Sculpting My Appliance
With my lifecast, I was now able to begin the process of scultping my own mask. What made me think I could do that? Well, I wasn't so sure I could. I hadn't been sculpting for a while. In fact, I was inspired to dig my old armatures out of storage when I saw the clay busts that were featured in both the "How The Grinch Stole Hollywood" book and the feature on the Grinch in Make-up Artist Magazine. They were pictures of work done by Rick Baker and company. It was a good way to get my hands back into clay, but ultimately I never had the time to finish the bust. I had to concentrate on doing the appliance and then getting it casted and baked. As you can see, I began the sculpture on the armature, but never finished it.
For referance, I worked from the mask my friend bought from the guy at the sci-fi convention (mentioned earlier) and from many, many photos. After several sessions, I had a friend take some digital pictures of the progress, both for my own records and also to show friends back in California how the project was going and get some feedback. Here, you will notice the rough blocking out of shape. I immediately realized that because my face was so much smaller than the appliance I was copying from, and no doubt smaller than Jim Carrey's face, it made no sense for me to try to cram in every fold and wrinkle precisely. Furthermore, my forehead would be mostly covered by the hat. I modified as I went along. Below is a picture from the earliest stage of sculpting.
Next, you see a picture taken after a few more sessions. The flash on the camera washes out finer details but you can get the general idea. I blocked in all the major forms. I also began to realize that I would have no idea how this mask would actual move on my face once it was made into foam latex. I wanted it to be thin but at the same time, I couldn't have it tissue thin in as many areas as they did for Jim Carrey. Without the luxury of being able to run my own foam anytime I wanted to, I needed to make it durable enough for multiple uses. I made sure that the nose was in a good place for me and that it had adaquate ventilation. I opted to make the brow area more exaggerated and pronounced. In this picture, you can see where I blocked out the overall shape, but it's far from finished here.
Periodically, I would remove the clay from the lifecast and put it up to my face. I still couldn't know how it would move once I had the foam latex version, but at least I could see how it would size up overall. I doubt professionals stick the clay on people's faces, but I am new at this and had no way of gauging anything. Anyway, it was helpful and worked out in the end to be a good thing to do.
I drove all my friends insane during this process, asking advice and opinions. I tend to be hard on my own work. The responses I was getting were positive and encouraging but like a true artist, I never felt like it was done. Right on up to the bitter end I was ready to tear it apart and start over, excpet that time was running out. I had to live with the piece as it was when I took it to be casted.
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