On Thursday, I rang a place in Auckland called BodyFX. I asked them some questions including ‘What do you need to make a prosthetic makeup?’ and ‘Do you have anyone who could teach me either in person or over Skype?’ I found out that their boss, Nicole Heydenrijk, was in Christchurch and might be able to see me! After a lot more phone calls, it was organised for me to go and see her at the Design and Arts College at 6:00pm.
When we got there, I asked her some questions. I asked ‘What do you use to make the prosthetic makeup?’ Nicole said that they use foam latex a lot of the time but it’s not easy to make at home. They also use silicon, which is much heavier, and liquid latex. She suggested that I use Gel-effects because it’s quite easy.
I also asked how you make the clay mould into a prosthetic, and she said that you make a plaster cast of it, but you have to put a layer of clay round the edge and cover any plaster with vaseline so it doesn’t stick. Then you clean out all the clay and press the plaster cast you just made onto the plaster cast of the face with Gel-effects/foam latex/whatever in between.
Finally, she took a cast of my face! I wore a bald cap to cover my hair which looked ridiculous. Then I had this stuff called Alginate, which starts purple, then turns pink and white as it cools down, put all over my face (except my nose so I could breath). Once it turned white, she put plaster bandage to reinforce it. I couldn’t move my face or see while this was happening. Then, once the plaster turned warm, Nicole got me to wriggle my face and we got the cast off. Then to make something that I could sculpt on, we filled it with plaster. We left before it set so we picked it up on Friday.
It was a really good trip, and I learnt heaps. I was really glad that I went and so thankful to Nicole for teaching me.
Here are some photos. I couldn't upload the video because it was too big, sorry.
