Tuesday 2 December 2008

Not a Little Green Man...

Progress is slow at the moment, but apart from designing a breathing mechanism to go inside the Martian puppet, I have been experimenting with colouring the skin.

There are many ways to paint latex puppets, the most popular of which is to use PAX (a mixture of artists' acrylic paints, such as Liquitex, and a prosthetic adhesive called ProsAide, of which the non-sticky version, NoTack, is said to be the best).

However, I decided to opt for colouring the latex itself with the base colour, and will use PAX later to dull down the uniform colouring and add character. I added some latex colourant (available from the model supplies shop 4D in Aldgate, London) to a batch of liquid latex and cast new skins.

The rest of the liquid latex can be kept in an air-tight container and will be used to colour the tentacles and make new skin sections to patch the main puppet skins when the model is finally put together.

Meanwhile, this is what the main skins look like...

5 comments:

jriggity said...

How cool is that!

I gots to try dying my latex as well. That would save alot of work.

jriggity

McTodd said...

Thanks for your comment!

My guiding maxim in life is: if it looks like a lot of work, avoid it.

One thing I should have mentioned (hmmm, I may make it into a proper post next week, with photos and stuff) is that when you add the colouring agent to the liquid latex, the result is apparently not at all what you want it to be. In my case, the latex went a sort of murky pink colour, but when the latex was poured and allowed to cure, it turned rich brown. Generally, try it out with small amounts first, on non-precious models...!

Also, even though I added the correct amount of colourant (5% by volume), there was a lot of un-mixed-in goop at the bottom of the pot of latex which I fished out and chucked away, so you need to be careful when pouring that all that sloppy crap doesn't go into your mould!

jriggity said...

cool beans man....

Ill keep it in mind 4 sure.

jriggity

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Looks really great so far !!!

CraftCadet said...

I really like the Red/Brown planet colour. He certainly looks like he comes from Mars. Great model I love the vains on the brain.