Terminator skull covered with skin, looking for suggestions

[dropshipbob]

I have a 1:1 Terminator endoskull and I've been kicking around the idea of turning it into a bust complete with damaged skin, hair and partial clothes. I've never done anything like that before and I'm wondering if anyone with experience can give me some tips/tricks. I had thought about covering it with sculpey...perhaps mixing two colors together to get a natural skin-like tone, but it would have to be baked, and the skull is made out of resin that's only a few millimeters thick, so it might melt. Is there a better way of doing this? And I'd like to add a tiny bit of hair, not sure how to incorporate that if using sculpey.

I've only got the one skull, so if anyone has some suggestions, I'd really like to NOT screw this up if possible.

 

[thegnome]

Perhaps you can attach the hair in the freezer to equalize the temperature to be more even. Just a thought.

 

[dropshipbob]

I'm not sure I follow you.

 

[udog]

How damaged is the skin you´re after?. Latex can make good wounds, rotten or burnt skin etc. And the good thing is that you can peel it off if you don´t like it or if you get tired of it with no major damage (could bring off some paint depending on how good or old the paint finish of the skull is).
Another route could be sculpting, molding and attaching with latex or silicone.

 

[dropshipbob]

I'd say probably 50% of the face would be "damaged", if nothing else than to save me from having to do too much hair work. I'd rather stay away from latex/silicone as that would call for me to sculpt all of that on the skull, mold the whole thing and cast it in the appropriate material...which is way more work than I want to do and greatly outside of my skill set.

 

[dropshipbob]

All the experience and abilities on here and two replies are all I'm getting?

 

[PotionMistress]

I would be reluctant to suggest sculpey in your situation, as sculpey does shrink a little when firing...I think about 2-5%. What about a papier mache material...that is what all the wonderful mask-makers (like from Italy) use, and that is air dried.

 

[Mr Mold Maker]

If you want a translucent material, you don’t have many options outside of sculpting, molding, and casting. The temperatures needed to bake sculpey will almost certainly affect the resin.

You could use a lifecast mold and pull a silicone skin out, and then do a silicone build up around it to fabricate the skin. However, if sculpting and molding is outside of your comfort zone at the moment this may be as well.

If you don’t mind it being opaque, you can try Aves Apoxie sculpt. It’s a thickened epoxy putty made for sculpting. It might be the most user friendly approach as well.

 

[dropshipbob]

PotionMistress, I have worked with paper mache, the stuff that has a clay-like consistency. I do like it, but worried about it shrinking as well. Plus I'd have to paint it which would be difficult if hair had been inserted into the clay prior to drying...which is when I assumed it would have to be done.

Mr Mold Maker, it doesn't need to be translucent. The idea of using sculpey was to give it a skin color without having to resort to paint, as mentioned above, because I need to ass hair which would have to be done early on....preventing the use of paint. I have used Aves as well, but this is the first time I'd be sculpting facial features and I'll need all the working time I can get. Aves only allows a few hours at best.

 

[PotionMistress]

Yes, mache may crack and shrink a bit, but because it air dries, you can fill in cracks easily at any stage, add layers and sand as required. You can also tint it when it's still wet, which may require less painting afterward. But regardless, if you use sculpey or Apoxie Sculpt, you will probably still have to paint those also. I would certainly hold off inserting any hair until after you've reached the final stage of your finish. You can easily punch or drill small holes in mache, clay or Apoxie Sculpt. Unless you're working on a flexible plastic dollhead(like reborns), hole-punching hair may not be your best bet anyway. I've seen many dollmakers cut ridges in the top of the head in several places, glue large hanks of hair in these and then spread the hair in place over glued areas that they want covered, sort of like the way they make Japanese Hina dolls:

I think your only other options may be silicone or latex.

 

[Jamie Staff]

If it Helps.....

 

[dropshipbob]

Yes! That is very much like what I'd like to accomplish!

 

[udog]

What´s shown in the video is more or less what I was talking about above in my previous answer, but with latex (you would use cotton or similar to create volume) instead of silicone (more expensive), which is fine too, and more durable along the years.
You can also create skin textured sheets of latex or silicone and then cut and add as done in the video.

 

[Jamie Staff]

Yes! That is very much like what I'd like to accomplish!

Let me know if I can help

 

[The Terminator]

I just wanted to say that you can get skin colored latex without having to paint it after you're done

 

[dropshipbob]

I might have to do as was suggested by potionmistress earlier, use some sort of air drying clay to build up the face. I also had the idea of using a silicone mask of some sort and tearing parts of it out to expose the skull underneath, but I don't know how to paint such material to add battle damage, blood, etc. PLUS silicone masks aren't cheap, they usually run $500+. That's probably a bit more than I want to spend on this project.

 

[FreddySchramm]

I've never worked with this material so take it with a grain of salt. How about this sculptable air drying EVA foam clay? heres a link . As far as it being forgivable I've heard you have a lot of time to work with it and then before you paint you can give it a seal with modge podge and add any more additional textures.

 

[Jamie Staff]

The "paint" that I used was made using the common silicone, clear= translucent and wight= solid colours, to get the right consistency I use methylated spirits to thin it out, to colour it, is normal paint tints most hardware or paint shops will carry it, just make sure you get stuff that is suitable for water and/or oil based paints and remeber that a little goes a long way when mixing up your colours, the silicone to use is a roof and gutter type, it's the sort that doesn't smell like vingar.