Hedgehogs Rule!

So I've decided to make a hedgehog costume. "Why?" you might ask. First off because hedgehogs are just so dang cute! Also, by working on this costume side project I will be able to explore many of the materials frequently used at work that I am less familiar with. This project is a mean of exploring and practicing some new (and some out-of-practice...ahem) costuming techniques.

For starters I've sculpted the head and molded it in perforated aquaplast.

Yes, Faux Feathers! Yes!

 Finally, I've managed to come up with a way to make faux feathers that I am just about completely satisfied with. I'm still keeping the specifics under wraps but the gist of it is such: I've switched from fabric to foam.

"Celaeno" Dark Angel Wings available at TruWings

The results are:
1. Saved Time by Not laminating with glues or epoxies and waiting for the multiple layers of fabric to dry, hoping there wont be air bubble spots on the reverse side.
2. Shape. Finally achieved a compound curve, the shape I've been striving to achieve for months now.
3. Texture. I'm still playing with this one, and I think I've got it right on the next batch of white feathers.
4. Durable and still super light weight. Maybe not more durable than laminated fabric but certainly more crowd friendly. Flexible and forgiving.
5. Color. Okay so the black is still not as black as I would like. It's an issue of reflectivity. Real feathers reflect light in a manner which is extremely difficult to replicate accurately in black. This is why I started with black, knowing it would be more difficult to get a satisfying result than working with white.

Pink & Lilac Fairy

Pink Fairy wings available at TruWings

Headless Body: Completed

Severed Neck Detailing

And for the final touches: make it gross. Cloton's head was cut off so, it needed to look like such. I built up the neck with various blocks and coils of upholstery foam. The esophagus was a bit of carved down pipe foam. The bit of spine was simply a piece of white felt cut to shape and given some dimension and sheen with hot melt glue. More hot melt glue was generously.

The painting got a little tricky since one type of paint would stick to the latex but not the glue and the other type of paint would stick to the glue and not the latex. I found that I could apply the first paint and wipe it off wherever it wasn't going to stick and repeat the process with the second paint. This seamed to work alright. In any case everything got tinted and didn't seem to rub off excessively anywhere. I knew that more paint and reel blood was going to be added later anyhow.

Oh yes, the neck also needed to have a hollow in it which I built into the esophagus. In the production of Cymbeline, grief stricken Imogen marks herself with blood from the body, thinking it's the body of Posthumus. Therefore we tucked a little squeezey-toy full of reel blood into the neck of the body so it would be easy for the actor to access without leaking fake blood all over stage.

In the end the fake body still looked like a fake body, BUT it was a pretty darn good fake body with a pretty darn gross severed neck. Hopefully it will see some stage time again in the future.

Headless Body: Skin

Headless Body with Top Coat

Nearly completed now. With all the foam and poly batting in place to build out the form, the headless body was ready for skin. Nylon is the easiest and least expensive material I have found for making skin. We had a lot of large pairs of nylon tights in stock in the shop so I just took a couple pairs and with some whip stitching and clever wrapping I was able to cover the whole body in two layers of nylon quickly and easily.

As a final step in building the skin layer I coated the nylon with a thinned down layer of latex. In retrospect I ought to have skipped this step as it greatly reduced flexibility. I later had to cut back into the form and remove some of the padding to regain the lost flexibility. The intention was to make the nylon a little more durable so that it wouldn't snag and run. The thought was good but the material needs to be even more stretchy or more lightly applied than the latex I used.

Demonstration of Flexibility

Headless Body: Padding

Headless Body with Polyester Batting

After the frame was completed I started to build up the form. Starting with the torso I placed layer upon layer of poly batting to build out a sort of simplified musculature. The arms and legs needed quite a bit more padding than the torso So I began building out the limbs with some cheap 1" upholstery foam. Fabri-tac and hot glue held it all in place. I didn't worry to much about using a super permanent adhesive since I knew that all the layers would be held in place with the final skin.

Headless Body: Fiberglass

Fiberglass Ribcage on Mannequin

After the wooden limbs were built it was time to start making the torso. I began by constructing the rib cage and shoulders using laminated fiberglass and semi rigid polyurethane. I wanted the rib cage to have a little bit of flexibility so I used only woven fiberglass. For the collar bone, sternum, shoulders and shoulder blades I used an additional heavy layer of mat fiberglass.
The piece was removed from the model by cutting up the back and sealing the seam with a strip of mat fiberglass.

Seraph Prosthetic Finalized

Seraph Prosthetic Completed

The final step in finishing up the silicone prosthetic was to paint the surface with Psycho Paint and gold casting powder. The base color was a darker gold and the high relief surfaces were highlighted with straight gold.


