Hi Folks,
I've not really posted on the RPF much before so I thought it was about time I stuck one up for a project I've just recently completed.
A bit of background:
For the past couple of years I've been researching, and working on trying to create a "movie accurate" recreation of "Lord Voldemort" from the Harry Potter films (specifically, Lord Voldemort as he appears in "The Order of the Phoenix")
Before starting the project, I didn't have the foggiest about where to even start (and I'm not an arty person by any means!) so not only was this the 1st time a movie accurate version had been attempted, it was also the first time I'd ever attempted anything like this, so to say I was well and truely outside of my comfort zone would be something of an understatement!
As a result, a lot of what you see throughout the following thread is a colmination of help and advice from lots of people without who, this project would never have happened.
Anyway enough waffle - on with the project!
I'd posted bits of the project build in various different places, but nowhere has it in 1 single continuous thread, so what I've tried to do here is show some of the main steps / landmarks. (It would be insane to provide a full photo history, so I'll try to edit stuff which don't really help tell the story)
(Disclaimer - as there are steps and info missing this is NOT meant to be a tutorial! It's only to help show some of the main steps in the hope that a) it may be of interest, and b) help other "newbies" like myself get an overview of the entire process!)
Here goes:
Stage 1 - the Lifecast:
I had 2 lifecasts done. The 1st one was in "bodydouble" (silicone) but it went slightly wrong so I ended up having to get it re-done, but we re-did it in alginate as it's a lot cheaper!!!
Applying the baldcap
Applying layers of plaster bandages:
Adding support ridges for extra strength:
Applying the alginate:
(Note the thickness of the plaster bandages on the back - you want lots of strength, but try to avoid too much weight on your model)
Applying small bits of plaster bandage around the nose area to begin with
The completed cast just setting
Inside the lifecast
The 2 halves together
(We did the back just in plaster bandages, but if you do this, be very very careful to add loads of release!!! Plus it can get very very warm)
The finished cast (pre-cleanup):
Top down view - it looks like the mould may have shifted, so note for next time - try to make some kind of key's for location.
The definition with Alginate is still really good:
(Although I think I may have something up my nose :lol )
Starting to repair the "step" from the mis-alignment
(Note: I'd run out of casting plaster so had to use some normal household plaster. Tip.... dont!
It worked OK for me as an emergency workaround, but I wouldn't recommend it as it makes life a lot more difficult later due to household plaster being a lot more absorbent)
The cleaned up head (front)
Cleaned up head (back)
Cleaned up head (above)
Step 2 - Creating the negative
Resource Note:
For all of the rest of the head creation process, I used Neill Gorton's DVD's. If you're likely to want to try something like this I can't recommend them enough. As I originally planned to do this on a small budget (which quickly went out of the window!) the initial outlay seemed a lot so I was in two minds about whether I could afford them (actually I knew I couldn't!), but in hindsight, I couldn't have even dreampt of tackling the project without them.
(Also, I've deliberately been a bit sparse with some of the info. Not that I don't want to share, but equally it wouldnt be fair to compromise the info offered in Neill's DVDs, so I've tried to hit the balance of showing the process, without doing Neill out of sales because I've transcribed it here in pics! If you want to know the full process - buy his DVD's
)
Building the clay wall
Eeeeeeek! :eek
If like me, you can only spend a few hours on this a week, this is what happens if you leave the clay wall for a few days (even covered with damp towels)
The re-done clay wall:
Air bubbles in the gelcoat:
Again, a pic of a mishap - this time, it's the fibreglass not fully supporting the Gelcoat, but in my defense it wasn't for the want of trying. I just couldn't get the bloomin' fibreglass to take hold in each of the keys
Yeay! I finally get to play with some Silicone!
Here you can see the fibreglass negative on the back of the head, and the supporting clay wall for the silicone on the front
(note the location keys)
A thicker layer of a different silicone:
3rd Layer (back to using the same as the first layer)
With the clay wall removed, and cleaned up ready to make the fibreglass outer for the front:
The completed negative outer mould (front)
The completed negative outer mould (back)
The completed negative outer mould (side)
On the whole, it came out really well. However, I did get 1 or 2 airbubbles where I just couldn't get the fibreglass matting to stay down
Removing plaster from the back of the negative mould
The cleaned up negative:
Step 3 - Creating the fibreglass positive:
The negative outer together (lovely seams ).
