Golden Crown

                                                             A Golden Crown for a New Year

I cannot lie...we fangirled out over this one. Hopefully all the Game of Thrones fans (or otherwise) out there dig what we're laying down. This simply could not sit on the computer until Sunday, so HAPPY BRIGHT NEW YEAR. 

To the stars

                                                             Infinity and Beyond

  

With our eyes on the stars and beyond we head into a bright shiny new year....Hope to see you there!

 

Merry Christmas!

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays xo

  See you in the new year with more FX eye candy!

 

William Tell

                                                     William Tell...the practice shots

Process of Goldification

                 A Few Process shots from the Gold Mining Look...and one painful post

#1 Making very thin hair ropes for tiny little people.  This was done using what can only be described as the cement of hair gel.

 #2 Rock ledges were adhered with a latex layer and built up using latex soaked cotton. Once soaked the cotton is pretty easily structured, pinched and pulled to create a rock-like surface. Ledges then received the gold paint treatment with water based face paint.

 #3 Paint paint paint...sparkle sparkle

#4 Time to start adding very tiny little people to this mountain (We kept them in place with spirit gum and sheer will power.  Success varied, they were a willful bunch)

#5 Added spray painted foil shaped around the head to look mountainous, green grass-scape, more gold glitter and tracks and were ready to go!

Aftermath

#4 ............................OWwwwww...ch

As always, this was really fun to put together and there is a lot to come so please catch up with us again here or visit any one of our spots below. Thanks for taking a peek and we hope to see you again :-)

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Gold Mining

                                                   Mining for Gold on Human Mountain

The Making Of... Angler Madness!

Hello all!

This is the making of... Angler Madness!

Ok, so we can start post off with a little PSA. We originally in the picture above were making a 

mer-like creature with awesome bright scales and it was going to be epic. But we made a little mistake. As you may be able to see my forehead scales are getting all mushy and stuff. So, when you are making fx gelatin, make sure you use 100% glycerin and not 100% glycerin soap. It still turned out really cool, but learn from our mistakes people! Moving on. 

Materials:

-Vaseline

-disposable makeup sponges

-cotton balls

-liquid latex (party stores, Halloween stores)

-toothpicks

-syringe

- gelatin (grocery stores, bulk stores)

- 100% glycerin (pharmacy)

-parchment paper

-food colouring

- acrylic paints

-paint brushes

-hot glue gun

-wire clothes hangar

-face paint

-spirit gum (party stores, Halloween stores)

First things first, angler fish have wicked jaw lines!

So, to start we made sure that we put Vaseline on the hair around where we were putting the jaw. That way when it is removed, those hairs are not violently ripped off. Also, we are going to use liquid latex here. So to be safe, you have to make sure you test it on your hand or something first, let it dry and sit there for a bit to make sure you are not going to have some type of reaction to it. If this happened on your face that would be bad, SO bad, and that's not good. Next, we used a disposable makeup sponge to add a few layers of liquid latex to the lower jaw area where we built up the jaw. We let that dry and then unrolled A LOT of cotton balls so that they were flat and rectangular-ish (Math term, very scientific). We then put another layer of the liquid latex on and while it was wet, placed the cotton on it. Next we took the same makeup sponge and saturated the cotton with the latex while it is on the face. Then we repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated (SO much repeating!) until we got our desired jaw length. We had to let this dry before we took it off, so we used a hair dryer but got kind of tired of it, so I just meandered around the house with my cotton beard until it felt dry.

SNACK BREAKS ARE IMPORTANT! 

(especially when you have a sister or niece to bake fresh cookies for you)

Ok, so removing the latex jaw beard was kind of painful, not going to lie. I moved my face muscles around a bit to loosen it up so it wouldn't be super stuck to my face. We also had to be very careful not to dent the jaw piece while taking it off. So, the reality of this is we kind of just ripped it off my face. We started by getting under the chin piece of the jaw because that is where it was coming off most. Then we took one of the sides and pretty much in one slow, foul swoop took it off from right to left. I was picking dried latex off my face for a bit after this.

Alright so now it is time to get toothy! 

