KW
Horn
For the design the horn is the focal piece of the makeup therefore it is important that I make it as realistic as possible. I have previous experinence in making small spines for the last project, however this is a whole new level. I have to create a very large horn and make it as lightweight as possible in order for the model to wear it for long periods of time. It will also need to be removable as the actor will not fit into the car with the horn on the top of the head to get to the location. To do this I have thought of a way in which the horn may attach to a vacume formed plate that will be placed under the prosthetic with a bolt attached. The horn will then have the corresponding bolt that will allow it to be removed easily.
To begin the process of creating the horn I took the lifecast of my model, I then created the casts in fibreglass. Once I had these I was able to work out how long the horn needed to be in order to reach over the head and pierce into the back of the design. After gathering the indormation for the length I began sculpting the horn with a foam inner in order to save time on structuring and building up clay. However the I didnt take into account that the foam needed to be smaller that the desired size, to allow for the clay and textuing, which made it difficult to sculpt without touhing the foam. Once I had completed the horn I coated the clay in a fine layer of silicone to pick up the detail, I then proceeded to build up the layers to get a thick mould. Once moulded I removed from the fibreglass head and created a fibreglass jacket around the piece so that I could run the piece in fast cast and rigid foam. To do this I placed the silicone mould inside the fibreglass and poured fast cast around to coat the outer layers. The next step was to mix rigid foam to fill the inside, this made it as lightweight as possible. The photographs below show the process of creating this horn. Once I had the final horn I was able to use it when sculting the caul piece to ensure that the final prosthetic fit snugley around the piece making a cohesive piece.
This is the elephant tusk picture that I used as refernce for the horn that I created for my character I tried to imitate the styling and also a little of the colour, however I changed it slightly as the creature was an original design.
Creating the Cap for the Horn
For this horn to be attached to the models head it required a base that would support the weight and keep it in place. To do this I thought that I would create a vacuum formed cap of my models head, into which I ould cut a hole and insert a screw or bolt. However my model has a very large head and the fibreglass core would not fit underneath the plastic in the vacuum form machine. This meant that I had to create a fibreglass core I released the fibreglass core with lots of wax so that the fibreglass does not stick. I then applied a layer of matting with veil, however when I removed this it was very flexible and weak, therefore I needed to apply more matting to support the shell. I then applied two more layers and veil to make sure that it was thick enough. Once this was set I took it off the core and vibrosawed the edges off. I then made sure that the back edge of the cap did not restrict the movement of my model around the back of the neck by cutting it to size and trying it on him. Once cut to size I sanded the edges of the fibreglass and then lined the inside with chamois leather in order that the model have a comfortable cap on his head. I unfortunately lost the images of the process, however I will hand in the final piece in order for my work to be seen.
Elephant Tusk (n.d.) [Online Image] Available From: http://pixshark.com/elephant-tusk.htm Date Accessed: 27/04/2015