Wall mounted Pygmy Blood Troll Head.

I came up with the idea for making wall mounted beast heads years ago, of course I never got around to it and since then I've seen several others making them - that's always annoying. However, I finally got around to it, it was mostly the finer details of reproducing them consistently that stopped me from doing it right away.

The biggest stumbling block for me ended up being two relatively simple things, the plaque itself and the eyes.The biggest problem was sourcing locally and then sourcing within Canada online. Neither really panned out in a way I felt would work for me without driving the cost of the final piece up. Then I suddenly happened upon some small plaques that were very inexpensive and it went from there.

As for the eyes, I didn't want to paint them, so I wanted something I could just plop into place. I found some glass black glass beads that would give the troll that soulless look. The tricky part was designing all this to be done with just a single mould with a minimum amount of work involved to reproduce the piece.

So I took one of the stones, glued a wooden stick to it. Because that how you make eyeballs, right?

I made a mould of that and created to silicone copies.

 So I could sculpt around them to create a socket and pull them out without distressing the sculpture.

It worked perfectly. It took less than a day for the sculpt. I pretty much just made it up as I was going. I knew I wanted a fat little weird troll-like head and that was it.

I was happy with the result, and that it didn't take me days of agonizing over details to get it to turn out. From there I made a stone mould, with a flat back to it, drilled a hole in that and the mould was done in less than a day as well.

I thought the best and least expensive material would be latex filled with expanding foam, I'm used to it and I had all these supplies onhand already, so that was a pretty easy choice.

And there you have it. I had minimal cleanup around the edges, no other post-mould adjusting, cleaning or detailing to do, I just had to paint it, glue in the eyes and stain the plaque and mount the sucker. It was a lot more work than I'm making it sound, but it's fairly easy work overall, just takes a couple hours to produce one of these - unless I do them in bulk.

So yes, I am selling these. At the time of posting this I've just made the first prototype one, I'll be running off a couple more and doing a run of 5 for now and seeing how well they sell. Now that I've done the whole process and know my costs, I came up with a price of $40 for each one. Anyone interested can contact me, themonkeyrodeo@gmail.com.

So, after all that, what is a Pygmy Blood Troll? Here's some information on this ugly little critter.

The origins of this vile species is rather complicated. While most all creatures of Demonic origins are peaceful, docile beings, Pygmy Blood Trolls are quite the opposite.

It begins with the Blood Parasite, a leech-like worm that is responsible for most modern Vampire myths. They infect a living host, leaving them mostly dead in all appearances, using their bodies to then feed on blood from living victims. Normally this process simply works with the parasite taking over the internal functions of both Demons and Humans, Humans being much more susceptible because of their weaker physiology.

Demons are more resistant to the Blood Parasite on average, 27% of all Demonic species are completely immune to them. Trolls specifically are immune to Blood Parasite, however one species, Earth Trolls – who can hibernate deep in the earth for hundreds of years – actually absorb the Blood Parasite.

In most cases the parasite is simply consumed internally with no ill effect, however in pregnant Earth Trolls, the fetus is bonded with the parasite, altering its entire biological structure. One Pygmy Blood Troll (called as such since they never grow over a foot tall and most trolls range from seven feet to several hundred feet tall) is a somewhat hazardous nuisance, several are a much different matter. Pygmy Blood Trolls procreate much like modern day rabbits, within months there can be as many as one thousand.

Pygmy Blood Trolls usually feed on smaller animals, but have, on occasion, attacked larger creatures in packs. They are incredibly dangerous in high numbers since their Trolls physiology makes them strong for their size, and very tough to kill. The Blood Parasite physiology makes them very fast healers and immune to pain – it’s is believe the only true method of killing a Pygmy Blood Troll is to decapitate it and burn the body immediately. They will also, like their parentage, burrow deep into the earth where they can hibernate for hundreds of years and are near impossible to find in this state – this makes controlling Pygmy Blood Troll outbreaks a very difficult task and on that must be handled immediately before they either procreate or enter hibernation.

A new "Random Demon" shoot.

I got to do another "wandering about town" shoot with a random Demon the other day. I don't often get to do these kinds of shoots anymore since I live way outside of the city. Most of what I've been doing lately has been carefully planned out, the makeup, character and location, I used to do just this sort of makeup a lot. Just pick a piece, find a model, slap it on and make it all up as I got and we'd go for a walk around town. It's kind of nice doing that, less pressure and work.