Fibreglass appied to the inside of the negative to make the positive
The finished positive:
(Note: I only had access to blue ployester pigment, but in hindsight I'd probably try to use a different colour as it was handy at times, but offputting at others - especially when I was trying to visualise aspects at the sculpting stage)
The good, the Bad, and the .... well, yeah, swiftly moving on :lol
Step 4 - sculpting:
Applying sheet wax
(I used 2mm, but in hindsight I'd probably try to get some 1.5m - I guess it all depends on what you're trying to do, but as you'll see later on, I end up coming back and removing some of this)
... and so the scultping begins:
Now, because I'm not an arty person, and because I'd never done anything like this before, I wasn't sure how far I could go with the nose profile.
I'd already heard that you needed to keep prosthetics as thin as possible to keep the movement reaslistic, so the following is about as far as I thought I could go on the initial roughing out sculpt without compromising on the amount of facial expression I'd get.....
... after all I'd done so far, it was disappointing (although bizarrely, I still felt quite pleased to have even got that far at the time)
Here's the thickness of the nose clay at that point...
Thankfully, (as you'll see) I pushed on with it some more (and eventially, even more and more and more thanks to friends who knew what they were doing saying "nah, you can go a bit more than that", and ended up with something considerably better. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that so that you could see where he nearly ended up! )
The head covered:
Starting to shape the head / back of head, etc
Adding more to the nose, etc and building out other areas to get the nose profile flatter:
Sculpting under the eyebrows:
Sculpting the lower lip:
The finished sculpt now.... or is it?
Skin Texturing
Nah! That would have been too easy :rolleyes
Here's a comparison shot to show where Voldy was at, at that stage:
... and another (photoshopped just slightly to remove the "blue" from the clay and to add the ears, but otherwise, what you see is the sculpt itself....)
There were areas such as the jawline which weren't quite right, and although some I couldn't really do due to anatomical differences (given I wasn't planning on sculpting ears so had my own phyisical limitations and shape to take into account), there were some areas which could still be improved.... so on we go!.....
Remember that sheet wax I mentioned? Well, here's me stripping some of it back (which meant trashing that area of the sculpt to get to it)
As well as the above, I also re-did the lips, cheeks, smile-line, jawline, eyebrows, and added some to the eye's to bring out the bottom of the eye socket a bit more.... there almost wasn't an area that wasn't tweaked even slightly
Me with the finished sculpt....
The redone skin texturing
The final sculpt
I love the nose. That's the bit I'm probably most proud of :$
Step 5 - Creating a negative of the sculpt:
As in the earlier stages much of the process for creating the negative is repeated:
Building the clay wall
... and as with the 1st time around, I hit some snags
I'd left the clay in the garage, and although it was in a polythene bag and had been kept dry, it had still managed to absorb moisture from the air so had become a bit more damp. As a result, (any maybe as a result of the J Wax also getting overly cold) the following happened with my Gelcoat
I couldn't really redo it so it was a question of trying to carry on and ensure I used plenty of release in the next stages, and reinforced the areas extra which may be potential week spots because of it....
Creating the fibreglass negative (3 part mould)
Next problem -
When I started to seperate the various pieces I just didn't seem to be able to get a clean split... everything just seemed to want to split either on one side of the Gelcoat, or on the other, but not down the middle.
.... and wherever I tried it invariably got to a thin point with a risk of tearing....
Eventually myself, a friend, and several vibrasaw blades managed to remove enough of the troublesome jacket to at least salvage the core mould. It ain't pretty, but at least it's usable...
Step 6 - Creating the Full head prosthetic!
Now, onto the bit all of this work so far has been leading up to - creating the actual wearable full head prosthetic!
Preparing the silicone:
A fine stippled layer of silicone as an encapsulant
Netting over the top of the head, and over the nose (which is less than 1mm thick at the thinnest point!)
This pic also shows the area that's going to be filled with the silicone
All clamped up ready to go with bleeders attached:
(Tip: In the next version, I'm going to add some more around the back of the ears too as that was one area that started to tear after a few times of putting it on / taking it off of the head I keep it on, and may also add some flexible material (like tight/popsock material) around the eyes, side of the mouth, and front of the ears)
Test swatches for the colouring of the base colour
Mixing the silicone..... eek! no going back now!!!!
