PeeledFaces

From Simreal

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These were among my favorite projects, and they are simple to make too!

My goal was to make realistic looking dead skin. I've seen some photos -- without the flesh to go behind it, skin is fairly greasy and translucent. On these faces I wish I had put some more color into the lips, though. Next time I'll probably take more liberties with color.

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

Supplies

• Face Molds
• Dragon Skin or Eco-Flex silicon (I used Dragon Skin)
• Thi-Vex II
• Silc Pig pigments, mix and use as needed
• Ease-Release
• Pure Silicon Caulk
• Orange Oil (d-Limonene, for cleaning up)
• Paint brushes

Face Molds

From Sculptures or Lifecasts

• Lifecast
• Brush-On 35 and 60
• Plaster Bandages or Plasti-Paste (I used Plasti-Paste)

If you already have heads laying around the house, like I do (doesn't everybody?), you can take your time and make some nice rubber molds. Note that the silicons don't like to sit in the Brush-On molds! It tends to get sticky... I hate that.

For mixing, I use paper cups (not recommended, but definitely easy to get and use) and plastic disposable cups. These come in 3, 5, 7, 9, and 16 ounce sizes, makeing it easy to get almost any measurement size. You need to eyeball the measurements, though. I don't have any hard and fast quantities for you.

First, mold release your plaster or whatever. Really. The polyurethanes STICK. Hard. Do exactly what the instructions say and apply mold release, or you will be really sorry.

Then, paint a layer of the 35 on.. it's soft, and will deform out of undercuts nicely. Start with a thin layer, dabbed into place, taking special care around crevices like the corner of the nostrils and the inner nook of the eyes. Then build up the layer a bit more... you can't put it on too thick, though, or it will sag.

After that sets to a hard tack, add a layer of the stiffer 60, repeat until 3/8" thick or so.

Once all of that hardens completely, add more mold release. Do it! Or you will be sorry again.

The final layer is a 3/8" or better of the Plasti-Paste to make the mother mold.

From Life

• Body Double Fast Set, 400mL cartridge (with applicator gun)
• Body Double Release Cream
• 4 to 6 rolls of 3" wide plaster bandage

Before starting, have your model clean any makeup off their face and grease their eyebrows, eyelashes, and sideburns with the release cream. Don't release the skin, though -- it's hard to get the Body Double to stick to the cream. Oh, and have any guys shave... beards make a mess of lifecasting.

With a helper squeezing the gun, apply (with fingers or small disposable brush) the Body Double to your victim's face. Start at the point where the nose and eyes meet, since this is a difficult area to keep bubble out of. Dab on a thin layer to start and work quickly, rubbing as needed to get details and edges nicely blended. Note this stuff starts to set up in 90 seconds. That's NOT much time.

You don't want the edges of your mold to harden before you apply the next bit of silicon, or you will get lines in the mold. I found that a firm, circular rubbing motion can help blend the edges if I'm too slow. You also want to be very careful in your application to avoid bubbles, which is hard, because this stuff is thick.

Alginate is easier to work with on faces, in fact. But Body Double makes a permanent mold, good for a number of pulls before it starts to deteriorate. Tradeoffs.

Once you have your detail layer in place, thicken it up to the usual 1/4" to 3/8" or so.

Once that's hard, and it just takes a couple of minutes, apply the plaster bandages to make the hard mother mold. Remember, when in doubt, make it thicker. It's no fun when your mother mold sags.

Casting

I made my first faces with polyurethane (Brush-On 40, I think, since it has a fairly neutral color) colored to make it interesting. Sadly, this made an opaque face that didn't have the desired translucency. Skin isn't really opaque -- it has depth and subtlety. You can see some of these in the Prototype pictures below. I also made a Dragon Skin version, with my tiny sample of Dragon Skin. But this flowed before it set, making the low spots (e.g. the nose) solid, which wasn't the effect I wanted. Again, see the Protoype pictures.

The process is fairly simple. You only use a tiny amount of Dragon Skin at a time -- I used three or four tablespoons each of Part A and Part B at each pass (depending on how big a head I was working on).

First, put a few tablespoons of Part A in a cup. Now dab an almost invisible amount of coloring in it -- I used a light gray to start. You want the silicon to be almost transparent, with just a shimmer of color. Now mix in Part B.

Finally put in one or two drops of Thi-Vex for each tablespoon of Part A into the mix and stir until it's thick. The Thi-Vex is critical. Without it your silicon will sag into the nose and that's not a pretty sight.

Using a nice paintbrush (really! I used a lovely artists brush with white bristles, in a sort of almond shape) QUICKLY paint the silicon into the face mold. I put an especially thin layer around the eyelids and at the point where the lips meet.

BEFORE the silicon sets up, wash the brush in orange oil, or you will never get the silicon out of the brush and the good brushes are too expensive to throw away.. This is powerful, nasty stuff (really!), so have good ventilation and try not to get too much on your hands. You will never get the odour out. If you wear gloves, note that the oil will probably dissolve them. If you put the oil in a plastic cup, it will dissolve it. It will dissolve rubber, too. I mean, you are cleaning silicon with it -- it dissolves darn near anything!

When the first layer firms up, I mix another batch of silicon, about a tablespoon bigger than the first one. This time I give it more pigment. The first layer will be translucent, giving a sense of greasy depth, and the second layer provides color. Of course, I don't over-pigment the second layer either. It's still somewhat translucent. Note that the Silc-Pig pigments are amazingly concentrated. It hardly takes ANY to give a bold color.

I put in two or three layers total. Most of my faces were three layers, with the third layer being a darker color to give the face an uneven color.

Once the silicon sets I take it out of the mold. Then I trim the edges (optional) and cut through where the eyelids should open and between the lips.

Now apply some details. This time, instead of mixing up more Dragon Skin, I squeeze a blob of silicon caulk (available from any hardware store) into a cup and add some red and black color to it. Again, quickly, I use a stick to dab this mixture around the edges of the face, eyes, and lips. This stuff solidifies pretty fast and smells nasty.

If you don't want it to be shiny, dust it with talcum powder.

Tada!

Prototypes

Final Results