Fabricated Over-the-head Latex Mask, original design! Sculpted with chavant clay, molded, then ran in latex and painted. Is also fully wearable which is always a fun bonus

My idea was to make silicone molds and resin copies and be able to paint them, but I have my father sick and I had to take care of him and it was impossible...

I hope you like this creature taken from my darkest thoughts...

https://youtube.com/shorts/jSSc6t5eBf4?si=C6RQQY9qRUQckx41

The winning entry will be announced on Monday, March 11th, 2024, so stay tuned!

Thank you all for sharing your creations with our community here at the Stan Winston School of Character Arts Forums.

Please click the "Like" button on your favorite contest entries.  We take the community's reaction into consideration during the judging process.  Let your voices be heard!

/Chris

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Here is a build overview video I made before I turned him into an animated prop (he was originally a static prop). It goes into a lot of the detail of the different processes involved:

https://youtu.be/kyuNrvdwOL8

And here's a brief video of him in action:

https://youtu.be/N0TJCXg6YOw

Sculpting The Body

The whole prop is hard-coated with several coats of industrial polyurea/epoxy to give it fiberglass-like toughness, but for the armature and substrate I opted for less common methods. I first created armatures with aluminum wire, then used thin cardboard strips coated with contact cement to create a hollow, shell-shaped body, I then used a skim coat of commercial papier mache clay formula.



For the bumps, I used candy cabochon molds to cast various sized bumps -- over 1,000 total. I demanded and reshaped each one by hand before they fully hardened, since the creature looks much better with oddly shaped bumps rather than perfect domes. I also used epoxy putty to cemented small caps that I 3D printed. These are used to plug in the long spiny hairs, which are actually ostrich quills with the feather portion stripped away. They are removable for storage.

Sculpting The Legs

I sculpted the legs out of EPS foam using hot wire and rasp techniques to create surface texture. Because of the size and taper, I decided to create a PVC "skeleton" to strengthen them. This also allowed me to put in articulated joints to make the legs posable. Some of the smaller joint fittings (for 1/2" portions) weren't commercially available, so I had to design them in CAD and 3D print them. Before carving the foam, I routed out channels in 2" thick sheets of foam, inserted the PVC, and glued them together to create a 4" thick rough shapes for carving.
 

Sculpting The Mouth and Teeth

For the mouth, I designed the jaws in CAD and 3D printed the base for the jaws. I couldn't source such elongated human teeth so I carved them from scratch using sculpting foam, inspired by Tim Martin's class on foam carving. I then used sculpting epoxy that I pigmented a pinkish color to look like gums and used that to attach the teeth.

Sculpting The Head

For the head, I wanted it to be lightweight and hollow, and I also wanted to experiment with a different sculpting technique than I was used to. I first made a head form with foil and packing tape, wrapped that in clear cellophane and duct tape, then drew outlines of the shape, cut them out, flattened them and used as a template to make an "underskull" out of lightweight EVA foam -- it's a similar technique to how someone make a custom cosplay foam template. Once I had the underskull completed, I used foam clay to sculpt in all the facial details. Foam clay is a very different experience and took some getting used to, but I'm pleased with the results. I then hard-coated with the same coating as the res of the prop to strengthen and waterproof it.

Molding, Casting, and Lighting the Eyes

I needed 6 eyes total in 3 different sizes, so I decided to mold, cast and paint them from scratch, especially after watching the John Cherevka eye class on SWSCA. I also wanted them to subtly glow - in a realistic fashion like actual creatures that have reflective retinas ("tapetum lucidum") where only the pupil glows and the glowing intensity changes based on the viewing angle. So I designed a method to bounce the light off of the back of the eyes and pipe the light through light pipe "pupils".  I cast cabochons in silicone and also cast the oval pupils inserts that I designed in CAD and 3D printed. After casting the pupils in transparent epoxy, I used amber lens tape on the outside so they'd light up yellow.  I partially filled the molds with transparent epoxy then glued the light pipes to them then hand-painted the striations in the irises using heavy magnification.  Then I backfilled the sclera portions using epoxy that I tinted red. Finally, I soldered yellow LED arrays that pointed towards "retinas" domes that I 3D printed and painted white.

https://youtu.be/PrXaj6cOSUo
 

Airbrushing

Airbrushing was the fun part, and I relied heavily on things I learned in the Stan Winston courses, e.g., taking the time to layer in a lot of different colors and details, using reference photos and looking for cues such as more translucent/bluish skin in certain areas, veining, mottling, bruising, blemishes, and such. Was heavily inspired by Steve Wang's "Creature Mask Painting" class, which is much more detailed and in a different medium (silicone) but many of the tips are universal. I also learned to be patient and and not rush. I decided to make the head more skin tone, more "fetal" which adds to the uncanny human-like features and distinguishes it from the hardened abdomen and tail. I also opted to make the legs more grayish, bone-like appearance, but with a vascular system. Once it was all done, I coated everything in a UVLS clear coat in gloss to increase the "sliminess" and provide water resistance and UV protection.

