That's a bit of a clunk description, but it's what I'm going with.
Did this shoot just before last Christmas, it was kinda of a thrown together, hastily planned shoot - I think it turned out pretty well. I did the makeup on location, which I don't do anything and really don't like doing - but despite that and realizing I forgot a couple things, I still managed to put together something that looks good.
I've been doing a Halloween Day shoot with one particular model off and on for the last few years, it was never an official thing but as of this past Halloween, and this shoot, we talked about it and decided to make it an official yearly scheduled thing from now on.
While not every year we do this will feature a brand new prosthetic like this one did, depending on how things go it might be. This piece, the Vijho'Hazhu, was brand new. It was sculpted, moulding and run in foam inside of about 2 weeks (normally I take my time when I do prosthetics), and the piece used in the shoot was the first from the mould about 2 days before the shoot. It was cut pretty close, hopefully that won't be a yearly thing.
One reason the sculpt went so quickly was because I had a fairly strong idea of what I wanted. Usually there's days, weeks even, that go by while I just look at a piece trying to figure out what it needs, while this one just came together with very little effort.
I wanted something that had a kind of regal or powerful feel to it. Something that had a much more darker vibe to it than I usually got for as well. I feel like in the end what turned out was a fairly versatile design, from evil ancient vampire to some undead ancient one from deep space - which sounds weird to say that's exactly what I was going for, but seriously, that's what I was going for.
Last minute I decided to add a piece I'd made for another shoot, that I'll most likely never get to - the large clawed finger - and while it's not super obvious in most of the shots, I'm still glad I threw it into the mix.
Also, the cloak being worn here is about 20 years old and was custom made for me for the first movie I ever made. It was incredibly well made and has held up perfectly over the years - but it's heavy as hell.
Did this shoot way back when we had nice weather, I hadn't gotten around to finishing it up until now because there was a massive pile of shots we got and I just couldn't wrap my head around going through them all while I was already swamped with work otherwise.
The main focus of the prosthetics on this shoot were experiments. The horns were of a length that I knew I was pushing how far foam latex could go without collapsing, falling over or whatever. The brow was an attempt to allow for a certain form. While I'm happy with the shoot, the experiment was a failure - but I did learn a lot from the attempt.
The biggest issue with the horns was that one of them would, over time, begin to pull up and fall off. Now that could be in part because it was a hot day, so the adhesive was slowly giving away the whole time as well - so it wasn't just the pulling from the weight of the foam latex, both were at fault I believe.
I do have plans for more efficient designs. A shorter version of these horns and a redesign of an older piece, sort of like this, that will allow for a much more interesting brow design - I kept this one simple since I didn't feel like throwing too much effort towards something I wasn't sure about.
