Prosthetic Awesomeness.

The day is finally here and thankfully no one died. I managed to make my first prosthetic. I'd been reading so much about how finicky this process is and how touchy the material itself can be. One article I read actually make a joke about it not working because you might be wearing the wrong colour socks. This didn't fill me with much confidence.

I'd had so many problem in the beginning, and that was the easy stuff. I thought for sure this would be a disaster that would ultimately cause the entire island to be evacuated and quarantined for years to come.

I read over the instructions a dozen times, walked through it all in my head. I read horror stories online about the process and some success stories, as well as other step by step instructions. It seemed easy, not simple - but easy. Just do what the words on the page said to do and when they said to do it.

I even had my girlfriend, Kim, read it over as she was assisting me. All she really had to do was help keep track of the timing, since it's incredibly important.

And I thought for sure it would be a disaster when I couldn't even get a stupid strap used to hold the mold together to work. I mean, it's a strap - how complicated could it be? No one else could figure it out properly either - luckily it wasn't needed anyway.

So did it work? Yes. It worked PERFECTLY. Not one hitch, nothing. It was a little messy - but if I've learned one thing, it's that if you spill something that ultimately hardens, thickens or changes into a state that is way less messy - leave it. Don't try to clean it up, you'll just make it worse.

Nearly last minute I snagged a little countertop convection oven. I'd been agonizing over how I was going to bake this thing, and in the end read enough that pointed to the direction of a convection oven I decided it was the best way to go. And it turned out the one I got was on sale $60 cheaper then advertised.

So here's my awesome setup - all you folks out there wondering how complicated this is, it doesn't have to be. I'm sure it helps and I'm sure there's many different things I might've done wrong...but it worked, so I don't care for the moment.

I had the doors open and a fan blowing all the stank out. This stuff reeks of ammonia while it's mixing - at least they say it does, I barely smelled anything. But I had a mask on so that's probably why.
And here's the spill. Rather then trying to wipe it up, I just left it and in about 15 minutes it just peeled up in one damp, rubbery blob.

And here's the oven, very professional looking setup here, huh? Again, it worked, so I don't care.
And then out popped my first prosthetic. This is for the character of Bofa, the demon crime lord, for The Monkey Rodeo: Cronus, who will be played by Pete Murphy.

So that's it. It worked, all the work, all the experiments and money spent all paid off. Whether it was just luck or it's not as hard as they say, I managed to create my own, custom prosthetic. And the best part is - it actually fits both me and Draper as well. So I'm thinking when I do get around to starting up my own prosthetic shop, this bad boy might just be for sale.

More to come over the next week. I'll be sculpting Natasha's and Draper's this week. And hopefully I'll get to meet my last actor and get him on the go soon as well.