Tube all set ready for injecting the silicone:
Ready to pour the silicone ... "are you really sure about this!?!?"
(I was using the long pour method as I dont have access to a vac chamber. I ended up with a few small air bubbles but nothing major - just go really really slowly, and if there's 2 of you then you could almost take it in turns if the mix is really heavy)
Silicone escaping from the bleeders (as planned, altough one did bung up and too an absolute age to unblock so that the silicone would flow) and from the seams (unplanned, but expected, seing how much wall we had to remove)
Starting to demould - I was up agaist a tight deadline as I really wanted to have this ready in time for the Deathly Hallows Premiere, so this was about 2am! Hence the head torch. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise!
Voldy is born! Fresh out of the mould:
Seam line:
Step 7 - Colouring and Detailing
My 1st go at seaming didn't really go all that well....
My 2nd attempt was better, but still not great...
To date, I still haven't been able to get the seams as nice as the guys who do it for a living, so it's an area I'm going to tackle slightly different next time as my seam itself wasn't actually that bad so I have a different approach which should work well, but I'll let you know how it goes once I've put it to the test.
Anyway, on we go....
Initial veining
(I dont have an airbrush so all of the makeup is done by hand - and remember, I'm not an arty person so that will show! :$ )
The initial coloured head (he's not actually that "pink" - it's the lighting, but he was more pink than I would have liked so that's something I'm also going to do slightly differently next time)
Kitted up
(Note: the head in this shot is just "placed" on - it hasn't been fully applied, so some of the shape is different to how it looks when it's fully done)
Head Repair:
I had to put him on / take him off the dummy head which I'd made to keep him on quite a few times during the initial stages, and as a result he'd already started to tear in a couple of places before I'd even got to use him (that's one of the downsides of prosthetics - they do have a limited shelf life).
As a result, I had to try to repair these. In immobile areas I used netting like you saw in one of the earlier pics, and in mobile areas I used tight / pop sock material:
Step1 -
The head turned inside out with tight material siliconed in place
(Tip: I found a very very small amount of undeadened silicone worked well as an adhesive to bond the 2 parts back together. I did originally try with deadened silicone of the same %, but found this took forever to cure even with a hairdryer)
The initial result
Step 2 - filling and texturing from the outside:
I dot have any pics of the final step which is to recolour the repair if you need to, but even at this stage it seemed to blend in really well.
Other stuff:
The costume wouldn't work just with the head alone so there are some more bits needed to try to make it fully movie accurate. Here's a quick rundown of how I tackled some of those
Teeth:
I had hoped to make the teeth myself, but after more and more research it became apparent it was better to get these done by someone who had easy access to the various chemicals required.
As a result, the final teeth were made by Steve Bosworth at CustomFangs
Thermoplastic casts
I also got my dentist to do some plaster casts for me too:
A comparison of Voldy's screen teeth and my fake ones (inset)
Shoes:
The shoes ironically were the things that took the longest to research. For almost the entire period I was hunting for info about the shoes, and I nearly ended up getting the wrong type but thankfully at the 11th hour Warner Bros released a new behind the scenes video which provided enough info to figure out exactly what they were
Here's the various dyes I tried on some test leather (in the end, I went with the "Magix spray" which worked perfectly!
An example of the test swatches along with a swatch of the fabrics
The finished shoes:
I was worried how I'd do the shoes as in some lights they look black, and others (such as the promo pics) they look very definately green.
As a result, I decided to tackle them very slowly, and with a mix of luck and caution, I managed to get the exact same effect in the very 1st go!!!
Wand:
I used the Nobel wand as this is so accurate it seemed pointless to try and recreate one myself. The only think that needed doing was to remove the trademark text (as this would spoilt the illusion somewhat )
As a result, I sanded it down very lightly, and then used various spices believe it or not, to restain the resin:
... a mix of wet Paprika seemed to work well (Curry paste (Pataks to be precise) also worked quite well, but Tumeric was too yellow)
The end result (it's still visible, but not as much)
Robes:
An obviously there's the robes. I've not had a chance to take any really nice pics which do them justice yet (and they deserve that much as they're gorgous!) so I'll try to share those, but hopefully in the mean time the "end result" pics above and below will show enough of them so that you can see how accurate they are)
Nails:
I've also made some nails but haven't had a chance to take any pics yet. BasicallyI managed to find some off the shelf (normal coloured) nails which were big enough for men (they were from Superdrug).
