Friday, August 10, 2007

Oh, Nose!

Sorry for the horrible pun in the title... I couldn't think of anything else really.

Anyway, on to the business at hand - Kate's wonderful costume at the Labyrinth Masquerade, and the makeup job I did as part of it. As some of you might know, I've been interning at American Makeup and Effects this summer, so I've picked up a lot of skills in terms of creating special effects makeup. So, both as a favor to Kate and as a way to experience the process of designing and creating a makeup effect from start to finish, I did this for her:



For those of you who don't know how something like this is made, I'll explain the steps. First, we did a lifecast of Kate's nose, using alginate (kinda like the stuff they mold your teeth with when you go to the dentist). This gives us a negative mold of the nose.

Next I poured ultra-cal (a really fine cement-like compound) to make a stone positive of the nose.


On top of the positive, I sculpted a plasteline clay version of what I wanted the nose appliance to look like. Then, I made another ultra-cal mold from the sculpt before destroying the sculpt and removing all of the clay from the positive. This creates a negative space where the clay used to be, between the two parts.


I mixed a silicone compound called 3rd Degree and put it between the two parts of the mold, thus forming it into the appliance. I applied it with a silicone-based adhesive called Telesis and I airbrushed white Temptu Dura makeup onto Kate's body. The little bolts were made of a lightweight resin and the rust drips were with Mehron metallic and precious gem powders. Finally, there was a light misting of a Skin Illustrator platinum colored makeup to give the whole thing a kind of shiny look.


The finished outfit and makeup: