Silicone or Foam Latex

For all you pro's at casting prosthetics I'd like to know which will be the best material for my project.

Mainly I need something that is very close to skin in flexibility. And will make a nice 'floppy' appendage (one that goes from appoximatly one inch wide to ten inches, with a core inside to cut down on the weight and to contain a support system). Orginally I was going to use Foam Latex, however I'm not thrilled about baking it. Then I found the silicone. Super stretchy, used in animatronics... I'm just worried about losing detail in the casting process. If it's that soft will it retain any of the texture??

Some advice/experiances would be greatly appreciated. The actual project I'm trying to keep relatively secret, but I hope the description is sufficient...

 

Silicone is better by far or re-creating a "skin" look. The only two real drawbacks are

a: It isn't porus, so it doesn't "breathe" like foam latex does

b: It's heaver than foam latex

When they made the first Harry Potter movie the makeup tecs were using Silicone appliances for the hero goblin characters. They found that the silicone was too heavy to stay on the actors face as the appliances had large jowels. They eventually had to use a combination of foam latex as an under-appliance and lay a thinner silicone appliance over that.

As for Silicones you can try Smooth-on's new system at http://www.smooth-on.com/Ecoflex%20Series.htm if it's to be an appliance, or you can try their dragon skin system which is designed specifically for animatronic skins.

I've found that their products are usually pretty easy to find in most large(ish) metropolitan centers and their products are good and easy to use. They have a distributor listing on their website and their customer support is great.

You can also try several other SPFX distributors for other Silicone appliance systems such as www.burmanfoam.com

Oe other item to remember is if you're making your sculpture out of an oil based clay, use something like Chavant or Van-Akin, anything that specifically says "sulpher free". Silicones won't cure in the presence of sulpher. Or use a water based clay.

Good luck with your project!

 

Smooth-on was the place I was looking at purchasing their dragon skin. For the appendages and parts I need super flexible I'll probably be using a combination of the silicone and dragon skin then.

So the silicone retains detail fairly well??

Thanks for the advice btw!!

 

Silicone can reproduce details so fine that they can't be seen by the naked eye. It can even capture the details of the cellular structure of animal tissue. So assuming the kinds of silicone you're looking at are truly silicone (as opposed to some kind of hybrid mixture that I'm not familiar with), then losing detail won't be a concern.

Plus, from what I hear, foam latex is extremely difficult to do for a novice. It takes lots and lots of practice.

 

Silicone is becoming the new product of choice for a lot of film and televison series make-up labs. It isn't as fussy as foam when mixing, you don't need to re-enforce your moulds for baking as it's cold cure, you get the translucency of gelatine without having to worry about your appliance melting, it can be colored intrinsically like gelatine, it's softer and more expressive than foam and also more durable.

Many of the make-ups for later episodes of Angel used a combination of foam-latex and silicone.

 

Well, the foam latex was going to be something I was going to work at... I do have a whole year to finish this

Silicone is starting to sound better and better... although, I heard it doesn't 'breathe' as well as foam latex... if I'm going to wear this all day is there going to be really really uncomfortable??

 

I've never worn silicone, so I can't help you there.

If you really want to get into the foam latex thing, go for it. I don't have the time, energy, or money to try it. With all the things that can go wrong, I think I'd have a nervous breakdown. lol

 

Unfortunately I haven't worn a silicone appliance so I can't answer that question. It'll probably depend on what the rest of the costume is like, whether your head (hair) is going to be exposed or covered, where you're going to be and how much you sweat. It has been worn for entire shooting days on various film projects (Sabretooth and Mystique on X-men for example) so it can't be too terrible. But I would pack one of those mini fans.