Hello one and all, and
welcome to another How to blog post.
This time I will be showing
you how to make a gory piece of tattooed flesh out of transparent silicon.
This is a great item and a useful prop if you are wanting to do a gore/horror shoot of your own!
To start you will need to
get some medium chavant. (This is
basically a type of sculpting plasticine) you can get this from Alec Tiranti’s
or any other good specialist art supplier.
Once you have softened your
chavant, start to mould it into a jaggered flesh shape. You can even use part of your own body
to mould it on to pick up the skin texture. This piece was moulded on my wrist!
Once you are happy with
your shape and texture, using oil paints, start to mix up a flesh colour. The key thing to remember here at this
stage is DO NOT add in any white or black pigments, as this will ruin the
transparency of the silicon. That
layer will come later.
The best way to mix up a
Caucasian flesh colour is red, brown and yellow, adding slightly more brown to the mix to get a range of skin tones. Sometimes a small hint of blue
or green gives it an added dimension, you just need to play around to get it
right! To check the colour get some white spirit and mix a small amount of your
mixed colour into it. This should
then give you an idea about what it will look like in the silicon.
Next we get out the
silicon! The stuff I have used is
also from Alec Tiranti’s, and it’s transparent molding silicon with a mix ratio
of 20 to 1. It helps to have some
disposable gloves, cups and a set of digital scales at this point as well as it
gets very messy!
Weigh out the exact amount
of silicon you think you need. Use
your artistic judgment here depending on the size of the piece you are making.
Once weighed out start to
mix in the colour you created earlier, adding only a very small bit at a time
and trying to avoid any bubbles in your work. Always remember to mix in your
colours first then add your catalyst as the silicon will start reacting as soon
as the catalyst has been added giving you less working time! (at this point i would hold some of the pre mixed colour without the catalyst in back for later)
Once you are happy with
your colour, carefully paint a thin layer onto your chavant mold, and then
allow to dry. The drying time will
vary depending on the amount of catalyst added and the room temperature.
Once it has dried you can
then mix up a much smaller batch for the tattoo design. My rough design is in black, blue and
yellow, but you can take longer on it and choose what ever colours you
like. I also applied mine with a
metal sculpting tool, however as I soon learnt, this was not the most accurate
thing to use!
Once I had finished my
design I then left it to dry.
When that layer had finally
dried I then added the ‘flesh’ layer to my piece. To do this I mixed up the rest of the transparent layer
colour (the first colour mixed) in with some white. I then added this to my silicon, and covered the whole back
of the piece. I then left it to dry.
After it was dry I added
the final ‘gore’ layer. To do this
I mixed up some red silicon and added some thixotrope to it. Thixotrope is an additive that really
thickens the silicon, creating some nice fleshy lumps. I then painted on the red silicon over
parts of the back. I then mixed up
some darker red and some browns to create more depth, and proceeded to smear it
around the back of the piece.
Once dried I pealed it out
of the mold and left it in a suitable place to try and scare my flat mate!
Once you have got the
basics of the flesh silicon you can then start to make some more in depth body
parts, like this hand and ear, both made up using a similar technique, only
this time I used a mold of the original sculpt to create the final piece
instead of just painting the silicon directly onto the chavant.
Thanks for reading and i hope you have enjoyed it!
Please feel free to check out what else i have been making and selling at
or at
xxx
