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.

Demon Photo Services

While I'm continuing to do my own shoots, I am no longer really looking for new models - but that doesn't mean you still can't get demonized as I'm planning on offering up a Demon Photoshoot Service. Here's the details:

If you’re not a resident of PEI and you don’t live here, well that’s a problem. However, should you plan to be on the Island at a certain time and are interested, let me know – but 2 weeks notice minimum would be appreciated as I am busy and this is not a last minute thing.

Since every shoot will be, most likely, totally different, it’s hard to pin down all the finer details – such as locations, travel, costumes and whatever. I can say, I don’t have a car so travel is up to you. I don’t have a stock of costumes, so if you wanted something special or specific, you’d have to supply that yourself unless it’s so special (and you’re willing to pay extra) I’d have to make it. As for locations, anywhere you’re willing to drive to is fine by me.

Cost Breakdown:

For example, this here picture, should someone wish to recreate this, would be expensive – and that’s not even thinking of the costume, which was mostly custom made for this shoot. The makeup was a full face piece ($50), a pair of ears ($20) and 4 pairs of horns($40), plus application ($20) would run $130, plus $20 for the shoot itself – you’d be looking at $150 for that kind of photo shoot.

Another example

Forehead ($20) – and for this shoot I did make some custom fangs and had a pair of contacts leftover from another shoot with the same model.  This would run you $40.

However, if you wanted fangs, custom made ones are pretty pricey and a bit of a pain to do a right now (working on that however), my suggestion would be to find yourself some cheap Halloween ones for yourself. I think Repeats in Charlottetown actually has some all year round, but I could be wrong.

Some other important stuff to know:

The more people, the more time it'll all take and the more it'll cost - there's no discount for multiple people since it's way more work time for me. Also, multiple people at night can be tricky since it's harder to focus on multiple subjects unless there's good light.

Children...Nope. I DO NOT recommend this for children because there's a lot of things that can go wrong and some adults even have issues with it. I am not interested in dealing with these issues nor is a simple explanation enough to waive this - unless you yourself have gone through it and totally understand the entire process and are willing to convey that to your child and are willing to accept the consequences should there be a reaction to the makeup or something in the whole process, I refuse to do a shoot with anyone of age 12 - and there's no wiggle room on this, and they must be accompanied by a parent. Also, most of the larger pieces I have will most likely not fit children anyway.

Sometimes, in certain conditions - like nighttime - pictures can not to turn out very well, no problem there at all. Should you want to do a night shoot and the bulk of the pictures just turn out blurry and out of focus, I've no problem redoing the shoot at no extra cost. However, the makeup must be identical to the previous shoot.

I'm sure there's a lot more things that could be covered, but there's just too many variables - so feel free to send me an email foxhenderson@themonkeyrodeo.com, and asked away. Can't hurt.

Demon photo shoots for 2013 and possibly beyond

With a few changes to how I do things in regards to prosthetic makeup, I'm moving into doing some much larger pieces. I'm constructing a much larger foam latex oven this year (hopefully soon) and the photo shoots will involve much more elaborate makeup this time around. Like full head pieces, arm and hand pieces, and other pieces to really demonize people a little bit more.

The previous book contained stuff that was really intended for resale, most of the stuff in the new round of shoots won't be because it's being custom made for each model - although there will be a few of the simpler shoots thrown in there.

I've picked out a small group of both men and women who I will be doing lifecasts of (mostly just their heads, but all depends on what the shoot needs). Because the makeup will be more drastic in obscuring their natural features I don't mind reusing the same people for the more elaborate shoots - plus it'd just be too expensive to do head casts for every single person - plus I don't have the space to store all that stuff.

So what do I have planned? All sorts of stuff, this time around I want to do some more iconic type characters (iconic in my estimation at least). One I have planned is a demon version of Kratos from the God of War videogames - that should be pretty awesome, Kratos is already kind of demonic. I'll be using John MacDonald for that one - if you familiar with my previous shoots and don't know who John is, he'll actually make the original Kratos look scrawny in comparison.

Lara Croft and even Nathan Drake are being planned as well - in separate shoots. Both are pretty easy and I chose them because if you're into videogames they're both fairly recognizable because they keep a consistent costume style and look. I'm sticking with the more realistic human characters, so no, I will not be doing a demon PacMan or Mario, it just seems a little too retarded for me.

I'm thinking a demon Indiana Jones would be cool. I have a friend who's a huge Indy fan so I'm looking to get him to do it, just need to find a really good location for that shoot.

I was toying with fairy tale characters as well, the first I came up with was Little Red Riding Hood as a werewolf - that one seems pretty obvious and logical, if I think of others that work a well as that I might do a few more of these. Could be cool, but offhand I can't think of too many iconic type fairy tale characters who would be recognizable as a demon or without a explanation. I'd like the images to speak for themselves and have, at least, a good portion of the viewers able to recognize the character.

These are all going to require some crafting of props and costumes, I was thinking I'd just buy a couple of the cheap foam Sword of Chaos props for the Kratos shoot, but last night I was thinking they might look a little small in John's hands - until I see them in context I'm toying with making my own.

One of the more intricate, and possibly annoying, shoots will be the Steampunk Demons, it'll feature (all fictional characters) Dr. Mordgog and his two assistants as they travel through time. That'll be a 3 person shoot and could be awesome if I really take the time with the props and costumes. The thing with Steampunk is, if it isn't don't right it looks stupid. You can't just throw on a victorian-esque suit and some goggle and declare you're into Steampunk, you need some crazy assed looking shit to go with it. This is going to be a big one and really hard to do right, luckily I've been planning it for awhile.

Otherwise I'd like to do a demon Samurai (could be awesome or terrible depending on the costuming ideas), might go with a more "Samurai Jack" approach to this one, don't know for sure just yet.

I think a Geisha Demon (continuing with that theme) could be pretty awesome, need a good setting though for this shoot. We don't really have the best gardens that I feel I'd need to pull this one off well.

A Victorian Age Demon, a female one with the huge crazy dress, I think that could look pretty cool.

And one I've been debating about for some time and really need to work on the design is Hellgirl. I made a remake about another shoot I had done where I painted up the model in all red, that she kinda reminded me of Hellboy's little sister - if he had one. Then I thought, why not? I've seen a lot of female cosplayers doing their version of a female Hellboy, but I don't want to do that, it's too easy.

I want to do a fully realized character that would fit into that world, more del Toro's than Mignola's maybe, that could very well be the sister of the Right Hand of Doom. In this case she would be known as the Left Hand of Destruction (tentative name). She wouldn't be an identical twist on Hellboy, other than having horns (of a different configuration) and being red - I kinda think you need those things in order for it to resemble the original. That could be cool.

I'm sure there will be more, I have a few others I'm playing around with to see if I can form them into a decent concept. I'm not putting the same timeline for completion on this project as I was the first, this one is going to take a lot long, maybe 2, possibly 3 years even. Who knows at this point.