THE DESIGN: Steampunk under the skin Part 2

DESIGN STATEMENT:

Part 1: I wanted to design a character inspired by the image on the top right. It started with the character in the top hat and exposed eyeball from Doctor Who and evolved from there into having attached metal pieces. I love the idea of a whole eyeball, classed up with a monocle attached to the face. I liked the idea of potentially adding a removed panel on the cheek to show that this character is a bit worn and what they might have under the skin. After developing the evocative design, the inside of the cheek may turn into more of mechanical jawbone and teeth instead of strictly gears. The monocle will have a piece of "glass" over it and the seams of the panels may be cast or drawn on depending on time constraint. I'm looking forward to this design tremendously as it is highly ambitious and a very full face of sculpting and casting plus using lots of found objects to make the cast perfect.

Part 2: After achieving the first look with the prosthetic, there was an option to add to the whole look, or improve the original. I chose to try to do a better prosthetic. I wanted to increase the flanges so there was more surface area to adhere to the skin and I wanted to make the edges look better against the skin.

RESEARCH

MAKEUP, MATERIALS, AND TOOLS

THE PROCESS

REFLECTION AND CRITIQUE

This time I had a little more of an idea on how long it might take me to complete 2.0 of this project, but it still took me longer, as the trend tends to show. I estimated maybe 3 hours to cast (not including curing time) and it took me more like 6 or 7. I chose to cast once. I skinned the mold, and the face mold, as the plaster mold didn't have enough room to build any flanges. Then I edged the face skin with vaseline leaving the eye area clear so the foam would adhear, but have a place to exit the mold still. After drying, I clipped the excess foam, and attempted to seal the skin from the prosthetic mold to the face skin. (This all sounds so wild while writing it out!) I used more silicone that had thickened up a little to help try to smooth the eye piece edges to the new flanges, but it turned out super bumpy. Instead of trying again, I chose to embrace it and made it grotesque. I chose to paint it up and turn the skin edges into a nightmare of a reaction to the metal piece shoved into her eye. It worked out rather well as it definitely looks nasty and irritated. I used fake blood in a textured pattern to give it somewhat of a burned, stretched, irritated look. When adhering it to my skin, I also chose skin-tite with some of the thyvax added to thicken it up and smoothed it all down to my skin. I spent extra time just messing with the edges until it sat right. I did not like the area over my lip and up next to my nose, but I struggled to get the last bit of skin-tite to cure up. It worked fine for this project, but if it was for theatre or film, I would consider a better adhesion to the lip and nose area. The rest of it blended so well, and I'm really proud of the final result.