We used the same techniques for this prosthetic as we did for the Zombie. They were both made the same year with mostly the same materials. The only difference was the addition of expanding latex foam for the monkey. We needed the foam because of the depth of the appliance. The monkey face stuck way out from Maggs face and needed filling so it wouldn't sag or cave in on her. We also decided we didn't want an appliance we had to spirit gum on. She wanted a mask she could wear and take off when she got hot or tired.
Here are the results and steps we took to get there.
We made a cast of Maggs face using plaster bandages. Remember the Vaseline on the hairline and eyebrows!!!
Jumping ahead a few steps to the sculpting process. Explained how we got the face positive in the zombie post. We used white plasticine for this one and it's hard to see it against the white plaster face pos of Maggs. Here is the rough out of the monkey. Just getting the basic size and shape right. She was greatly involved with this part of the sculpt.
You can see she's tired of making decisions here. I took over for a bit and did some detail. She watched and told me what she wanted. You can see here how far the sculpt sticks out from the face and why we needed the foam to reinforce the mask.
Some detail. We wanted to make a separate bottom jaw but decided later it looked pretty good without it.
It's really coming together here. Maggs helped make some of the little hair follicles and lip wrinkles too.
The cheek bits are hilarious, and I like the teeth. Maggie liked making the nostrils. She likes poking things in noses.
We made a cast of it at this point the same way we did the zombie prosthetic mold. Put the whole thing face up into a plastic bag lined box and put on a thin layer of Vaseline with a soft brush. Then we poured in some plaster and let it set. After we separated the two pieces we removed the plasticine sculpt so we just had the positive of Maggie's face and the mold of the whole prosthetic sculpt.
We drilled a hole in the face positive under the nose and above the top lip to relieve some of the pressure from the expanding foam. If you skip this step there is no where for the extra foam to go once it starts to expand and it ends up pushing the two molds apart.
We put three or four thin layers of latex on the inside of the prosthetic mold and the outside of the face positive to act as a skin for the foam. It's pretty pourous and doesn't look smooth.
Then we mixed up the foam, it was the first time using it, to say it reacts and starts expanding quickly is a vast understatement. It got HUGE immediately! So we poured the foam mix into the prosthetic mold and slapped the face positive into ot as fast as we could. We held it on there tight and wore gloves. The foam mix will stick to everything and never come off. Do this outside! It's smelly and if it gets on the good table there will be hell to pay.
Here is the mask piece after we removed it from the molds. It set up pretty quickly, like twenty minutes. Then we trimmed any extra latex off the piece with a razor.
Maggs is trying it on for size. Fit's great. She's such a monkey!
Here is the finished mask sewn onto the monkey costume. She wore it like a hood. We painted it with latex paint mixed with GAC 200 to keep it flexible. The ears were novelty ears we bought from a costume shop and painted out the same colours as the mask. We sewed them on too.
The only shot we have of Maggs wearing the suit. It had huge black feather wings, a red and blue vest and a fez. She was sweating so bad she couldn't keep up with the rest of the trick or treaters, but folkes loved the costume.
I found a few spare seconds to make my toes match my fingers.
I'm getting faster at these finicky roses. The more I do the easier they become. I sculpted these out of acrylic liquid and powder onto a practice nail wrapped in tape. I let 'em set up on the practice nail then glued them onto my nails. Makes it much easier to deal with the whole wrong hand issue. It's easy to do them using your dominant hand but the no dominant hand is an issue.
I used a ball of white powder dipped in pink to make the petals, and a ball pf white powder dipped in green for the leaves.
Despite the excessive cheesiness of these nails, I really like them. Like little disco balls on my fingertips. We'll see how long they last at the day job. I give em about three hours before all the stones are off.
They are the same sparkle tips as last time. I just did a fill with the pink mix I made, removed the lemon slices and added little white flower stickers........ oh and a ton of rhinestones.
Maggs has been trying her steady artistic hand at nail art also. Here are her bedazzled nails. She still chews, but not as often because of the polish.
Her toes match her nails. So cute!
We made Pavlova for my youngest daughter's sweet 16th birthday party.
We piled whipped cream and devon custard and fruit all over it in layers, then lit the candles.
Pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.
We let her cut the cake. No one else wanted to wreck it. It was so pretty. Tasted like it looked. Delicious!
How cool are these? I love them Way too much! They totally need names.