I'm really happy with how this makeup turned out. It was a piece I made just do to a random demon shoot with this particular model. The ears I've used a couple times before as well, but the combination of the ears, the new face and the red makeup, with the contacts and fangs on this particular model - it turned out something that looks like a real solid character piece that looks easily like it could fit into any supernatural type TV show.

Demons in Ugly Christmas Sweaters.

I don't this series of photos needs much explanation, so here goes:

And that's it.

New prosthetics online

The newest featured prosthetic is Cthulhu, $130 available by special order only.

Or, if you'd rather some ears.

Fae Ears - $22.

Grishloch Ears - $22.

Or perhaps you just feel a little horny...There is honestly no "horny" joke to be made I haven't heard while applying these.

Demon Spikes - $25

 Large Spikes - $30.

Horn Cluster - $14

And finally, the newest Limited Run piece:

Grishloch Demon - $55.

 

Cthulhu Prosthetic

I finally got this bad boy finished and ready for sale, the Cthulhu Foam Latex Prosthetic Appliance, and the first in a series of what I'm calling "The Innsmouth Collection", all Lovecraft inspired pieces.

Now, this is not something I'd really recommend for beginners, it does require a little preparation work - unlike any other of my prosthetics. And, like all my other prosthetics, it comes unpainted - so be prepared for a paint job to make it work.

And the vision is limited, I wanted to make a piece that totally disregarded human features in order to make it more Cthulhu-like, so the vision comes from the small dark "spots" on the brow. While it is limited, it's not that bad depending on what you want to do with it - operating heavy machinery as Cthulhu is not recommended.

These "spots" need to be cleaned up on each piece - special instructions will be included. As well as a small area that will allow you to breath through your nose will need to be cut out - your choice though, but the area is totally hidden under the tentacles.

The piece is available for $130, which is admittedly much more expensive than my usual pieces, however this piece requires nearly 5-6 times more foam than a regular face piece and a bit more work than the typical prosthetic as well. I will point out, because it's a much thicker piece, the thinnest point is along the forehead - which is the only area you need worry about really blending - this piece is much more likely to be reusable than any other piece I make, information on that will be included in the special instruction as well.

For right now it comes with 4 tentacles as well, each are about 5 inches long, although I do have plans for much longer ones in the near future, so you'll be able to pick what size and style of tentacle you want - at least that's the plan, don't hold me to that.

The Cthulhu Prosthetic is available ONLY as special order, I don't plan on keeping them in stock, only making them as they're ordered. Allow up to two weeks for manufacturing, so if you're in a rush, you might be out of luck. And as far as wholesale goes, I will take orders for it - however, there is a limit per order (nor sure just yet, but no more than 5 per order mostly likely) and they'll be $80 each.

Occasionally rejects will be available as well since this piece does have a much higher rate of defects, most of which can be easily patch and are unnoticeable, but sometimes there's just too much or too great of a defect.

And that's pretty much it. Any questions, you can email me at foxhenderson @ themonkeyrodeo.com

What Happens to Old Prosthetic Makeup?

I've had these lurking around my workshop for some time and thought it'd be interesting to see a side by side comparison of a prosthetic stored properly and one stored very improperly.

The white-ish one was obviously stored properly, the one that looks like overbaked bread was not. These were both made around the same time, give or take a couple weeks, approximately 3 and a half years ago.

The one on the left is still totally usable, the foam is slightly stiffer (but then again it could have come out like that in the beginning, I don't recall) but otherwise totally useable - in fact I'm planning on using it tomorrow perhaps. It was stored in a sealed bag away from direct light.

The one on the right was left in the back seat window of a car, during the summer, for maybe 7 months or so and has just been left out ever since. It's incredibly delicate, in fact a few tiny pieces crumbled away just picking it up to do this shot. It's totally stiff, the underside (not in the sun) is a yellow-ish colour and you can see the topside is that golden brown (slightly burned) bread crust colour - although totally rigid and a little shiny.

This is a good demonstration to customers who by prosthetics who wonder why things need to be stored properly and how long they can last. In a sealed bag (everything prosthetic piece I sell comes in a zip lock bag anyway) out of direct sunlight - and definitely not in the back window of a car for several month during the summer.

As I said, it's been about 3 and a half years and the piece is still totally useable. You hear some people go on about how foam latex (and latex in general) will degrade over time, it will, but it will take a LONG time, so there should never be any concern about buying a prosthetic piece like this and no using it right away - just store it properly and you can still use it years later.

The Witch's Jawbone prop finally for sale.

