I had the great privilege to be asked to teach some masters degree students at Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich, Germany recently. I had a splendid time!
The three students I worked with all had ambitious, figurative projects which they had been working on for some weeks when I arrived for my five-day stint there.
* Daniel Riedl had made a full-size figure leaning out of a bath and was in the final sculpting stages preparing to make ready for moulding.
*Julian Hutcheson had just moulded his sculpt of a male torso, and in the week we mixed and cast out the silicone in the chosen flesh tone (Moldstar 20 from Smooth-On).
*Caterina Veronesi had sculpted a scale figure of herself which will be cast in silicone and was also in the final sculpting stages and preparing to make the mould.
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We had a great group chat to discuss how things work there, the education system (It’s a free, the government paid education which requires an extensive interview process which is a completely different model to the business-style version most makeup education systems work to) and the expected quality of work such a system produces.
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Dividing up large appliances
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Michael Pennington got in touch through our email (stuartandtodd@gmail.com) with a question about how best to know where one should divide up appliance sculpts to break them down into smaller pieces. As Todd points out, much of this is a hangover from foam latex and the shrinkage which was inevitable with that material. Silicone however has none of these shrinkage issues, so we don’t always need to divide it in the same way.
That said, there are often good reasons to make a large appliance makeup into smaller, more manageable pieces. The most logical place to do this is where the sculpture is at it’s thinnest, and to try and keep edges in easier to hide areas where possible, such as where there is naturally a crease or shadow.
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‘Cheap Cheap Cheap’ shouldn’t be ‘Shit Shit Shit’
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Whenever we do a video tutorial, I can guarantee that someone will want to do it for less money. This is, of course, an inevitable occurrence, as it is quite sensible to not spend money you don’t need to. However, there does come a point where substituting can become so obsessive that eventually, the end result can just look like a pile of crap.
Whilst it is true that skill will ‘work well with anything’, I can assure you top pro makeup kits do not have packs of cured meats and jam instead of makeup products to use on their screen talent. If mashed banana looks just right for fat, or pus or brains then fantastic.
Just don’t extend that to ‘I’ll never need to buy another makeup product again’.
Once you’ve seen outstanding makeup work done firsthand, then your priorities change. You decide instead of trying to do something as quick and cheap as possible, you would rather try and do something as good as possible. Like that trinity of choices above, pick two and decide which you would rather have in your portfolio.
Jam may be fine for a kids Halloween party, but it won’t do you any favours in a working portfolio.
Till next time.
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Stuart & Todd
