Ear Sculpts
The ears were one of the main prosthetic pieces that I wanted to look realistic.
I loved the idea of making the ears with silicone, clearly because the heaviness to the material gave it that droopy effect, which is how I wanted my faun character to be portrayed like.
The big droopy ears is what gives the character that goat-like appearance, along with the nose and horns. The ears I had every intention of trying to make them perfect.
I experimented with both Le Beau Touche and Monster clay to see the different results.
1. An ear cast was taken of my model here with alginate. A small cup had it's bottom cut off and was tipped upside down, and placed over the models ear...ready for casting. A foam earplug was put in the models ear for protection.
This was after the alginate had been removed from the plaster ear, plaster has always been a really fragile material, and even during demolding of the alginate, it completely shattered the ear in parts.
I started using le beau touche first for the left ear, which appeared very hard at first as the clay was sticking to my hands, and I just found it hard to blend without it going all gloopy. I started forming the basic shape of what I wanted the ears to appear like and then built up from there.
I remember spending a few hours making this, molding it so it was perfect. I uaed various sculpting tools to prevent any finger marks from appearing on my sculpts, and built up until it was enough to work with.
I rolled balls of clay and smoothed them out, ensuring the ear was forming in the right way.
I then started to combine some monster clay in with my le beau touche to give it more of a solid look. The shape started to form nicely at this point, and I just continued to mold into it unti I was happy with the overall appearance.
The back the ear still needed a lot of reforming and touching up, but other than that it was ready to go. I was extremely happy with the outlook of the ear, and I even had a look in the mirror to see how it would look on myself.
I then had an ear for guidance to start molding my other ear. I used full monster clay for this sculpt, and I found this incredibly easier to work with, the clay had to be melted a few times to blend nicely, but when in "warm" mode, it was a lovely clay to work with, and it didn't take me very long to build the shape to look identical to the other.
I had created the ideal inner part of the ear, but I found it a challenge to get the surface of the outer part , the same as the other. With some time and patience, I managed to get it similar to the extent I was happy to use it.
The end result of both the clay sculpts, use by different materials. You can almost see in appearance that the le beau touche ( left) looks more oil based than the monster clay. I think in the future I would prefer using monster clay as it is much easier to work with , and I found the overall look of the monster clay ear looked better.
I then decided to experiment with tinsil 8030, a silicone based material which was good for molds. I misex a ratio of 60g of A and 6g of B , and mixed thoroughly until the mixture was pale pink.
I then spread the tinsil evenly over the ear, which was placed onto a wooden board covered in a thin layer of vaseline to prevent the mold from sticking itself.
i made sure all the tight, hard to get to places were completely covered, using a spatula and a small brush to ensure I got in all the small gaps. I then had to wait for the first layer to try before applying the second.
I then applied the same ratio again, but this time applying Thixo, which gave it a nice, thick butter cream consistency . This became easy to apply, and also gave the mold a stronger surrounding area.
The overall appearance of the tinsil x 2 layers applied to the clay mold. It was then time to wait until it was completely dry.
When it was dry, I then started to cut away the tinsil that had overflowed over the board, which was basically the material not needed.
Underneath the mold, the clay and plaster mold are still present, and need to be pulled out.
I then began to pull away the tinsil mold away from the clay sculpt, not knowing what the result would turn out like.
It didn't take very long to demold, as the vaseline that had been applied over the clay sculpt beforehand helped the tinsil slide off with ease.
Front of the mold when fully cured.
Inside of the mold when the clay sculpt had been demolded. vaseline was then added to the mold, and silicone was then poured in.
Once I had continued to do the swish motion of the silicone withint he mold, it began to cure quite quickly, and it was then left to cure. I then placed a thin layer of powder to the top to prevent it sticking.
As I pulled the silicone ear out slowly, I powdered as each inch was exposed to prevent the silicone from sticking to itself.
First encounter of the ear being revealed which i was really happy with.
Silicone ear, fully out of the mold.
I then gave the entire prosthetic ear a dust over with the white loose powder to take away the shine.
Silicone ears were a first experience for me, and the method of using a tinsil material as a mold substitute to platsil gel , was clearly shown as effective.
I think the overall appearance of the ear itself looked extremely effective, and all the natural skin textures were picked up nicely.
The only bad point during this project is that I didn't seem to know how to thin the edges of the ears out very well, and I was yet to tackle a big obstacle on how to blend these edges out. I always had the idea of the models hair covering up any nasty edges, so I suppose that would of been an alternative if they didn't blend very well.
A clay wall was then built up around where the plaster ear was made, purely because I ended up not needing the models ear template as the ear was going to appear hollow.
For the second ear, I decided to experiment with a 2 part plaster mold, only because it was a cheap method, and I wanted to compare the results to see which one looked better.
A clay wall was built over half of the clay mold, and plaster was then applied until it had thickened and hardened. It was then time to wait for it to be cured.
I gave it a few hours to set whilst I was off doing my fibreglas molds, I took the clay wall away, applied poly wax to the other side of the plaster, and the clay mold. This stopped the plaster from molding itself to the other side.
I then applied some more plaster to the other half of the mold, and then waited for that side to set.
I then with a chisel, wedges the two plaster molds apart, and immediately, a massive divide came between the two parts, and it popped open with ease.
Chiselling the mold.
When I carefully pulled the two molds apart, I was then revealed the clay mold inside that had half stuck itself to one side of the mold. I was quite surprised how the mold turned out.
I then cleaned the mold out with some sculpting tools and some IPA. I was happy with the overall appearance of the mold, and again it showed my experimentation with the material, and why I decided to do it.