Let's Hear It For the 25th of March 2016

Hello! I don't have a project to show off this week, but I do have a little more to say about the theater this week and a concept I'm looking forwards to trying my hand at with some new materials a friend offered up. More on that later, though.

Things have been moving steadily towards the new productions, at the theater- at least, towards the one I've been more involved with. I don't know how it went, but opening night was this Friday- hopefully, it went well. Because of that performance, this week's been tech week, when all the last details are hurriedly hammered out before audiences arrive. I helped paint more of the set, doing touch-up work more than anything, and also painted a few props. In doing so, I've gotten to learn a few cool techniques that actually could come in handy for a few special effects, so it was pretty interesting to learn. I also helped get more props for the show which turned out to be more complicated than one would think- ash trays in particular are surprisingly hard to find.

While I interned during the week, I also got to watch most of a run-through of the show, Glengary Glen Ross. It's a satire on salesmanship with an interesting plot and an honestly impressive amount of swearing, and getting to see it was nice.

On to my new idea. I mentioned back at the start of this that I wanted to create a steampunk effect, but the biggest problem with that was in what I had- or rather, what I lacked. Without gears and the like, it would have been difficult to create. Recently, though, a friend offered up a broken laptop for me to dismantle for pieces for a similar concept: cyberpunk. I've got all the parts I could need for it and more, so I've been beginning to consider some possibilities.I'll still need to do some concept research, but I'm pretty excited about trying it out, and taking apart a laptop has been more than a little fun too.

I did also do one little concept sketch for something a little less 3D than I normally do, inspired by the painting I'd been doing at the theater for a set meant to look like a Chinese restaurant. It's a little messy, but I'll post a picture- it's meant to be something of a dragon look. I doubt I'll take it further than this, but it's still an interesting possibility, with the right materials.


That's all for this week! Talk again next week, and I'll hopefully have more to show then!

Title of Post, the 3/18/16ish Edition

Hello once again! I'm back from break with another makeup piece! I didn't get two done this week, but I did manage to get together the most difficult piece, in my eyes, that I've made so far. I'll talk about that in a bit.

Things have been going well at the theater: Desert Stages is headed towards the start of several new performances, and I've gotten to help paint the walls of the newly emptied theater to prepare for the new set that will come with a new show, Glengarry Glen Ross. It's been interesting to watch the prep for a coming show: there's a lot to do, from making sets to finding props and costumes to deciding how set pieces should be laid out on the stage. I've watched a stage go from two floors to one, with the removal of a stage build, and it's been really cool to see how much a space can change with a few things added and removed.

As for makeup, this week I had a little help from a friend. (Thanks Skye!) The piece I made is meant as part of a zombie look, though it's the only piece I made. My initial plan was to try to make her up entirely as a zombie, but I underestimated the time it would take by quite a lot before I actually began.

One thing I haven't addressed much so far is time, so maybe I should talk about it now. Making makeup effects isn't fast. To give some context, here's a list of approximate times:
The bandage-and-blood effect from last week is the fastest thing I know how to make- it only takes as long as it takes to wind bandages and let fluid drip- but anything more intensive takes time. A small bruise can take five to ten minutes, but a bigger one or a darker one or one in more complicated shapes (like hand-prints) can take upwards of thirty minutes. A cut or bite done only in colour can take anywhere from twenty to fourty minutes, if there are no breaks and no mistakes. Anything with latex involved takes longer- the liquid has to dry before it can be shaped or coloured, and when latex is mixed with cotton, that can take at least ten minutes, if not more. A small burn effect, made with latex and colour, can take thirty to fourty minutes, and bigger ones can take more than an hour. The missing eye effect I made took two hours, and the broken bone one took about four, including the time spent forming the bone. When I last made a zombie effect, I had to work on two people at once, but three latex injuries on one person and two and a quick bandage on the other, together with getting everything zombie coloured, took three hours. Anything more detailed would take longer.

The effect I made this week took seven hours total to make (not including the one to two hours of research time): three to make the bones, and four for the actual application, only made possible by the fact that my model was willing to stay still for that long. To create a full zombie effect around this, it would likely take something closer to five or six hours, so as much as I'd like to have done that, it wasn't possible at present.

To the actual makeup, though. I was hoping to create an exposed spine effect- maybe from an injury to a zombie's back or maybe because the skin got too damaged and split. I'll say this ahead of time so I don't get comments on it- because of the placement, there will be pictures of a back.

 Here's a picture of the finished product!



Now to its creation!

