I had the great privilege to be asked to teach some masters degree students at Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich, Germany recently.
I had a splendid time! The three students I worked with all had ambitious, figurative projects which they had been working on for some weeks when I arrived for my five day stint there.
- Daniel Riedl had made a full-size figure leaning out of a bath and was in the final sculpting stages preparing to make ready for moulding.
- Julian Hutcheson had just moulded his sculpt of a male torso, and in the week we mixed and cast out the silicone in the chosen flesh tone (Moldstar 20 from Smooth-On).
- Caterina Veronesi had sculpted a scale figure of herself which will be cast in silicone and was also in the final sculpting stages and preparing to make the mould.
We had a great group chat to discuss how things work there, the education system (It's a free, government paid education which requires an extensive interview process which is a completely different model to the business-style version most makeup education systems work to) and the expected quality of work such a system produces.
One great project they had was to take classic roman marble sculptures and create realistic portrait busts based on them. This was a great project as it revealed the licence artists took to portray an idealised version of someone who perhaps would really have been a good deal less attractive in reality - the photoshop of it's day.
By studying the people depicted, discrepencies between reported ages and health reveal how much the idealised versions deviated from reality.
Pic: The original marble bust (left)and lifelike interpretation by Julian Hutcheson (right).
We also chat about how important beer is, making your own silicone wig blocks, using Monster Clay in a cold environment as well as the re-emerging point of the unavoidable trinity in all creative endeavours:
“Good – Quick – Cheap...Pick two because you can’t have all three“.
Dividing up large appliances
Michael Pennington got in touch through our email (stuartandtodd@gmail.com) with a question about how best to know where one should divide up appliance sculpts to break them down into smaller pieces. As Todd points out, much of this is a hangover from foam latex and the shrinkage which was inevitable with that material.
Silicone howver has none of these shrinkage issues, so we don't always need to divide it in the same way. That said, there are often good reasons to make a large appliance makeup into smaller, more manageable pieces.
The most logical place to do this is where the sculpture is at it's thinnest, and to try and keep edges in easier-to-hide areas where possible, such as where there is naturally a crease or shadow.
This was covered in more detail in a post from a while back, 'Floating Pieces' where you will also find a workbook with lots of in-depth information:
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'Cheap Cheap Cheap' shouldn't be 'Shit Shit Shit'
Whenever we do a video tutorial, I can guarantee that someone will want to do it for less money. This is of course an inevitable occurance, as it is quite sensible to not spend money you don't need to.
However, there does come a point where substitutuing can become so obsessive that eventually the end result can just look like a pile of crap.
I do a wax scar, someone wants to make their own wax becasue it's too expensive.
If I had a makeup using good wishes and exhaled air, someone somewhere would want to economise on that somehow. (I know of people who have made their own wax, but if you don't put a dollar value on your time or you seriously have a great idea to improve it then fine - but to me wax IS the cheaper and quicker way compared to sculpting, moulding and casting an appliance!)
Whilst it is true that skill will 'work well with anything', I can assure you top pro makeup kits do not have packs of cured meats and jam instead of makeup products to use on their screen talent. If mashed banana looks just right for fat, or pus or brains then fantatsic.
Just don't extend that to 'I'll never need to buy another makeup product again'.
Once you've seen outsandingmakeup work done firsthand, then your priorities change. You decide instead of trying to do something as quick and cheap as possible, you would rather try and do something as good as possible.
Like that trinity of choices above, pick two and decide which you would rather have in your portfolio.
Latex is a material that often gets used in colleges because it is cheap and easy to get. Howver, it requires more skill to paint it to appear like real skin than silicone appliances, so there is always a trade off.
We would encourage you to get good at using cheap materials on a small scale, and then gradually scale up as you improve. Beware clickbait and attention grabbing use of foodstuffs - if there was a way of not buying makeup then we can assure you working professionals would be the first in line at the grocery store!