Then, I sanded them down lightly to roughen the surface, and shaped them.
Next, I built up layers of acrylic paint (initialy I used some which I borred off the kids - you know those little tiny pots you get in kids creative things like Paint a Piggy, Paint a Ceramic Horse, etc.
Start with a light brown, and grow to dirty reds/browns, etc, until you get a colour you're happy with.
Finally, stick come clear polish in the fridge to thin it, and the apply a very find top coat. Remember, Voldy's nails aren't manicured so you're not looking for a really nice shiny coat, so you may want to add an additional very fine thin "dirty" layer after just to take some of the shine off. (you may need to give the polish a quick light sanding first to give the paint something to stick to)
Top Tip:
Trying to recreate a consistent colour if you do them seperately is nearly impossible, so I'd really recommend attaching them all to something like a lolly stick (each) with bluetack, and then doing them all at the same time.
I'll post up some pics when I have a mo.
Contact Lenses:
I have brown eyes, so the final piece of the puzzle was to source some coloured contacts to help complete the illusion. However, ideally I wanted to get some daily disposabled which narrowed the field a lot.
In the end, I had to settle for some monthly disposable (Freshlook Colourblends Sterling Grey) - they're not 100% accurate, but until I can find a better match they at least get my eye colour in the right general area
Prosthetic Supplies:
Here's a quick pic I took of the supplies I needed just to do the head (and that's not everything either!!!! :eek)
The finished piece:
The following are a selection of pics from Voldy's 1st outing. I hope you like it!
Voldy tackles 2 muggles in the form of Wayne's world's Wayne & Garth.
I was trying to stay in character, but couldn't help crack up when they came at me with drumsticks pretending they were wands
Voldy meets Flitwick.... erm, I mean Griphook .... erm I mean, Warwick! :lol
And scaring kiddies... just the way it should be! lol
I've not really posted on the RPF much before so I thought it was about time I stuck one up for a project I've just recently completed.
A bit of background:
For the past couple of years I've been researching, and working on trying to create a "movie accurate" recreation of "Lord Voldemort" from the Harry Potter films (specifically, Lord Voldemort as he appears in "The Order of the Phoenix")
Before starting the project, I didn't have the foggiest about where to even start (and I'm not an arty person by any means!) so not only was this the 1st time a movie accurate version had been attempted, it was also the first time I'd ever attempted anything like this, so to say I was well and truely outside of my comfort zone would be something of an understatement!
As a result, a lot of what you see throughout the following thread is a colmination of help and advice from lots of people without who, this project would never have happened.
Anyway enough waffle - on with the project!
I'd posted bits of the project build in various different places, but nowhere has it in 1 single continuous thread, so what I've tried to do here is show some of the main steps / landmarks. (It would be insane to provide a full photo history, so I'll try to edit stuff which don't really help tell the story)
(Disclaimer - as there are steps and info missing this is NOT meant to be a tutorial! It's only to help show some of the main steps in the hope that a) it may be of interest, and b) help other "newbies" like myself get an overview of the entire process!)
Here goes:
Stage 1 - the Lifecast:
I had 2 lifecasts done. The 1st one was in "bodydouble" (silicone) but it went slightly wrong so I ended up having to get it re-done, but we re-did it in alginate as it's a lot cheaper!!!
Applying the baldcap
Applying layers of plaster bandages:
Adding support ridges for extra strength:
Applying the alginate:
(Note the thickness of the plaster bandages on the back - you want lots of strength, but try to avoid too much weight on your model)
Applying small bits of plaster bandage around the nose area to begin with
The completed cast just setting
Inside the lifecast
The 2 halves together
(We did the back just in plaster bandages, but if you do this, be very very careful to add loads of release!!! Plus it can get very very warm)
The finished cast (pre-cleanup):
Top down view - it looks like the mould may have shifted, so note for next time - try to make some kind of key's for location.
