Shrunken Head - The finishing touches.

Here's, sooner than expected, the video detailing the painting, hairing and finishing of the shrunken head. That thing looks great in a bell jar on my dresser! Now I'm bored. I need to find something else to make! More pictures after the break.

Weathering Tips with Adam Savage

I thought you guys might find this interesting;

The folks at tested.com made this video with Adam Savage of mythbuster fame, where he shows tips and tricks for weathering a wooden box, based on his many years of experience in the model making and special effects industry.

The Finger of Nephren-Ka

Propnomicon just posted pictures and a very detailed walkthrough of a mummified human finger prop he recently made, using traditional gaff making techniques. The results & presentation are quite impressive, and makes me want to try making a whole hand. That's definitively on my to-do list.

You can go take a look at it and gather all the info you need by clicking HERE.

Superbe Lutin Mommifié

Jacob Petersson is at it again!

He created as a commission a beautifully done Lutin (a type of gnome or house spirit in french & québecois folklore), all dried up and levitating with only his beard touching ground!

Lovely work, as always.

Go take a look!

A few good heads

I've been cranking out a nice big batch of shrunken heads these last few days and thought I'd share that happy little family with you! Look at them right after the jump.

Tsantsa: the finishing touches

Well, hello again to the three people who still read this blog!

Today, we will start where we left yesterday, and transform the yellowish latex skin into someting worthy of being called a shrunken head. If you just stumbled upon this one blog post, I strongly recommend reading Part One first.

If you're too artistically challenged to sculpt a head and would like to try your hand at painting & decorating one, or if you just have trouble finding the necessary materials, I may be able to sell you a blank latex copy; contact me if you're interested and I'll try to work something out.

Now, onto the "tutorial"!

Fairy corpse tutorial

The always interesting Cobwebs at Shadowmanor recently posted a great, fun tutorial on how to create a mummified fairy corpse using a twist on basic corpsing techniques (techniques that I shall soon cover in depth for your instruction and enjoyement).

The results, as you can see, are great, the tutorial is easy to follow, and it'll look terribly good in your wunderkammer!

go take a look HERE!

Steampunk skull - Deuxième partie

Hey there, lovely little bilge rats!

I thought I'd show you the progress on my skull.

Nothing very complicated, I just played a bit with its finish, and removed the crappy ol' single piece teeth and installed brand new, shiny, strong, acrylic choppers.

Here's the teeth before I started:





As you can see, they are the same color and same texture as the skull, they're short, they're cheap, they're made in one piece and our friend mr. skull has a nasty underbite.

This shall be fixed!

To start, I simply dremeled out the original teeth. I used a sanding disk attachement, but some kind of router bit would probably do a great job too.


As you can see, it now looks quite geriatric. I honestly like this; I'll probably by a plastic skull some day and make it look edentate like that.

Once clean and sanded, I was ready to attach the new teeth.

Acrylic teeth, the kind used to make dentures, come in little plastic trays, separating the top, bottom, front and back teeth. Very pratical; you don't have to guess which tooth goes where (although mouth anatomy is fairly simple).

I bought mine on ebay; it cost about 20$ including shipping from china, and I have 6 complete sets of teeth.



I started out with the lower incisors, and gradually covered the whole lower and top mandible by gluing the teeth one by one from behind with drops of hot glue. It's not the strongest bond, but it's quick and easy to use. We'll strenghten the teeth later.



As you can see, it doesn,t look good from behind; In my case, though, it's not a problem, since the skull won't be manipulated much.


Upper teeth done

All glued!

As you can see, I corrected my buddy's underbite. I even gave him a slight overbite, for more realism!


Once this was done, I added 5 minute epoxy between and behind the teeth to hold them strongly in place. Although not necessary, this will add some durability to the skull.

Of course, I couldn't let these teeth all clean and shiny and white looking freshly flossed, when the rest of the skull looked freshly dug up! So I brought out the walnut stain again, mixed it with a bit of yellow ochre paint to tone down the red tones, and got this mix in every nook and cranny of the teeth. I wiped the front clean so they still had a bit of shine, and did a little trick that also gave a smooth, old and dusty look to the skull.

I rolled the whole thing in ashes while still tacky. I then dusted the excess off, and fixed it with matte spray varnish. This step really brings the whole thing together, and can save a poorly done stain job.

Voilà, mes amis! beau comme un sou neuf.


Link to part 1

Tsantsa; from clay to shrunken head

I love shrunken heads. I really do. These little guys are creepy, look great, and have that mysterious tribal vibe to them. And let's face it, they are damn cute. And after reading my 1925 copy of Up de Graff's Head Hunters of the Amazon, I decided I just HAD to have one.

Of course, buying a real shrunken head is out of my price range, but I wanted my own little tsantsa, and there is no better way to get something than to make it yourself.

Using sulfur-free oil based clay, I had a blast sculpting this little guy over a few hours. I won't go into details with the sculpting process; with a little bit of artistic talent, it's quite easy to do. The sculpture done, a mold must be made. It shalt be made out of plaster, said I!



I made a dividing wall with thin aluminum pieces (the bottom of a pie plate), and covered the head with plaster and strips of burlap. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of this process, so you'll have to imagine. I then sloshed some liquid latex inside the mold, following by the lengthy process of letting it cure, then removed and powdered the latex cast with baby powder.

I gave back a little color and tackiness to the skin using brown and orange grease makeup (applied thinly so that the wrinkles and pores aren't filled out), and following the information I had about the methods used to make shrunken heads, I blackened the head with charcoal.

I then applied a good layer of fixative. I personally like to use ultra-strong TRESemmé hairpsray. Following this, I sewed the lips and the back of the head shut with thin cotton rope, which I dyed a yellowish brown with coffee earlier.



I still have to decorate it a bit more and find a way to put hair on it (punching hair into slip latex is quite difficult; I'll have to find another solution)

However, I'm quite happy with how it looks like right now! It was quite a simple process, with plenty of info that can be found online, but if you want to try something similar and need any help, advice is just a comment or an email away!

Here is a great website about shrunken heads

and on here you'll find a friendly community willing to answer most of your questions about molding and casting latex props