consistency,
and that it makes it crack.
So i thought i would try only a small amount of paint just to see if it would work.
personally i think it worked just as well as silicone pigments in this batch, it sured fine and gave a good even colour. and the silicone definietely did not crack.
I wonder what it will do when i add deadener to the mix?
In an ideal situation, in a studio where i could make proper monster suits i would cast the actors and and make a foam latex glove. However i have this idea that i could make a flat piece that would fit over the top of the hang but then the palm would still be exposed.
It would at least create webbing between the fingers and texture/scales on the skin of the arm.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.
Instead of measuring the whole arm, i figured it would just be easier to get a template of my models hand and then sculpt on top and around it.
Finalle i decided to edit some of the photographs of this piee into balck and white, because of the movie Creature from the Balck Lagoon, and how it was A black and white film.
I wanted to see if these tyoes of colours would work that way too.
I have never airbrushed with Aquacolour before but when i researched it, i found it could be done by thinning the paint with water until you get a liquid consistency and then you can just pour it into the airbrush cup.
It took my a while to get a hang of it because i havn't airbrushed in a ling time. However it wasnt a disaster.
I wish
In hindsight i believe that the paint job was overbearing to the colour i had pigmented the silicone. I wasnt sure of the paint job i was going to do before i
Fig. 453
Fig. 512
Fig. 525
Fig. 499
Fig. 510
Fig. 459
Fig. 454
Fig. 457
Fig. 455
Fig. 458
Fig. 456
Fig. 520
Fig. 523
Fig. 517
Fig. 522
Fig. 503
Fig. 519
Fig. 514
Fig. 524
Fig. 518
Fig. 516
Fig. 515
Fig. 511
Fig. 502
Fig. 506
Fig. 507
Fig. 460
Fig. 461
Fig. 463
Fig. 468
Fig. 467
Fig. 465
Fig. 466
Fig. 464
Fig. 462
Fig. 472
Fig. 473
Fig. 476
Fig. 477
Fig. 474
Fig. 478
Fig. 479
Fig. 480
Fig. 483
Fig. 487
Fig. 491
Fig. 493
Fig. 488
Fig. 492
Fig. 495
Fig. 500
Fig. 489
Fig. 484
Fig. 490
Fig. 494
Fig. 496
Fig. 502
Fig. 508
Fig. 513
Fig. 505
Fig. 509
Fig. 498
Fig. 497
Fig. 486
Fig. 485
Fig. 482
Fig. 475
Fig. 471
Fig. 469
Fig. 470
Fig. 504
Fig. 481
Fig. 501
Fig. 512
Fig. 520
Fig. 521
Fig. 523
Fig. 524