Sunday, April 11, 2010

BRAINZ!!!! Brain Prosthetic Appliance.

This was Mr. Jimmy's costume last year. We were going for a retro style comic book Brainiac and I think we got it!

We made a cast of his head so the prosthetic would fit him exactly.
He just got off a long shift at work and is almost asleep here. We do most of our plaster work in the garage / cottage / studio so the mess can be contained.

Three layers of plaster bandage and twenty minutes is all it takes. If you have hair it gets more complicated. You have to wrap your head in a scull cap or use seran wrap to cover your hair first. Mr. Jimmy is shaved clean so it wasn't a problem to slather plaster on his head. I gave him an old towel so any excess water and plaster goo wouldn't go down his shirt.

This is the original sculpt of the brain. We tried to make a two part mold of this and it got stuck. We ended up ruining this sculpt and not being able to do the two part mold for this project.

Here it is from another angle so you can get the idea of what we did. I think there was too much suction because of the fabulously round ball shapedness of his head. It ended up turning out better because we didn't use this sculpt. I like the end result much better than this idea.

The finished prosthetic. We ended up coiling plasticine into worm shapes and laying them on his head positive. We put a thick band of plasticine around the bottom of the brain so it would look like it was holding the skin up.

Instead of making a mold for the prosthetic, we simply just painted layers of latex and toilet paper onto the sculpt. there were about twenty layers in all. we kept the layers thin so they would dry completely.

We painted the brain and band with acrylic paint mixed with Golden acrylic medium for fabric to keep it from cracking. Lots of dry brushing and a coat of gloss on top to make it look gooey.

Finally we went to The Source and with the help of our trusty computer friend Bill (Hi Bill!) we got the stuff we needed to wire some lights into the brain. You can see the batteries bulging in behind the gold band on the finished piece.

I sprayed poor Mr. Jimmy in the face with some dollar store green hairspray. It's PERFECT! However in retrospect. I should have given him more breaks and time to breath. He got a bit woozie. Probably not the best idea to spray people in the face with aerosol products.

He's afraid to move here. Dizzy as all get out. Poor guy. But doesn't he look the most perfect shade of green?

I had just gotten a hair cut (Thanks Claude!) and we saved some of the hair to use for Mr. Jimmy's evil Genius beard. I glued it on with spirit gum. Had to be careful not to smudge off the glorious coat of green from his chin. It was tricky business.

You can see the wet spirit gum here. It dries pretty clear but remains shiny. I also had to add one more strand of hair to the center of the beard. He's looking pretty maniacal already.

Here he is in all his nerdy comic book glory. One of our best efforts I think.

We made the purple lab coat from scratch. We couldn't find a pattern so we had to alter a priests habit pattern. It was pretty tricky. The gloves we spray painted black. We couldn't find any black rubber gloves at the hardware store and left it till the last minute. He wore big black rubber boots also. Can't wait to start working on this years costumes.
:D
Here we are totally enjoying ourselves at The Pete and CJ Halloween Bash! I was Harley Quin Bought the costume from E Bay and had to totally alter it. Stretch velveteen onsies never fit right.
Happy Villains! Love the Holidays.