The definition with Alginate is still really good:
(Although I think I may have something up my nose :lol )
Starting to repair the "step" from the mis-alignment
(Note: I'd run out of casting plaster so had to use some normal household plaster. Tip.... dont!
It worked OK for me as an emergency workaround, but I wouldn't recommend it as it makes life a lot more difficult later due to household plaster being a lot more absorbent)
The cleaned up head (front)
Cleaned up head (back)
Cleaned up head (above)
Step 2 - Creating the negative
Resource Note:
For all of the rest of the head creation process, I used Neill Gorton's DVD's. If you're likely to want to try something like this I can't recommend them enough. As I originally planned to do this on a small budget (which quickly went out of the window!) the initial outlay seemed a lot so I was in two minds about whether I could afford them (actually I knew I couldn't!), but in hindsight, I couldn't have even dreampt of tackling the project without them.
(Also, I've deliberately been a bit sparse with some of the info. Not that I don't want to share, but equally it wouldnt be fair to compromise the info offered in Neill's DVDs, so I've tried to hit the balance of showing the process, without doing Neill out of sales because I've transcribed it here in pics! If you want to know the full process - buy his DVD's
)Building the clay wall
Eeeeeeek! :eek
If like me, you can only spend a few hours on this a week, this is what happens if you leave the clay wall for a few days (even covered with damp towels)
The re-done clay wall:
Air bubbles in the gelcoat:
Again, a pic of a mishap - this time, it's the fibreglass not fully supporting the Gelcoat, but in my defense it wasn't for the want of trying. I just couldn't get the bloomin' fibreglass to take hold in each of the keys
Yeay! I finally get to play with some Silicone!
Here you can see the fibreglass negative on the back of the head, and the supporting clay wall for the silicone on the front
(note the location keys)
A thicker layer of a different silicone:
3rd Layer (back to using the same as the first layer)
With the clay wall removed, and cleaned up ready to make the fibreglass outer for the front:
The completed negative outer mould (front)
The completed negative outer mould (back)
The completed negative outer mould (side)
On the whole, it came out really well. However, I did get 1 or 2 airbubbles where I just couldn't get the fibreglass matting to stay down
Removing plaster from the back of the negative mould
The cleaned up negative:
Step 3 - Creating the fibreglass positive:
The negative outer together (lovely seams
).
Fibreglass appied to the inside of the negative to make the positive
The finished positive:
(Note: I only had access to blue ployester pigment, but in hindsight I'd probably try to use a different colour as it was handy at times, but offputting at others - especially when I was trying to visualise aspects at the sculpting stage)
The good, the Bad, and the .... well, yeah, swiftly moving on :lol
Step 4 - sculpting:
Applying sheet wax
(I used 2mm, but in hindsight I'd probably try to get some 1.5m - I guess it all depends on what you're trying to do, but as you'll see later on, I end up coming back and removing some of this)
... and so the scultping begins:
Now, because I'm not an arty person, and because I'd never done anything like this before, I wasn't sure how far I could go with the nose profile.
I'd already heard that you needed to keep prosthetics as thin as possible to keep the movement reaslistic, so the following is about as far as I thought I could go on the initial roughing out sculpt without compromising on the amount of facial expression I'd get.....
... after all I'd done so far, it was disappointing (although bizarrely, I still felt quite pleased to have even got that far at the time)
Here's the thickness of the nose clay at that point...
Thankfully, (as you'll see) I pushed on with it some more (and eventially, even more and more and more thanks to friends who knew what they were doing saying "nah, you can go a bit more than that", and ended up with something considerably better. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that so that you could see where he nearly ended up! )
The head covered:
Starting to shape the head / back of head, etc
Adding more to the nose, etc and building out other areas to get the nose profile flatter:
Sculpting under the eyebrows:
Sculpting the lower lip:
The finished sculpt now.... or is it?
Skin Texturing
Nah! That would have been too easy :rolleyes
Here's a comparison shot to show where Voldy was at, at that stage:
... and another (photoshopped just slightly to remove the "blue" from the clay and to add the ears, but otherwise, what you see is the sculpt itself....)
There were areas such as the jawline which weren't quite right, and although some I couldn't really do due to anatomical differences (given I wasn't planning on sculpting ears so had my own phyisical limitations and shape to take into account), there were some areas which could still be improved.... so on we go!.....