Animating

I eventually turned this static prop into an animated prop using a mechanism I designed and built myself that utilizes five servos: 1 in the neck for head pan (the head is mounted to a turntable bearing), 1 for head tilt (sideways tilt), 1 for jaw with spring counterbalance, and finally, 1 for each of the fang-like pedipalps. The aluminum parts are a combination of commercially available robotics parts and parts I milled by hand out of 6061 aluminum. The power supplies and control board fit inside the hollow back of the creature. The movement is fully sequenced and integrated with the servos via a DMX to PWM interface that allows precise control, not only for custom monster-like movement but also silly things like making the creature talk or sing.


https://youtu.be/b5GAhKMFFyA
https://youtu.be/1RO6ig13ASA
https://youtu.be/pyVz4JIyyAo

BONUS

Did I mention he can sing?
Just for a fun bit of absurd comic relief, and because he's a spider, one night I made him lip sync "Drop Dead Legs."  

 https://youtu.be/SP0w2K1mK08

In this project I fulfilled a friend's wish. She is a chemical scientist and wants to play with it to scare and have fun with the children around.. 

I use only cotton, latex and makeup.

I hope you like it. 

For this I made a life cast from her face, sculpt on it with oil clay, then I cast half face prosthetic with prosthetic gelatin and liquid latex, and painted everything. 

I hope you like the final results and all the fun process evolved on this. 

♥️

 

Here’s the skinny:

The sculpture is monster clay on top of my core (a baby doll head covered in tinfoil). For the mold, I started with a brush on silicone then continued building up layers until the mold was PROPER THICK! After cleaning and prepping the mold with release, I mixed up a batch of silicone and started experimenting with pigment and color theory and adding flocking to the silicone. The first couple runs were a little rough but on the third try I think I nailed it! 

For the casting process I poured the silicone into the mold and moved it around, like a slip cast, to form the skin of the puppet. After demolding and a quick seaming and clean up I trimmed the mouth and eye holes open. Finally, it was time to bring the puppet mechanism (the sketches can be seen on the Home Depot receipt) and the alien baby flesh together and bring this monster to life!
I designed the mouth mechanism in fusion 360 and 3D printed the mouth pieces. The mouth is operated by three bike cables connected to the three little pieces in the mouth. Two for the top mouth beak flanger flaps and one for the bottom lip. The three mouth movers were mounted on a piece of piano wire I bent into a squared U shape. All of that was mounted to a pickle jar lid and stuffed inside the head, along with some upholstery foam to fill the cranial space.
I had to get creative when attaching the mouth mech to the silicone so I used a strong glue to adhere frayed cotton balls to the plastic parts of the mouth movers. I then sculpted a thickened silicone over the cotton, working it into the fibers, hoping it would be strong enough to hold and accomplish the needed gestures. As the silicone cured, held in place by some clothespins, I plopped in the eyeballs. Those were made from large wooden beads painted black and finished with a gloss coat.
The cables were fed down the pool noodle neck/ body and the whole thing was swaddled up in a great unicorn blanket.
If you read this far I want to thank you for your time. As I mentioned above, I learned so much throughout each step of this process and already know many things I will do differently next time, thanks to this project and the courses here on SWSCA.

Thank you!

P.S.
I was commissioned to make this alien baby puppet for an indie short film called “Happy Milk”.
The entire process from conception to shooting was approximately 6 months. The build (sculpture-finish) was done during my “free time” over the span of about two weeks.
I only made one functional puppet but used the first and second runs as stunt babies for some of the more destructive scenes. You can see the puppet and their and stunt double sharing a car seat on the set. I fed the cables through holes in the car seat and operated from just off camera, wherever I could hide.

p.p.s.
Sorry about the wacky order of the photos.

follow me on Instagram @samuel_bricker for my weird art and the full build video soon!