The piece was finally applied with prosthetic adhesive for fit testing.
(The color of the dress and headdress in the final fit images were digitally altered to match the palette for the Seraph costume design. The prosthetic appears as is.)

Prosthetic Casting

Seraph Silicone Prosthetic Model and Mold

Demolding the plasticine model was a breeze since I had decided to use a universal mold release spray. The plasticine would not have stuck to the plaster too badly had I forgotten this step, but because I remembered the model came out cleanly. I would be able to touch-up the model and remake the mold if necessary and also didn't have to take much time cleaning up the mold before casting.

Silicone Prosthetic Samples

With the plaster mold cleaned with soap and water and sprayed with universal mold release I was ready to start casting. I did a few quick samples first to figure out the proportion of metallic powders to silicone pigment.

Seraph Silicone Prosthetic Cast #4

Once I'd determined what proportions I needed to get the correct base color I cast the entire piece in one batch. It took four tries to get a successful casting. The first time I did not mix enough to make the whole piece in one batch. The second and third time the silicone was not mixed thoroughly and parts of the casting did not cure properly. With such a small application of silicone in such thin sections it was crucial that the silicone be really thoroughly mixed. I realized I'd forgotten to double pour - this is when the two part of the casting material are poured together and mixed, then poured into a second container and mixed again. This solved the curing issues and the fourth cast was completely successful. The silicone was easily demolded from the plaster mold. The edges were then all trimmed.

Plaster Mold Making

Seraph Silicone Prosthetic Model in Final Stages

With the last of the carving completed and the hard edges softened with denatured alcohol it was time to make the mold.

Fiber Reinforced Plaster Mold

The material for the mold depends upon both the model material and the casting material. The model was a non-sulfur plasticine which is compatible with just about everything. The casting material was silicone so it made the most sense to make the mold out of a rigid material. I could have used a resin but it was less expensive to just use fiber reinforced plaster - which I already had on hand.

Detailed Modeling

Seraph Silicone Prosthetic Model Detail

After the form for the silicone prosthetic was blocked out I began to carve back the excess clay, modeling a more precise outline and smoothing the form. I only carved a small section at first to get an idea where I was heading with it.

Seraph Silicone Prosthetic Left Half

Before I got too far ahead of myself I flipped the design and finished blocking out the other half in clay. I decided to make one complete piece rather than a left and right half. I didn't want the hassle of lining up seams.

Plasticine Modeling

Seraph Prosthetic Designs
left: mid process, right: final design

The next step in building the Seraph silicone prosthetic was to sketch out a fully realized design based on the flat pattern.

Seraph Prosthetic Plasticine Model

The design was taped under a piece of plexi on top of which I began to model the prosthetic piece in plasticine clay. When modeling I prefer to start out heavy handed and carve back the excess.

Back At It

Seraph silicone appliance

It's high time this blog was back up and running. I'll make an effort to play a bit of catch up posting the most interesting projects that have come and gone over the past several months. But to start with, here's a little something I just finished today.

I've been working on a new costume which may or may not ever be completed. The costume is that of a seraph (6-winged angel - name meaning "fiery one") It is an art nouveau inspired design.

Seraph silicone appliance sketch

I decided to start with building the silicone facial prosthetic since it's the sort of work I haven't done before and new materials are always fun. I figured that even if I don't get to making the rest of the costume I must at least create this piece of it. It all started with a sketch.

The Phoenix: Halloween 2010

Phoenix Costume 2010

I've finished the Phoenix Costume. It took a total of approximately 250-300 hours over 5 months to complete and, a mere $600 for absolutely everything.

I attended Elliot in the Morning's Halloween Bash 2010 in Clarendon VA on Oct 29th. I was awarded first place in the audience judged costume competition. The competition was run very professionally and handled smoothly. It was a wonderful event to attend and there were many very skilled costumers at the event. This party is the only in the DC area I've found that takes their competition seriously, even though it does not boast the largest prize. Venue, people, and party were great.

Phoenix Costume at Elliot in the Morning's Halloween Bash

Expect many more pictures and video clips to come!
I've held back on releasing any in-process information on this costume until after the competition as is always wise to do when competing when you don't know who else is on the field with you. As such, I've a flood of in-process photos and tips & tricks on how I created this costume, my most elaborate to date.

FAQs
Yes, that is me in the costume
Yes, I made everything that I am wearing with the exception of the stilts
No, it is not heavy. the wings are about 10-15lbs, like a moderately filled backpack
No, I'm not from Harry Potter (although I do enjoy the books) The Phoenix is a long time favorite symbol for me. I've worked with the imagery in multiple media on many occasions and have not grown weary of the subject yet.

Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel: Mary Anne

One of my favorite assignments this past summer was creating the shovels for the Kiddstuff show, “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.” I really enjoyed working on the Kids shows which generally involved over-size and/or quirky and imaginative “junk art” pieces.

