Running pieces (test) | specialistpractice

First Attempt

2nd Attempt

Optical Illusionists: Crafting prosthetic eyes is an art done by very few

MARCELLO DI CINTIO, SWERVE 08.26.2014

It takes coularist Shirley Weyland approximately eight hours to fit and fabricate an ocular prosthesis; she produces about 16 per month. Adults who wear ocular prostheses need to have them replaced once every five years; children, annually.

Ocularist Shirley Weyland uses red cotton thread for the veins in the ocular prosthesis because, she says, “you can create an extremely thin line with thread that you can’t get when using a pencil or painting a line with a paint brush.” She designed the Plasticine stand that holds the prosthesis in place while she’s painting.

2nd Attempt

Running Test Flat Pieces

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Fig. 20.1

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Fig. 20.1

I realise that the sculpts that I have created are wide apart and deep, so the mould would use up a lot of silicone, to combat the expense of this, I have cut up some old silicone moulds to fill my mould with. See Fig. 20.1.

I intend to run these test pieces in silicone. So the first step is to mould release the mould with Vaseline and then apply 2/3 layers or cap plastic encapsulator.

For the second attempt at this, I was a lot more logical about the application of the thread inside the prosthetics. I copied the way the woman does it with the glass eyes. Just with a lot more care and patience, rather than rushing it. So this time the thread was a lot thinner and also there were more strands in each tumour and also placed so that they made a better pattern, overlapping and swirling more than before.

I also didn't make the prosthetics as opaque as before and added flocking and generally make much better tests. I think that these work really well. And will use them in a proper test makeup and potentially in the actual application.

You can see below in Fig. 20.21 the prosthetics on the right are the second run ones, which are miles better than the ones on the left.

What is also more apparent, especially in Fig. 20.22 the threads in the prosthetic at the top look like they are running within the silicone, and within the tumour, rather than just on the surface, like they do above. This is partly because of the thickness of the thread, but also for this test I used 4 layers of cap plastic to really seal in the thread.

Looking at the shape of the prosthetic made by this test sculpt. It looks like it would work well. I think the running of these pieces were not very good. But I want to try this one again without the veining and better colouring. I think that the imprint of the circuit board is a lot more detailed and because it is thin would work better on the skin.

For this makeup I wanted to try something different. I have seen artists before using thread to create veins on eyes, so I found some red thread and used it to create veins on the inside of the tumours so they would look something like the reference photo in Fig. 20.3.1 below.

Fig. 20.3.1

To achieve this I brushed in 3 layers of cap plastic and then lay in the thread. Admittedly looking at it now, it does look a little sloppy, but it was the first attempt and I guess this is how you learn your mistakes. I also at the time thought it might be cool to paint some soreness from the inside, so I used concentrates skin illustrator. As you can see in Fig. 20.4 it didn't really work with the cap plastic too well.

As you can see from Fig. 20.7, 20.8 and 20.9. The premise of the idea is there and what I have learnt from this first test is that the technique does work, so can be improved. The biggest problem is that the string is too thick, and also there is not enough of it. It should also be placed into he veins that have been sculpted in to the prosthetic more delicately. The silicone mixed for these tests was too opaque. But it doesn’t matter as they are only tests to see the veining technique and the sizes of the prosthetics.

Looking at this I can see how I really like the shape of the prosthetic in Fig. 20.7. And the mixture or organic matter and cyborg shapes work together. I think that the tumour in Fig. 20.9 will be too big, but I will have to test it on the skin. I also do not like the vein painted blue on it. I do not think that I should pre paint these on.

Fig. 20.22

Fig. 20.23

Below I want to discuss the shaped of the prosthetics now that they have been cast in silicone

1) The circuit board.

This came out realy thick and kind of clunky. I don't really like all the bits that protrude and i think it lacks detail. For these reasons I don't think that this prosthetic will look like it is coming from underneath the skin. so i am inclined to discard it.

This cast definitely looks quite basic, the tumours that surround the phone are not large enough and the veins don't really work. Therefor the whole thing lacks and organic feel to it.

But I guess the main point of this test was to see if the mould would work, and it did. The phone came out in silicone looking like a phone. I really like the screen result. But i think that if I sculpted the keys like this I would definitely have to embed them more into the clay so they don't go wonky and stick out so much.

And nevertheless hopefully it will give me an indication of size when I compare it to my models head, and hopefully it will work okay.