Remember that sheet wax I mentioned? Well, here's me stripping some of it back (which meant trashing that area of the sculpt to get to it)
As well as the above, I also re-did the lips, cheeks, smile-line, jawline, eyebrows, and added some to the eye's to bring out the bottom of the eye socket a bit more.... there almost wasn't an area that wasn't tweaked even slightly
Me with the finished sculpt....
The redone skin texturing
The final sculpt
I love the nose. That's the bit I'm probably most proud of :$
Step 5 - Creating a negative of the sculpt:
As in the earlier stages much of the process for creating the negative is repeated:
Building the clay wall
... and as with the 1st time around, I hit some snags
I'd left the clay in the garage, and although it was in a polythene bag and had been kept dry, it had still managed to absorb moisture from the air so had become a bit more damp. As a result, (any maybe as a result of the J Wax also getting overly cold) the following happened with my Gelcoat
I couldn't really redo it so it was a question of trying to carry on and ensure I used plenty of release in the next stages, and reinforced the areas extra which may be potential week spots because of it....
Creating the fibreglass negative (3 part mould)
Next problem -
When I started to seperate the various pieces I just didn't seem to be able to get a clean split... everything just seemed to want to split either on one side of the Gelcoat, or on the other, but not down the middle.
.... and wherever I tried it invariably got to a thin point with a risk of tearing....
Eventually myself, a friend, and several vibrasaw blades managed to remove enough of the troublesome jacket to at least salvage the core mould. It ain't pretty, but at least it's usable...
Step 6 - Creating the Full head prosthetic!
Now, onto the bit all of this work so far has been leading up to - creating the actual wearable full head prosthetic!
Preparing the silicone:
A fine stippled layer of silicone as an encapsulant
Netting over the top of the head, and over the nose (which is less than 1mm thick at the thinnest point!)
This pic also shows the area that's going to be filled with the silicone
All clamped up ready to go with bleeders attached:
(Tip: In the next version, I'm going to add some more around the back of the ears too as that was one area that started to tear after a few times of putting it on / taking it off of the head I keep it on, and may also add some flexible material (like tight/popsock material) around the eyes, side of the mouth, and front of the ears)
Test swatches for the colouring of the base colour
Mixing the silicone..... eek! no going back now!!!!
Tube all set ready for injecting the silicone:
Ready to pour the silicone ... "are you really sure about this!?!?"
(I was using the long pour method as I dont have access to a vac chamber. I ended up with a few small air bubbles but nothing major - just go really really slowly, and if there's 2 of you then you could almost take it in turns if the mix is really heavy)
Silicone escaping from the bleeders (as planned, altough one did bung up and too an absolute age to unblock so that the silicone would flow) and from the seams (unplanned, but expected, seing how much wall we had to remove)
Starting to demould - I was up agaist a tight deadline as I really wanted to have this ready in time for the Deathly Hallows Premiere, so this was about 2am! Hence the head torch. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise!
Voldy is born! Fresh out of the mould:
Seam line:
Step 7 - Colouring and Detailing
My 1st go at seaming didn't really go all that well....
My 2nd attempt was better, but still not great...
To date, I still haven't been able to get the seams as nice as the guys who do it for a living, so it's an area I'm going to tackle slightly different next time as my seam itself wasn't actually that bad so I have a different approach which should work well, but I'll let you know how it goes once I've put it to the test.
Anyway, on we go....
Initial veining
(I dont have an airbrush so all of the makeup is done by hand - and remember, I'm not an arty person so that will show! :$ )
The initial coloured head (he's not actually that "pink" - it's the lighting, but he was more pink than I would have liked so that's something I'm also going to do slightly differently next time)
Kitted up
(Note: the head in this shot is just "placed" on - it hasn't been fully applied, so some of the shape is different to how it looks when it's fully done)
Head Repair:
I had to put him on / take him off the dummy head which I'd made to keep him on quite a few times during the initial stages, and as a result he'd already started to tear in a couple of places before I'd even got to use him (that's one of the downsides of prosthetics - they do have a limited shelf life).
