Movie Monster Magic - part 2

You can find part one of this post, with it's scary scary monster, down thar.

So we have the finished mold... what are we going to do with it? Well, this!

That's one part black acrylic paint (I use a high quality artist paint but it doesn't really matter), one part bronze acrylic paint (you need to check this can be mixed because some metallic paints go back to their base colour when they're mixed - the base of bronze is grey if ya don't know) and 8 parts liquid brushing latex. I've also used a red acrylic paint/latex for the inside of the monsters mouth and white acrylic/latex for the teeth and claws but that's all covered with black in this shot.

Also, not that you can see it but there's artists wire mesh around the eyeballs (large white beads held into the mold with pins) so the eye surrounds will be manoeuvrable. Of course that's all been covered with brushing latex paint mix. Which makes the brushing latex about 5mm think in some parts. Anyone whose worked with brushing latex will know that's going to take YEEEEEEAAAARRRRSSSSS to dry all the way through... if at all. So what to do? What to do?

That's right! Put this whole thing in an oven. I use a little counter top oven for my latex baking which limits the size of any mould, hence creature, I can make. But that's unimportant, if you really want to make a big creature (with a lot more than two parts to the mold) just use a commercial oven. You'll find one for sure. More importantly though, for a latex cast of about 1cm thick you put the mold in the oven for roughly 3 hours at 60 degrees Celcius... that's like... 10800000 milliseconds at 140 Fahrenheit for the American crowd.

OK, now you've waited 14 and a half nanobots for your latex to dry, you're going to need these things... and if you're interested I'll even get around to telling you what they are!

First of all you want some prosthetic adhesive. I use Pros-Aid... because it's the only one I know. This stuff is used for sticking latex and silicon FX make-up to human skin.

But don't do that... because you need the release agent to make it let go. No-one wants to see you wandering around emergency with a ginormous nose attached to your... who am I kidding, GO FOR IT! It's also very good at sticking bits of latex to things... so I give the latex skin a thin coat to make sure it sticks to the foam (I know, what foam? You'll see).

You may also notice I'm wearing gloves in the picture above. It's not necessary for Pros-Aid but is for the foam. Just be careful you don't stick your latex glove to the latex skin of your monster when you're putting in the armature. This armature basically consists of two arms which are attached to bicycle brake levers (so they can be mechanically moved later) which feed down the puppet and through the legs and out a couple of metres to where the control box will sit.

There is also a spine that feeds into the nose of the puppet so the little fella can be posed properly. I also put a couple of extra pieces of armature wire in the legs to give them some extra rigidity.

And, I think that's about all I can stomach for part two... part 3 will follow shortly and will be all about putting foam inside the puppet and giving him the finishing touches.