Foot Scar

I have been recently playing around with a new line of prosthetic appliances and this piece is one of those. I have always really enjoyed the subtleties that come with creating scars as they are quite unique in the medical simulation world because there is no blood and the colouring is incredibly subtle. If you want to learn to match skin tones, or you need to practice creating light and almost translucent washes of colour then I would definitely recommend giving keloid scars a try.

There are a number of different ways you can create this look from sculpt gel to PVA glue however today I used a prosthetic piece that I made in my workshop. This piece was blended with IPA and coloured using my favourite cream colour palette from Mehron.

I glued both the piece and my foot with pros-aide

This piece was really enjoyable to place due to the size of it making it easy to hold. It is a small and relatively simple shaped piece meaning that subtlety was key and I spent a good amount of time focussed on blending out the cap plastic edge as best I could to try and avoid giving away the makeup.

The placement of this piece is admittedly unusual and this simply comes down to not having access to a model to apply this piece to. This lead to me testing out a few different accessible places on myself and this spot on my foot was my favourite.

I have always been especially fascinated with keloid scarring as I really enjoy the details that they create. The stretched look of the skin around the scar always captures my imagination and sends me into a world of uneven shapes and muted colours. Sometimes, if you look hard enough, for long enough you begin to get a sense that van Gogh has been curating the healing of the skin, pulling and punching into swirls and dashes until a masterpiece has formed. Although scarring is caused from a trauma, the end result of your body’s healing is truly incredible and definately something that can strike wonder into the minds of those who care to look hard enough.

This has been seen time and time again in pop culture, from the simple yet undeniably effective lighting shaped scar on Harry Potter’s forehead to the extremely tactile, widespread burn scarring seen on Freddy Krueger. It is evident that I am not the only person inspired by scarring and I enjoy seeing how other people use this to further their narratives and express their creativity.

From a Moulage perspective, scarring is something that I do not do all that often, however I still believe it’s a skill that is worth learning as it's a great way to practice core techniques such as colouring which is used throughout any Moulage look that you will ever create.

There is nowhere to hide with a scar, with colours that blend into the skin seamlessly and shapes that seem to appear both soft and harsh simultaneously they can definately be a challenge to replicate however this is also what makes them so enjoyable to create.

Overall I am really pleased with how this turned out. There are definately flaws, the edges could be cleaner and I am sure there are better placements for this particular scar shape however I really enjoyed the process and would definately recommend that everyone turn their brush to scarring every now and then and learn to appreciate the process of creating even if there is not so much drama in the end result.