BodyParts

From Simreal

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Body parts, you've got to have them! Of course, I've already documented the PeeledFaces, FreshArms, and DissectedLeg on other pages.

Here, we take a brief look at fingers, hearts, and brains!

Braaaaiiiinnnnnsssss....

All of my silicons and rubbers came from Smooth-On and my plaster bandages from [[1][M-Pact Medical]]. I got a gallon of orange oil, Nature's own perfect solvent, from The Chemistry Store.

Supplies

• Dragon Skin and/or Eco-Flex silicon
• Silc Pig pigments, mix and use as needed
• Brush-On 35 and 60
• Plasti-Paste
• Polymer Clay
• Ease-Release
• Pure Silicon Caulk
• Acrylic fingernail extender

Fingers

Since the faces didn't take all of a cartridge, I had a few squeezes of Body Double in a half-dozen cartridges. I used one of these to make some quicky finger molds from my hand. I didn't need to make a backing shell for these since I built them thickly.

After heavily mold-releasing the mold (because silicon sticks to silicon), I cast some lightly colored Eco-Flex into the mold. Some heavy tugging later, I had four fingers!

I also had a thumb I molded from my wife, when we were playing with the new materials. So I had a thumb, too!

The fingers as they come out are pale unintersting things. To make their details stand out, I mixed up a small amount of Eco-Flex (Dragon Skin also works) colored dark gray. I covered the fingers with this, let 'em set a minute, and then dabbed most of it off. The silicon "wash" stayed in the fingerprints and crevices of the finger, making it much more interesting.

An even better effect is given if you let the finger sit out in the dirt for a day or two as well...

Daubing the ends of the fingers with colored silicon caulk gave a nice "chunky" look to the cut. The caulk is better for this work because it is thick and sticky, and it gets lumpy as it dries. It makes good gore.

Fingernails are made by painting acrylic fake fingernail goo onto the fingertips. This is set with a spray. Note that this is probably just thick super-glue set with the appropriate super-glue setting spray.

Since nothing really sticks to silicon except for more silicon, the fingernails don't really stay on. You can buy adhesives that could be used to stick them nails on, though -- probably that silicon caulk would work, and I'm sure Smooth-On sells something.

Brain

I started with a life-size brain model from Anatomical Chart Company. I then painted this with layers of Brush-On polyurethane, though I didn't put on nearly enough. This type of two-part mold requires a very thick rubber to keep from deforming. In fact, I recommend casting a block of rubber around the model instead of brushing it on... live and learn.

The rubber coated brain is then set into a bed of Sculpey (or some other polymer) clay. For most of your work with polyurethanes and silicons, you have to be very careful to avoid anything with sulfur in it -- even rubber gloves will leave a sticky spot where you might touch the rubber before it sets. Sulfur is a powerful cure inhibitor.

A nice wall of clay is built around the midpoint of the brain, a serious coating of release agent is applied, and then I used Plasti-Paste to make half of the mother mold.

For my first brain, I mixed up some Evergreen 10 softened with a bunch of Ever-Flex and colored lightly. The resulting mixture was poured into the brain mold, but made a firm unattractive brain.

A second attemp was made with Eco-Flex which made a beautiful brain! Loverly.

I put a dark gray silicon wash over the silicon brain and this really brought out the details. The photo shows the brain after it had been covered with speckles of blood mixture for a couple of weeks.

Note that while the brain mold looks fine here, it curled up into itself over time. One problem was the walls were far too thin. The other was that I did not store it in the mother mold, which is recommended practice for a number of apparently good reasons.

Heart

The heart was created in the same way as the brain, except I didn't split the mold in half. Instead, I cut it in a curve from the opening to near the top. This made a one-piece mold that let me remove the finished heart. This worked very well, as opposed to the brain's clamshell mold.

I experimented with mold release here, since I ran out of the official stuff. One thing that mostly worked was a spraying of clear acrylic, which was then dusted with graphite powder, and then sprayed again with acrylic.

The decoration on the heart was done with silicon caulk colored white/yellow, to create the fat deposits around the heart.

Veins and arteries were painted on with acrylic paints, though there was no way this was going to stay stuck to the silicon.

I finished up with an overcoat of uncolored silicon, to lock the acrylics in place. I was surprised to note that even silicon doesn't stick to silicon all that well, since this sealing coat peeled away at the bottom a little bit during handling.