I started working on these awhile back and things just got really busy with the Halloween season so I had to put it aside, but it's finally done and ready for sale. It's a limited run of 5 for sale, although there's 1 prototype with resin nails that was given to a friend, and two more - one of which I'll be keeping for myself and the second will be held until I decide what I want to use it for, a prize for a contest or something. I don't know yet.

It's a full sized jawbone, moulded and cast in clay from a medical skeleton jawbone, I resculpted the clay jawbone to incorporate the nails and give a more distressed look. The clay jawbone was moulded for the final pieces, which were cast in resin, all hand painted and finally real antique steel nails were driven into it (there were hole already, but the nails are pretty firmly held in place)

The box is wood and glass (I didn't make it, it was purchased), I stained it myself though. The jaw rests inside on a bed of packing moss, with a Certificate of Authenticity underneath it, stating the number of the limited run each particular piece is.

 I haven't sorted out shipping costs yet, I'm planing on making them available for shipping by November 25th, I estimate $30 for US and Canadian orders, overseas will be pretty expensive I would imagine. Each one will have the jawbone wrapped in bubblewrap inside the display case, to prevent the nails from possibly cracking the glass in shipping. And the case itself will be padded and the package marked fragile. I also recommend a shipping method with insurance - it doesn't cost extra, but those methods are slightly more expensive in general.

And as for the cost on this piece, supposing you made it this far and you're still interested, is $75. To order, send me an email at themoneyrodeo@gmail.com, include your address so I can get you a shipping quote as quickly as possible, I will then send you an invoice through Paypal, or through email if you're in Canada and would rather use Email Interact.

And that's it. I'll be posting these on the website later this week as well as on Etsy.

The Succubus Photo Shoot - Part Two (possibly NSFW)

And now the rest of the photos from the Succubus shoot.

This looks like it should be a movie poster.

While it may look like partial nudity - there is in fact none. The idea was to create a character that it not only suited to be fairly undressed, but do it so it didn't feel like a juvenile attempt to see boobies - albeit red boobies with purple nipples made of foam latex.

Why make fake breasts? Why not? Not every model is comfortable showing off their breasts, so it shouldn't even be a question, nor should it be assumed so either. In this case I wanted to attempt something that while it looked surreal, also looked a little realistic to catch the viewer off guard a bit - since this is a fairly huge departure overall from what I normally do.

 And of course, as I mentioned in Part One, this was my last shoot with Julie - possibly forever, if not a long, long time - so I wanted to go as far as I could. My whole goal with all these photos is to show off Demons, there's that whole "don't judge a book by it's cover" idea - so even if a girl is bright red with horns and spikes all over her, doesn't mean she still isn't beautiful.

Okay, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it does present an incredibly striking image that, I personally think, doesn't feel overly porn-y or sleazy.
 

The concept of creating a Succubus, a generally known bit of mythology, is that it sort of explains away the nudity, this would obviously be a creature more than comfortable with her sexuality and present herself in a totally relaxed way for a photo shoot - something neither myself or any model I've ever worked with would be truly comfortable doing. I shoot Demons, not porn - although I'm well aware some would label all this as such anyway.

I was worried it wouldn't all work out, that the whole thing wouldn't come together and might feel a little cheesy or cheap - but for me it worked brilliantly. I knew red would be a tricky colour, but it's a great character type colour. All blue, green, or purple would not have looked this striking for a shoot like this. The makeup all worked together fantastically, I was slightly worried the added horns on her arms and legs might not blend in, I think they work great and just add a little more depth to the whole thing.

Overall, I couldn't be happier with this shoot. It was a gamble, since there was so much time, money, and effort poured into this, that it might not work. The whole thing could have looked silly, or too ugly. I took several stabs at the design of that cowl piece, which ties the whole thing together and is really the centerpiece of it all, as far as I'm concerned, and I hope to use it in a couple future shoots if possible.

And yes, it looks like Darkness, Tim Curry's character from Legend. That was unintentional and as soon as I stood back and really looked at it with the camera, I realized it instantly - and really, that's not a terrible comparison at all. Darkness is still such a standout makeup/character that I'm glad I created something that could easily stand as a counterpoint to that if it had to.

So that's it. I think I've taken the overtly sexy Demon concept as far as I can. Some might pop up here and there, but way more PG, but I don't think I can ever top this - at least not any time soon.

The Succubus Photo Shoot - Part One.

I'm chopping this up into two posts because of how I'm editing the images.

One of my favorite Demon models is leaving PEI, we'd worked together - she was actually the first Demon shoot ever - for about 4-5 years and I thought we needed to do something big for one last shoot.

