War Elf

I started off this shoot wanting to do a weird video game-esque character with odd looking, almost useless, armor. I'd never used worbla before so it seemed the best time to jump in and try since I had a specific goal in mind. Over the course of working on it I did a few other shoots using it, still not sure if I really have a handle on it, but I have some better ideas of what do try next time if I do this again ever.

I wanted to shoot in winter, and had planned on doing this back in 2013/14 winter, but I just wasn't able to get things together in time.

I'm glad it didn't happen then because I didn't have this prosthetic at that point, which made this particular shoot much easier. I used the cowl from the Succubus shoot (same one used for the Demon Elvira shoot) and a forehead I'd made as a commission for someone else - this was a reject of it and it was in pretty bad shape, so I had to patch it up and whatnot. But the forehead design works great and totally flows into the cowl seamlessly.

So that's it. We got a few shots outside, it was a really nice day and the model, Ancelene, didn't freeze or anything - we're only about 5 feet from my house in these shots - one good thing about living in the country, you don't have to go too far to look like you're in the middle of nowhere.

Frost Troll

I did this piece a few months ago and because of the shitty weather and schedules I only finally got around to getting a shoot done with it today. And I am happy as hell with how it turned out.

A lot of the makeups I do lately have been pretty over the top and cartoonish - mainly because I like that sort of thing. This piece, which I wouldn't brag that it's ultra-realistic by any means, is still cartoon-ish in it's own way, but a little more of a character piece. It was inspired by the Troll designs from The Hobbit: Battle of the Five armies.

The idea behind the huge forehead nubs is that this a a more modern evolution of the Frost Troll, the ancient species was more bestial and had huge horns used for digging in the frozen earth looking for food.

And it's worth noting that the resemblance to Hellboy was totally unintentional, but kind of makes it cooler.

The Frost Troll prosthetic is available as a limited run piece for $60. It's a much thicker piece than I normally do, which does make it easier to remove with the edges intact.

And it gave me the chance to do a totally asymmetrical pair of ears, something I've never done before, nor have I (up until now) seen in any other shops selling prosthetics. The Troll Ears are a permanent addition to my online shop, they sell for $22.

If you made it all the way down here and feel you simply must get yourself all Frost Trolled up, feel free to email me at foxhenderson @ themonkeyrodeo.com to order your own Frost Troll and Troll Ear prosthetics. I will be selling them as a bundle for only $70, instead of $82.

Mini Mounted Cthulhu Head

I've been into make little mounted beast heads lately, one of those prop ideas I came up with years ago and threw on the backburner since I wasn't really sure how I could pull it off. I just finished my third one, a mini Cthulhu head. I've been keeping them small-ish to keep the price down since they do take a lot of time and money to make a single one.

I did a Pygmy Blood Troll and an Albino Cyclops Faerie, so Cthulhu seemed the next logical step.

I had recently purchased a small jar of Glow Worm, from Smooth-On, it's a really strong glow-in-the-dark powder that gave me the idea to give him glow in the dark eyes just for fun. I wasn't going for an ultra-realistic final piece, but something slightly cartoony and stylized - it kind of has an unintentional Mike Mignola feel to it I think, which I'm pretty happy about.

I wanted to keep the paint job bright and simple as well, I didn't want it muddied down with excessive details and colour schemes, just a nice bright, clean green with a little red and yellow accenting - again, keeping it cartoonish.

The eyes just pop into place, I don't bother gluing them or anything - since I didn't want to risk getting glue everything pressing the eyeballs into the sockets, but they didn't need it anyway, they slip in really easily while the latex is still fresh-ish, it tends to stiffen up a bit after a couple days from the mould, which should hold the eyes in as well as anything - but I'm sure if you go looking to jab them out, you probably can, like anything if you want to destroy it, it's pretty easy.