Jam may be fine for a kids halloween party, but it won't do you any favours in a working portfolio.
Till next time.
Stuart & Todd
Seven hours is a big time difference to deal with when trying to synchronise a podcast with two people.
To help with that, Todd and I figured adding some extra single features to help keep the show moving.
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At Pinewood studios, I was teaching a great class which had me thinking a lot about what we teach and why. I seized the moment to share my observations which briefly were:
- When and why to premake pieces way in advance versus fabricating something up directly onto the skin.
- The difference between knowing about something and mastering it.
- Keeping a record of your efforts when trying to solve a problem.
- It's hard to be subtle - heavy handed is way easier to do.
- The importance of mixing the correct base tone to your appliance material.
- Making v buying fake blood.
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Links you may find useful which were mentioned:
Rob Smith - Blood Podcast Part 1
Rob Smith - Blood Podcast Part 2
Maekup - David Stoneman's FX materials range
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Questions or comments either on the blog, the facebook page or email us direct stuartandtodd@gmail.com
Until next time,
Stuart
Most people learn techniques and perfect them.
Some people then take those techniques and look at what can be improved.
Sangeet falls into this camp.
He is now pretty well known for creating high quality prosthetic transfers, moulds made which contain the appliances and are used directly in their application.
As far as I can ascertain, this system was developed by Conor O'Sullivan and Rob Trenton and involves making silicone mould inserts which contain the appliances during application, speeding up the process in the chair and allowing multiple appliances to be run from the same sculpt.
Sangeet has taken this process and developed many techniques and methods to push it even further. The transfer technique involves a lot of moulding and remoulding, and is not for the faint of heart but the results can be fantastic.
Check out his website studiosangeet.com/ and his range of anatomivcally accurate injury appliance flat moulds.
I chatted with Sangeet in his home studio in North London, and we spent four hours talking about moulds, standing on the shoulders of giants, using old-school materials in new ways. We covered a number of topics, including:
- Parental influences, how you absorb things you see in your parents rather than were actively shown, especially seeing them at work and learning to problem solve.
- Using simple materials in a more effective way.
- Seth Godin – what is school for. (Video: STOP STEALING DREAMS: On the future of education & what we can do about it).
- Scott Sigler, horror author https://scottsigler.com/
- Why simply knowing good techniques doesn’t make you a good artist.
- Art v Craft - Grayson Perry http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03969vt. (Grayson did a number of amazing lectures with the BBC called 'Playing to the Gallery'. I'd urge you to track them down to listen. )
- Grayson Perry documentary 'All Man' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrC0i4pXak
- Howard Finster artist: http://www.finster.com/
- The Falstaff inflatable makeup from 1911, from Popular Mechanics. (It actually used silk, not cotton as I said in the podcast).
- Mouldmakers – Carl Lyon (https://www.instagram.com/carllyonfx/), (http://vvdfx.com/)
- Rob Freitas (https://www.instagram.com/freighttrain_moldmaker/) and his interview with Gunnar Ferdinandsen: https://vimeo.com/68578907
- Brian Best http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0078907/
- Blender, free and open source 3D software: https://www.blender.org/
- Artes Mechanicae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artes_Mechanicae
- The baggage from deifying techniques.
- VFX and production are not living in the past, but looking forward.
- Langers Lines – directions of skin tension: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer%27s_lines
- Compare also with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraissl%27s_lines and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaschko%27s_lines
- Newtonian Fluid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonian_fluid
- 3M and material development.
- The benefits of a folio of failures.
- Overusing appliances rather than working with the face.
- Incredible prosthetic artist Floris Schuller http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0776047/
- Acylic Polymers - Jesmonite, AcrylicOne, Forton MG
- I mentioned a plaster here in the UK called Alpha K.
- Dave Parvin, artist, who incidentally wrote a fantatsic series of articles collated in the book 'The Casting of Angels'.
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- Stuart & Todd