The script for our production of “Mike Mulligan” included four different kinds of shovels: Mary Anne – Mike’s steam shovel, Diesel, Electric and Nuclear shovels. Mary Anne was a straight forward design. The others allowed me to be a little more inventive since well, who knows what a nuclear shovel should look like anyway?

Welcome to Edinburgh

Our first mainstage show, "The 39 Steps" required a lot of scenic props pretty much all of which were on casters: door frames, window frames, sign posts, and window & door add-ons. For the most part Tyler made the scenic props, but I did play my part by taking care of the surface treatment.

My favorite were the signs for "Edinburgh" and "Alt Na Shelach." The reason they were fun: 1/4" blue foam. It's been our friend for a number of projects this summer. SO much easier to cut letters out of blue foam then to try using a scroll saw (which we don't have).

The Phoenix Begins

Phoenix Mask

Surprise, surprise, as busy as I am at the hangar this season I've still got a few side projects going on. For one, I'm already working on next year's Halloween costume (shock!), oh and, it has wings too. (of course)

I'll be living in an area with some pretty major costume contests this Halloween. Not only would it be a great publicity opportunity but, it may also help fund my graduate education *fingers crossed*

My first idea was to create a harpy costume but, I changed my mind and decided to work with a more familiar subject: a phoenix. For many reasons the phoenix is a better choice for me including...
- imagery, color palette & materials with which I'm very familiar
- more "flashy" and attention grabbing than a black harpy
- as much as I'm fascinated by dark imagery, I do not want to glorify it. The Angel of Death costume is quite dark and scary...As It Should Be! It was a portrayal of a terrifying yet beautiful character (which according to my own interpretation is in actuality a servant of God, not evil.) On the other hand, a harpy would simply be, um, dark and scary for darkness sake. It would be cool but not necessarily good - for me at least.

So, the first part I started to work on was the mask. I began with an oil-based clay model.

Exploding Sticky Fish!

First show of the season at Hangar Theatre and, once again, I found myself making fake fish. It was fun having the chance to revisit an old assignment and see if I could “do one better.” Consequently, what could be better than EXPLODING STICKY FISH!

Instead of searching endlessly for an acceptable, anatomically accurate-ish toy fish, I just built one out of clay. The plan was to make a plaster mold and from that create a latex fish. The first attempt was the most memorable. I set a few layers of brush on latex then, filled the whole fish with a sloppy mixture of latex and sand (knowing full well that it would take a long time to dry but, have a very realistic weight, feel, and “floppiness”) The outer layers cured in less than an hour and with the fish named “Roger” looking pretty good I popped him in the toaster oven (referred to as the easy-bake-fish-oven). Heat will hasten the curing of latex with little side effects, oh, unless it’s also packed full of sand in which case the unset innards will expand at an alarming rate, bursting through the thin seams and spilling all over the easy-bake-fish-oven-easy-removal-drip-tray. Thus is this summer’s fish story. Roger now decorates Adam's (ATD) work space.

The fake gutted fish was a very convincing piece of propage especially when it was still hot out of the oven and all squeezy inside. Seeing as how a fake gutted fish was not called for in “The 39 Steps” prop list though, I made a second fish, this time with just a latex skin, fully cured in the oven, then filled with poly fiber and sand - you know - the normal way to make fake fish. La Sigh….the other way was more fun.

Soon to follow: pictures of the actual exploding sticky fish – this one is the fish used in the show.

The Great Blue Heron: Pt. 2

Here is the very nearly completed model of the great blue heron. The legs are sketched in and the feet have yet to be added, other than that, the rest is finished. The body will be cast separately from the feet.

The Great Blue Heron: Pt. 1

I’m long overdue on giving an update on the work I’ve been doing. One project in particular that I’ve invested a lot of time on I’ve had to wait to reveal online as it was commissioned by my grandmother for my grandfather’s birthday.
I have been asked to make a great blue heron garden sculpture. I decided to make a cast resin piece that stands 27” high. I chose to model in oil-based clay, which I would then make a mold of in silicone. From the mold I will cast the final resin piece.

The base structure didn’t look like much to begin with. I started out with just a soda bottle and some pipe insulation.

I then built up the form using one of my favorite understructure materials, spray insulation (Great Stuff).

I then began building out the form in clay. This was a very time consuming part of the process as I had to soften the clay in order to work with it, and it always seemed I needed to add more.

Once the major forms were where I wanted them I began adding minor forms such as the primary feathers, tail, and beak.

After that the real fun began: Details! Here I’ve started adding the strand of feathers around the neck and belly and penciling in the detail on the head.

I really got into the detail work. More to follow soon.