The glow-in-the-dark effect is pretty awesome, the Glow Worm is really bright and even obvious in broad daylight if you're in shadows. Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out, it's a totally different take on Cthulhu than I usually do and I think it's one of my better pieces.

I'm selling them in a limited run of 10 right now, $85 each. I'll be selling a small handful at the few Cons I attend each year as well. The plaque is almost 7" and the head itself is around 6", made from latex skinned polyfoam. Comes with the hanging hardware already attached, so it's ready to hang right out of the box.

Albino Cyclops Faerie

Mounted Albino Cyclops Faerie head.

Made of latex and filled with polyfoam and a resin eyeball, the head measures 2 1/2 inches long and comes mounted on a stained plaque with mounting hardware attached. $27.50 +shipping.

A rare mutation of the Seer Faerie, a species with prophetic abilities. It's unclear whether the mutation is caused by a genetic disorder in the parents or something environmental that results in these unusually violent creatures.

While the Seer Faeries abilities are usually limited to minor visions of random future events, the Albino Cyclops Faerie's abilities are limited to only seeing the death of any number of random individuals - it's thought that the constant visions of death is what drives these creatures to madness.

It's also believed that if an Albino Cyclops Faeries prophesies your death, the fate can be avoided altogether by destroying the creature, possibly resulting in immortality.

Latex Masks available this year!

This post is a little premature, but I wanted to post something. I decided this year I'd start selling regular latex masks in my shop. I've been meaning to for some time now, but there was just never the time or something else always came up. I don't know.

These here are the first group that'll be going up for sale. The lower centre one is a test painting version that I'll be keeping for myself.

The idea with this shape came from seeing some LARP orc masks, no full neck with the chin and lower lip cut out - it means no Batman neck and you can totally eat, drink, whatever without the mask interfering and depending on the colouring, it can blend in decently well to give the illusion of a prosthetic. I thought it was brilliant and since I hadn't really settled on a specific design or methodology behind what masks I'd make, this was my starting point.

Things just keep coming up and taking up more of my time than I'd planned so I just haven't been able to crank these things out like I'd planned. But the mould is all done and I'm going to do them in small runs - since I don't have the space to keep a pile of them around and stored properly.

I'm planning two versions of this mask, haven't decided on a name yet, there'll be a caucasian flesh toned version - meaning it should blend in naturally with worn to the wearers exposed chin and neck. And I'll be doing up a red version, which I can supply some red creme makeup with to make it ready to wear right out of the box, the customers won't have to buy anything additional.

They're designed off an average sized male head, so that's who they'll fit. They might require a little padding in the back of the head since it can slide forward, impossible to fix that any other way since it'd require the mask be skin tight (and utterly uncomfortable). It's an issue I've noticed with all latex masks.

I'll be offering up blanks for sale as well, I know there are some folks out there that like getting them just to practice or they like customizing these things themselves. The finished versions will be $90 (plus shipping) and the blanks will be $45. I'll only be making about 20 of them at most I think, all depends.

So I'm hoping the rest of this week goes as planned, amidst sculpting other stuff, organizing photo shoots and actually doing them, to some small custom jobs, we'll just have to see what happens.

Since I'm only selling them in small runs, I may only sell them on Etsy, but with a link from my own website, it's easier when selling small numbers. I'll play it by ear for now I think and see how it all works.

I'm also planning to do female versions as well possibly, or at least do masks fitted for women (or smaller heads). These are way too large for the average female head so I thought I'd do up male and female versions.

I think they might go over decently well in the Haunted Attraction community as an alternative to makeup. They're easy to slip on and off, if cared for could last years - way cheaper than silicone masks so it's less of an investment. As awesome as silicone masks are, I know not every Haunted Attraction can afford more than a couple before it's just too expensive unfortunately.

By Friday you might see four of them online for sale, all depends on how this week shapes up. And over the course of the year I'm hoping to release 5 more different masks, 3 male sized ones and 3 female sized ones - and of course one of those sets will be an obligatory zombie design.