The steps this time were very similar to those needed for the broken leg effect. First, I had to make the bones. This was a lot of where the research came in: I had to figure out how to shape the clay I used into thoracic vertebrae and how they would overlap. I made each of the bones separately so they could move together better, but this did take quite a bit of time and effort, and in the end, I did have to make one more bone to make everything fit right. Here's the bones uncolored, first:

 

Then made to look more like bone:

 

And finally, made to look a little bloodied. I did this, for this one, because I knew that once the spine was in place, there would be a lot of places I couldn't reach to colour.

           

Once the bones have been made, they can be applied whenever.

The next step, when we got going, was to make a latex and cotton base for the piece that would hold the bones in. Here's the piece in a few stages:


The important thing in this step was less the appearance of the pocket and more its ability to hold the bones, so thought this may look messy, it doesn't matter later on. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any pictures of the hole with the inside coloured in, which was the next step, but it looked a lot like the leg wound one did at this stage.
After that came fitting the bones into the latex. This took a little doing, because I made one fewer bone than I should have. To fix this, I made a partial bone to go under the last fully formed one- if you look, it's visible at this stage, in the side-view pictures..

 

Next came the wax. Here, it was even more important than in he broken leg effect- because I made the spine come out so much, I had to try to make it look like the vertebrae at the top and bottom continued under the skin. Unfortunately, I'm not certain I was entirely successful, but at least I know for any future attempts I might make.
Here's with the wax:

Then, with colour added:

 

The next step is where things get new. I tried a new way of making skin look like a zombie's by dappling colour with a wedge. Here's the result:





















The last steps were the usual: blood, in two forms. First came gel blood.

 

Then, last of all, liquid blood.

          


There's the step by step! The appliance itself turned out well, too. Even once it was off, it was pretty cool to look at.

 

Thanks for reading, as always! This one got pretty long, but I wanted to give another step-by-step. Thanks again to my model- this piece took a lot of patience to sit (lay) through.
Until next time!

Spring break.

[insert vaguely/not particularly witty title referencing 3/4/16 here]

Hello! Another week has passed, and though I still don't have much to say about the theater, I do have a few more things to post. I've decided I'm going to try for at least two effects a week- one more complicated one, and one faster, simpler one that can be made in about 10 minutes or less.

Things in the theater haven't changed much since last week. We've been working more on organizing the prop rooms, which means a lot of moving things back and forth between the big prop room, the smaller one, and the little hall between them. Back to the 80s and Brighton Beach, the two shows that have been on since I first started at Desert Stages, are still going, but they both seem to be on their ways to winding down- the next two shows are already in rehearsals, and we've been finding props for them both. Most of the rest of my time is spent in the back office, observing the goings-on of the theater.

As for makeup, I decided to revisit an old project with some new techniques. A while back, I tried a missing eye effect, and while it turned out fairly well, there were some flaws. I can't get a picture here, but it's on my website. The biggest problem I found was that liquid latex isn't meant for application near eyes, so I tried using another adhesive- specifically, fake eyelash glue- for sticking down the construction paper that covered my eye to cover and protect it, then used wax to cover the edges and make the shape of the eye. There are still some flaws in this one, but here's a few pictures of the final product, with and without blood.

I took some pictures along the way like last time, so I'll put those below.
I started by cutting out a circle of black construction paper big enough to cover my eye and eyelids and glued down the edges with eyelash glue.

Once that was down, I covered the edges with wax and began making the shape of the eyelids- mostly the top one.

Once I had it cleaned up some, I began adding colour- black and red in the center, and red and dark red around the edges, to simulate depth. I also added some shading to the wax forming the upper eyelid, to try to make it more similar to the other eye. Because I was having some trouble with the lower lid, I decided to try to make it look like it had been torn away, instead. Once the colours were done, I added gel fake blood and red around, for inflammation.


The last step, as with last time, was the blood- as seen above, but I'll add one more picture:

For a simpler effect, I made one I've used before a few times- a bandaged wound effect. All it takes is some kind of gauze and fake blood, and there are only two steps: wrapping the bandage (or bandages, for a larger area) around what will be the wound site, and pouring the fake blood on the dressing over wherever you want the deep part of the wound to be. I went with a stomach wound, for the sample one I made, but it honestly works just about anywhere.

It takes all of five minutes, so it's a great thing to add to a zombie or zombie-survivor kind of costume or to add a little drama to something without having to take the two-to-three hours to make something more 3D.

That's all I have for this week, but I hope it was interesting. I'll be back the week after next, if I haven't made anything in the next week!