Since, Julie, the model in question here, liked doing the more pin-up type shoots and I not only had a mould of her face, but of her head and shoulders as well, I figured this was already half done. I was more comfortable doing larger paint jobs since discovering the Pro-Aiir paints - not perfect as they will come off with friction of any sort, but they do work really well.

I also want to point out, I don't do massive elaborate makeups because that's not my market. My market is the Halloween crowd, so I tailor my stuff to not feel too out of reach to that crowd - and I've no interest in being involved in the film special effects industry, too many uniformed people with far reaching unreasonably expectations that I just don't have the patience for. With the Halloween market there's much less expectation usually and a better sense of fun when it comes to makeup.

So this project was much larger scale that I'm used to. Not only was a planning a cowl and face piece, but several horns and spines and crap all over, but fake breasts as well. I was interested in the idea of artificial nudity and how it would read and be responded to - obviously a much more comfortable thing to deal with in general as well for both me and the model.

The idea was set and I have to get it all sculpted, I started with the face, it was easy enough and I don't really recall much by way of agonizing over the design. I did several of the horns and spikes at the same time since I wasn't worried about their overall look - other than they'd be black and sinewy looking.

The breasts were easy enough, I normally use Monster Makers clay, but I thought it'd be too difficult getting a smooth rounded shape - and then another matching one - so I used regular WED clay for that, sculpting the nipples separately since they needed more detail than I felt I could get with the WED clay. They were done with Monster Makers, the idea was to glue them on, seal them and paint them all as one - which worked perfectly.Took a couple tries to get them to turn out in foam latex though.

The biggest challenge, since I don't do larger pieces very often, was the cowl. I did a full face and cowl earlier this year with Julie and it worked out okay. I learned what was a good idea and why, and what was a bad idea and why. I like to learn by doing, not listening to someone else. I decide this time around to make separate pieces, cowl and face. And rather then have a full neck wrapping around - I left the larynx area open to make it easier to slip on - which worked great and was so easy this time around.

The worst part was the horns. I decided since it was open along the front to do do my seam along the middle of the face, not from side to side like it's usually done. I didn't put a lot of details along the top of the skull and back of the neck, so I figured it'd make for a quick decent seam - and it did, it worked great. The only weird angle I had was the horns.

While they turned out well in the mould, for some reason whenever I ran it in foam, they just wouldn't gel and tore apart upon demoulding. I tried it three times. First time was a regular batch of foam, it wasn't enough. Second time it was still crap. Third time the cowl came out okay, but the horns were still not gelling and I was running out time, foam and patience. I was filling orders for Halloween at the same time and it was impossible to juggle so I had to run this when I was running stuff for orders. In the end I chose to cut the ragged horns off of the otherwise decent cowl and ran the horns themselves, attaching them afterwards - they were still a little ragged, but they worked just the same so I was happy.

I think the mould still had some moisture in it and that was causing the issues, I just didn't have time to deal with that though since I was on an incredibly tight deadline.I was doing the shoot on Monday the 20th and this was Saturday afternoon, the 18th. I still had to paint all this stuff up and get orders ready for Monday morning as well.

So it all worked, I managed to get it all painted - I even learned a little bit more about my airbrushed and clogging issues that I had never realized before too.

We had an awesome location, there was no real rush - which was good considering I had to airbrush Julie from head to toe in red. We got the cowl, face and breasts on and began painting. I knew it was going to take awhile, and even though I lost track of time, I think it was around 4 hours. It was tiring and exhausting, but I think it was well worth it. In person the makeup was okay, there were definite flaws - but I know how red holds up on camera so I was banking in it helping fudge the colours exactly how I wanted it to. And I was right, it worked perfectly.

I had to do some cleaning up, the seams were far from perfect, but for the purposes of still photos it was good enough. I won't lie and say these are exactly how it looked right from the camera, they are processed. I cleaned up the edges were needed and decided to add a little extra black to her eyes. I used some big-assed black sclera lenses with a red iris and thought it needed to go a little further.

These are the first batch from post-processing. I wanted to make sure I had some "Facebook friendly" ones to post right away and these are those images. Even though there's no nudity, I'm pretty sure there's at least one idiot out there who wouldn't read, see foam latex nipples and get all upset. I'm not interesting in pushing those limits for the sake of rights or controversy, so this was my solution.

A huge amount of the photos not only turned out, but turned out brilliantly awesome. I couldn't be happier with the results of all that hard work. Dozens and dozens of hours of sculpting, moulding, casting and painting and applying all paid off in freaking awesome Succubus shoot.

It might be a couple days before I get around to posting the rest.