All Jacked Up And Full Of Worms - floating skin sacks
Ben Gojer
✭✭
in Fabrication
Hello! I made these skin sacks. I did a sculpt on top of a mannequin and then painted a couple layers of Dragon Skin FX-Pro on top of this sculpt. After it cured, I peeled the skin off. I attached it to a blower for an air dancer, you know, the things outside car dealerships? I want to make these skin sacks dance like air dancers. But they seem to be too heavy!
I made a plywood base and gave it a rubber gasket to cut out on air leak, but I'm guessing the air dancer won't be strong enough to make these guys dance like I want, since the air dancer isn't actually a compression system.
Maybe I should make something that can be air tight and then use a compression tank, like a fire extinguisher, to fill it with air? Any advice on how to make this a closed system? Basically I need some kind of adapter to get from a fire extinguisher hose to the base of my skin - that's a much larger diameter - the diameter of a human torso! Maybe I make a base plate for the torso that I can caulk to make air tight, and it's got a hole with a compression fitting in the center. I wonder though if I can really get this entire torso to stand up straight with the air from a single fire extinguisher? Also do I need to supplement this with some fishing line attached to the head of the skin sack to help it stand up straight rather than leaning off to the side?
The effect is supposed to be thus - the movie is about psychosis, and a man who has a psychotic break at the end of a relationship and gets addicted to eating psychoactive worms. One character gets so full of worms that he explodes into a geyser of worms, and then his skin is a hollow husk that floats to the floor. I'm trying to make a hollow skin sack that can float to the floor. Sort of like the husks in Under The Skin. But those are in water and I'm making something in air.
Any ideas for how to achieve this? Anybody know of similar effects in other movies that I can study for reference? Thank you! Go SWSCA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8cNmmX3no
I made a plywood base and gave it a rubber gasket to cut out on air leak, but I'm guessing the air dancer won't be strong enough to make these guys dance like I want, since the air dancer isn't actually a compression system.
Maybe I should make something that can be air tight and then use a compression tank, like a fire extinguisher, to fill it with air? Any advice on how to make this a closed system? Basically I need some kind of adapter to get from a fire extinguisher hose to the base of my skin - that's a much larger diameter - the diameter of a human torso! Maybe I make a base plate for the torso that I can caulk to make air tight, and it's got a hole with a compression fitting in the center. I wonder though if I can really get this entire torso to stand up straight with the air from a single fire extinguisher? Also do I need to supplement this with some fishing line attached to the head of the skin sack to help it stand up straight rather than leaning off to the side?
The effect is supposed to be thus - the movie is about psychosis, and a man who has a psychotic break at the end of a relationship and gets addicted to eating psychoactive worms. One character gets so full of worms that he explodes into a geyser of worms, and then his skin is a hollow husk that floats to the floor. I'm trying to make a hollow skin sack that can float to the floor. Sort of like the husks in Under The Skin. But those are in water and I'm making something in air.
Any ideas for how to achieve this? Anybody know of similar effects in other movies that I can study for reference? Thank you! Go SWSCA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8cNmmX3no0
Comments
If you can't produce enough pressure I would use some monofilament to help counterbalance things. If you run the line up to a pulley and some weights you could still allow for it to rise and fall naturally.
Otherwise I would try a lighter material like cap plastic. You may not be able to peel it off in one piece, as it does not have the stretch of silicone, but it could be patched together and would be quite light.
/Chris