As a result, I had to try to repair these. In immobile areas I used netting like you saw in one of the earlier pics, and in mobile areas I used tight / pop sock material:
Step1 -
The head turned inside out with tight material siliconed in place
(Tip: I found a very very small amount of undeadened silicone worked well as an adhesive to bond the 2 parts back together. I did originally try with deadened silicone of the same %, but found this took forever to cure even with a hairdryer)
The initial result
Step 2 - filling and texturing from the outside:
I dot have any pics of the final step which is to recolour the repair if you need to, but even at this stage it seemed to blend in really well.
Other stuff:
The costume wouldn't work just with the head alone so there are some more bits needed to try to make it fully movie accurate. Here's a quick rundown of how I tackled some of those
Teeth:
I had hoped to make the teeth myself, but after more and more research it became apparent it was better to get these done by someone who had easy access to the various chemicals required.
As a result, the final teeth were made by Steve Bosworth at CustomFangs
Thermoplastic casts
I also got my dentist to do some plaster casts for me too:
A comparison of Voldy's screen teeth and my fake ones (inset)
Shoes:
The shoes ironically were the things that took the longest to research. For almost the entire period I was hunting for info about the shoes, and I nearly ended up getting the wrong type but thankfully at the 11th hour Warner Bros released a new behind the scenes video which provided enough info to figure out exactly what they were
Here's the various dyes I tried on some test leather (in the end, I went with the "Magix spray" which worked perfectly!
An example of the test swatches along with a swatch of the fabrics
The finished shoes:
I was worried how I'd do the shoes as in some lights they look black, and others (such as the promo pics) they look very definately green.
As a result, I decided to tackle them very slowly, and with a mix of luck and caution, I managed to get the exact same effect in the very 1st go!!!
Wand:
I used the Nobel wand as this is so accurate it seemed pointless to try and recreate one myself. The only think that needed doing was to remove the trademark text (as this would spoilt the illusion somewhat )
As a result, I sanded it down very lightly, and then used various spices believe it or not, to restain the resin:
... a mix of wet Paprika seemed to work well (Curry paste (Pataks to be precise) also worked quite well, but Tumeric was too yellow)
The end result (it's still visible, but not as much)
Robes:
An obviously there's the robes. I've not had a chance to take any really nice pics which do them justice yet (and they deserve that much as they're gorgous!) so I'll try to share those, but hopefully in the mean time the "end result" pics above and below will show enough of them so that you can see how accurate they are)
Nails:
I've also made some nails but haven't had a chance to take any pics yet. BasicallyI managed to find some off the shelf (normal coloured) nails which were big enough for men (they were from Superdrug).
Then, I sanded them down lightly to roughen the surface, and shaped them.
Next, I built up layers of acrylic paint (initialy I used some which I borred off the kids - you know those little tiny pots you get in kids creative things like Paint a Piggy, Paint a Ceramic Horse, etc.
Start with a light brown, and grow to dirty reds/browns, etc, until you get a colour you're happy with.
Finally, stick come clear polish in the fridge to thin it, and the apply a very find top coat. Remember, Voldy's nails aren't manicured so you're not looking for a really nice shiny coat, so you may want to add an additional very fine thin "dirty" layer after just to take some of the shine off. (you may need to give the polish a quick light sanding first to give the paint something to stick to)
Top Tip:
Trying to recreate a consistent colour if you do them seperately is nearly impossible, so I'd really recommend attaching them all to something like a lolly stick (each) with bluetack, and then doing them all at the same time.
I'll post up some pics when I have a mo.
Contact Lenses:
I have brown eyes, so the final piece of the puzzle was to source some coloured contacts to help complete the illusion. However, ideally I wanted to get some daily disposabled which narrowed the field a lot.
In the end, I had to settle for some monthly disposable (Freshlook Colourblends Sterling Grey) - they're not 100% accurate, but until I can find a better match they at least get my eye colour in the right general area
Prosthetic Supplies:
Here's a quick pic I took of the supplies I needed just to do the head (and that's not everything either!!!! :eek)
The finished piece:
The following are a selection of pics from Voldy's 1st outing. I hope you like it!
Voldy tackles 2 muggles in the form of Wayne's world's Wayne & Garth.
I was trying to stay in character, but couldn't help crack up when they came at me with drumsticks pretending they were wands
Voldy meets Flitwick.... erm, I mean Griphook .... erm I mean, Warwick! :lol
And scaring kiddies... just the way it should be! lol
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