First you need to purchase 2, 2 pound packages of ground beef meduim, not lean.
This is the loaf after about 20 minutes of cooking. It was driving us crazy! We could smell it all over the house.
This is after 45 minutes. We had to check the middle to see if it was done. (Don't own a meat thermometer)
Looking right down into the depths of the cheesy bacon meaty goodness.
On the plate it looks a bit less greasy. I think it's because we added some cute little carrot balls to the side. The mashed potatoes sucked up some of the residual grease.
Maggs wasn't sure at first. But eventually decided it was pretty good meatloaf.
I managed to tuck into quite a respectably sized piece. Finished it all too.
We made a cast of his head so the prosthetic would fit him exactly.
Three layers of plaster bandage and twenty minutes is all it takes. If you have hair it gets more complicated. You have to wrap your head in a scull cap or use seran wrap to cover your hair first. Mr. Jimmy is shaved clean so it wasn't a problem to slather plaster on his head. I gave him an old towel so any excess water and plaster goo wouldn't go down his shirt.
This is the original sculpt of the brain. We tried to make a two part mold of this and it got stuck. We ended up ruining this sculpt and not being able to do the two part mold for this project.
Here it is from another angle so you can get the idea of what we did. I think there was too much suction because of the fabulously round ball shapedness of his head. It ended up turning out better because we didn't use this sculpt. I like the end result much better than this idea.
The finished prosthetic. We ended up coiling plasticine into worm shapes and laying them on his head positive. We put a thick band of plasticine around the bottom of the brain so it would look like it was holding the skin up.
I sprayed poor Mr. Jimmy in the face with some dollar store green hairspray. It's PERFECT! However in retrospect. I should have given him more breaks and time to breath. He got a bit woozie. Probably not the best idea to spray people in the face with aerosol products.
He's afraid to move here. Dizzy as all get out. Poor guy. But doesn't he look the most perfect shade of green?
I had just gotten a hair cut (Thanks Claude!) and we saved some of the hair to use for Mr. Jimmy's evil Genius beard. I glued it on with spirit gum. Had to be careful not to smudge off the glorious coat of green from his chin. It was tricky business.
You can see the wet spirit gum here. It dries pretty clear but remains shiny. I also had to add one more strand of hair to the center of the beard. He's looking pretty maniacal already.
Here he is in all his nerdy comic book glory. One of our best efforts I think.
We made the purple lab coat from scratch. We couldn't find a pattern so we had to alter a priests habit pattern. It was pretty tricky. The gloves we spray painted black. We couldn't find any black rubber gloves at the hardware store and left it till the last minute. He wore big black rubber boots also. Can't wait to start working on this years costumes.
Here we are totally enjoying ourselves at The Pete and CJ Halloween Bash! I was Harley Quin Bought the costume from E Bay and had to totally alter it. Stretch velveteen onsies never fit right.
Happy Villains! Love the Holidays.
We made a cast of Maggs face using plaster bandages. Remember the Vaseline on the hairline and eyebrows!!!
Jumping ahead a few steps to the sculpting process. Explained how we got the face positive in the zombie post. We used white plasticine for this one and it's hard to see it against the white plaster face pos of Maggs. Here is the rough out of the monkey. Just getting the basic size and shape right. She was greatly involved with this part of the sculpt.
You can see she's tired of making decisions here. I took over for a bit and did some detail. She watched and told me what she wanted. You can see here how far the sculpt sticks out from the face and why we needed the foam to reinforce the mask.
Some detail. We wanted to make a separate bottom jaw but decided later it looked pretty good without it.
It's really coming together here. Maggs helped make some of the little hair follicles and lip wrinkles too.
The cheek bits are hilarious, and I like the teeth. Maggie liked making the nostrils. She likes poking things in noses.
Here is the mask piece after we removed it from the molds. It set up pretty quickly, like twenty minutes. Then we trimmed any extra latex off the piece with a razor.
Maggs is trying it on for size. Fit's great. She's such a monkey!
Here is the finished mask sewn onto the monkey costume. She wore it like a hood. We painted it with latex paint mixed with GAC 200 to keep it flexible. The ears were novelty ears we bought from a costume shop and painted out the same colours as the mask. We sewed them on too.
The only shot we have of Maggs wearing the suit. It had huge black feather wings, a red and blue vest and a fez. She was sweating so bad she couldn't keep up with the rest of the trick or treaters, but folkes loved the costume.