We took unrolled cotton balls and dunked them in liquid latex. Then, we wrapped them around toothpicks and molded them into tooth shapes. We made sure that they all looked a little different. Some were big, some were small, some were crooked, some not, etc. While waiting for them to dry, we needed them to stand up so they would keep their shape, so we improvised and stuck them in the Vaseline tub.

THE SCALES!

Ok, to make the scales we needed to make fx gelatin. So, to do that we took one part gelatin, to one part glycerin, to 1 1/2 parts water in a plastic tub and stirred it. We then microwaved it for 10-15 second intervals until it was runny and had no lumps in it. Next, we laid out long pieces of parchment paper and one person took the syringe sucked up the gelatin mixture and plopped them into little dots (soon to be scales) on the paper in various sizes. 

The other person took food colouring and a toothpick and swirled the colour into the scale quickly before it dried. We used blues and greens and a little yellow. Some of them we used one colour, some we used more than that. Every scale was different! We also made sure we made A LOT of them so we would have enough to cover the jaw and the face.

The results looked like majestic melted marbles.

I suppose we could've added the colour before it was microwaved if we wanted the scales to look consistent, but we liked the fact that each one of our scales had a different effect. It turned out that each one had a really awesome and unique look to them. 

We also made gills because an angler's gotta breathe. We did that by making more fx gelatin and colouring it a pinky kind of colour. Then, we took the rim of a bowl and poured the gelatin around it so we would have the right shape for them. We added red food colouring before it dried so that we could make dark red lines that looked like veins in them with toothpicks. When they dried we peeled them off and put them aside.

Ok now to add the toothies. 

At first we thought we could just go all stab-stab and pierce the toothpicks through the jaw piece but the jaw was way too dense to do that (think back to all of that repeating earlier). So, we had to get a little creative on this one. We used the cotton and latex method again by placing the teeth where we wanted them in the jaw. Then, we just put the latex coated cotton over the toothpick to adhere it to the inside of the jaw piece and it seemed to work out well. We made sure we put the smaller teeth near the sides of the jaw and made the more longer and gnarly looking ones front and center!

So now it was time that we painted the jaw with our paint. We made the inside reddish-brownish so that it looked our angler had irritated gums in a serious gingivitis kind of way. The teeth were painted  in brown and red splotches near the roots and then moving towards the tips they got more yellowish in colour. Yep, angler fish don't floss, people. We then coated the skin portion where we were putting the scales with a light blue and green colour. We did this so it wouldn't show through as a bright pearly white under the scales, so there was no need to get all fancy with it.

 Now to add the scales to the jaw. We hot glued them to the jaw piece starting at the top, and working downwards layering the pieces over one another. We had to work fast for this part because the hot glue kind of melted the scales a little. If we let the individual scale sit too long with the hot glue blob on it, it would get all slip and slide on us and not stick. But that didn't happen a lot, it worked out pretty well as we had an assembly line of 6 hands.  Where the extra 2 came from we may never know. The jaw looked pretty sweet when it was done, and we may have felt pretty happy about that.

Now for the angler headpiece. We got someone to fashion a wire clothes hangar so that the hangar part would hold our little light. That's what happens when you meander by this kind of project.  INSTANT ENLISTMENT. The body part of it went around the head in a headband kind of fashion and the weight of it was held in place by my ponytail in the back. We smothered the stem and hangar part in greeny-blue fx gelatin as well as the little flashlight we were going to hang off of the hangar.

The base of the look for the face was done with water activated face paints and a makeup sponge stick. We used light and dark blues, blacks, and green as well as black eyeliner around the eyes.

The scales and gills were added to the face and neck using spirit gum and sometimes liquid latex if they were being stubborn and wouldn't stick. We made sure we put Vaseline on my eyebrows so they wouldn't get ripped off when the scales were removed as I use them for lifting and lowering quite a bit. The scales were mainly put on the forehead, the sides of the face and the apples of the cheeks. We made sure to not put any near where we would be putting the jaw.

The last step we did was to put it all together! We put latex and a piece of cotton on my face and put latex in the jaw piece. Then, we stuck it on the face and it worked perfectly. We were worried the weight would be an issue but cotton and latex works wonders apparently! 

Lastly we put on the angler headpiece and switched on the light! 

There you have it! Angler Madness!

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There's a lot to come so we hope to see you again...we appreciate your face and your time!

                                     Angler Madness!