SeveredHead

From Simreal

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In 2003, we had a fight scene. In it, we cut off the head of an actor and held it up in all its gory glory for the guests to behold. This was neat!

Supplies

• Bald cap
• Plaster bandages (3" wide or so)
• Alginate
• Large bowl of water
• Bucket to mix alginate
• Mixing device
• Timer
• Helping hands

Starting

First, get all of your materials together. Cut your bandages, all of them, into about 18" lengths or so. Cut the ends off a few of those for small, detailed tasks like the nose.

Put a bald cap on your model and glue the edges with spirit gum or something.

Be sure that their clothes can be ruined. An alternative to ruining their clothes is to drape them with plastic, such as a large black garbage bag. Classy!

Set your bandages and the large bowl of water where they are handy and instruct your helpers.

Mold the Back

You will start with the back of the head. This area doesn't need much detail so you can do it directly with plaster. Be sure to put some vaseline or other release agent on any fuzzy bits that show! Plaster will grab hair, a lot.

Dip a length of plaster bandage in the water and fold it long-ways to make a thick narrow strip. Run it between two fingers to squeeze the extra water out of it. I always squeege my strips _flat_, so they don't get all tangled up.

Build a "frame" around the model's head, along the center of the shoulders, up over the center of the head, and across the back.

Now, fill in this frame with bandages. Dip a bandage in the water and fold it the other direction, making a shorter but still fairly thick bandage.

Add bandages until you have at least three layers. More is better than less! When in doubt, add another layer.

Wait until the plaster is hard before going on. Plaster will heat up as it sets, so you can feel it getting warm. After the plaster feels cold and wet again you can go on to the next step.

Mold the Front

Plaster Frame

Remember when you framed the back of the head? Now you repeat that on the front.

Before you start, thoroughly lubricate the front edge of the back piece with a thick petroleum jelly -- be bold and daring, since you really do _not_ want the two plaster shells to stick to each other.

Run three or more layers of narrow plaster strips along the front of your model. Allow to set.

This provides some support for the alginate.

Alginate

Get ready to move quickly, but carefully. Alginate hardens in just a few minutes, depending on your alginate and the temperature of the water.

Mix the alginate thoroughly yet quickly. You don't have to remove all of the lumps, but the stuff should also be smooth and well mixed.

Working from the top of the face and moving down, dab alginate onto the model. T his is messy!

When you are working around the nose, be SURE to leave the nostrils open. Suffocating the model is considered to be bad form.

The alginate should fill the space from the back shell to the front frame, slightly overlapping both.

THe alginate should also be reasonably thick... a half inch or more. You can try to embed fluffy bits of cotton into the alginate before it hardens, to help the front plaster shell stick to it, but you have to move fast!

Plaster Shell

Now make a plaster shell over the alginate. This is the same process you used to make the back shell.

Be sure to overlap this shell on to the front frame and over the back shell. You want it to stick to the frame, but you do not want it to stick to the back!

Allow this to harden.

Remove

Carefully pry along the front/back shell seam. You want to separate the layers.

Now have your model lean forward and wiggle their face to try and release the alginate from their skin. While they are doing this, you be sure to support the plaster shell!

You can slowly release and peel the alginate in its shell off of the model.

In some cases, you may need to remove the shell first and then pull the alginate off (gently! it's fragile!). Re-unite the alginate with its shell.

Alginate shrinks as it dries, so you can keep it stable by laying damp paper towels over it.

Cast

Put the two shells together and support them with the opening to the top.

Mix up a large quanity of plaster, to the consistency of heavy cream (or whatever). Be sure to bang on the bucket a lot to remove bubbles.

Carefully pour the plaster into the mold.

I'm not very good at this yet -- I get too many bubbles -- so I often have to repair my casting with clay.

Using it...

From this plaster positive, I built another latex mold (with plaster shell).

I painted the face of this mold with hot-pour PVC in a thin layer. I then poured some more into the front and set a 4th quality Bucky skull into place in the PVC and let it cool a bit. This locked the skull into place.

When placing the skull, make sure the eyes and mouth line up! I did several test-fits first, and marked the mold and skull with a permanent marker so I could quickly re-align them.

I had also put lifelike eyes into the skull. I made these by cutting the front off of the ball in a roller-ball deoderant and hot-gluing the eyes to these, and then hot-gluing the entire assembly in the skull. See MaxPuppet for more details on this process.

Closing the mold and taping it together, I finished the pour, encasing the entire skull in squish (my pet name for hot-pour PVC).

The final product isn't too exciting. The hot plastic warped my latex mold, ruining it for future use (note: use silicon) and made the head a bit wobbly.

However, our makeup person (Jenna Green-Smith, wife of Charles Smith the head) put a wig on it and did makeup to make it nice. The eyebrows, eyelashes, and beard were super-glued into place. She had a HORRIBLE time gluing the hair in place. Nothing sticks to this stuff! I used a super-thin glue on Max and didn't have as much trouble.

I actually attached the wig using wood screws -- screwing it onto the underlying skull.