The elevator tells me that next weekend we Spring Ahead. Er, time change. The MENU in the elevator. Umm. Yeah.
A bit dazed today, only got about six hours sleep. Maybe five. Or five and a half. Yeah, I know, I'm a wimp, but I like my sleep!
Drove down to San Antonio last night to visit with Ronn and Alain, hung out with them and Brad Henderson (www.bradhenderson.com/). So that was cool.
I'm hoping to hook up with them this evening again when they do a shoot on South Congress, but we'll see. My weekday schedules are a bit constrained.
This weekend I played (briefly) with makeup (some borrowed cake and creme) and batched up a bit of foamy gelatin.
The cake makeup can be made very light so it's good for subtle bases. The creme is a bit easier to apply, I think, and blends well, but goes on heavier. I'll put in an order for a mix of products today so I'll get to play more later. Heck, I may even put up pictures!
The foamed gelatin was interesting. I used gelatin from the hombrew shop and it seemed to work find. I used 100 grams of gelatin powder in 450 grams of glycerin and this makes a good, firm base. It cooks up a golden tan color, though, which made me think it was burnt! So I steamed up some water and made a dollop of water-based, and did a dollop of half water and half glycerin... the water was pale golden and the glycerin mix was a midway between the dark and the pale gold.
So apparently glycerin makes it darker.
I took 100g of the base (still hot and fluid), hotted it up a bit more, and stirred in 1tsp of baking soda. Actually, it started foaming right then! I may have to start with the acid in the mixture first, though I would rather have it base than acid, I think, for application to the body. Oh, and I added 2tsp of a fairly heavy acrylic medium too.
Stirring in the acid it foamed WAY the heck up, talking 8x or 10x here. I was prepared for about 4x, since the foaming squish performed so badly. Heh. Like the squish, I wasn't able to refine (stir) it very much to break down the bubbles, but I did some.
Poured a blob into a polyurethane mold I had laying around (which had silicon ick in it from a previous use, which had some setting issues) and left bits in the cups I used.
While still fairly fresh the gelatin foam is *really* sticky so I had my doubts about its usability! Of course, years (if not decades) of use indicate that it is quite usable, somehow.
This morning it had set nicely, though the blob in the mold had collapsed a fair amount. I may need to add more medium, I may need to refine it more, and the nature of the mold may have affected it too. I'm going to buy some information with my makeup order to improve my process. Right now I have more money than time for this.
The foamed gelatin takes makeup a LOT like skin, so with a base stipple to redden it up to match skin, it should makeup quite nicely. The foamed squish doesn't take makeup the same, though it takes it okay. I couldn't find my cold-foamed rubber to test, but I know that solid latex takes makeup badly (you actually need to use a different kind of makeup for latex). And I think foamed latex is similar -- you need a grease-based makeup.
The foamed gelatin was very squishy, amazingly thin edges with good strength, and nicely flexible. Small cell structure overall. On squishing it, it took a bit of time to pop back out, but at least it didn't collapse.
Foamed squish is firmer (but can probably be softened with additives), makes thicker edges that aren't as stong, and doesn't makeup... but then, it is for props and not prosthetics. It will be decent for props due to its weight and flexibility.
The cold foam was definitely firmer than the gelatin, but then this wasn't prosthetic cold foam. I had a chance to handle some Kryolan cold foam when I was picking up the makeups, and it's fairly soft and has a nice texture, an extremely fine cell size too. But I bet if I refine the gelatin more, I'll get small bubbles, too.
The gelatin was a bit cold and clammy, but warms up quickly.
Overall, I think I like it. I'll be doing wounds with it in the show, I think, which shouldn't be too hard.
I may make the arm and leg attacks from it, too, but I'm undecided there.
As for foamed silicon... haven't tried it. I'll see what I can do later.
I did other stuff this weekend, too, but not so interesting as to take up space here.
Posted by Edwin at March 28, 2005 08:03 AM