For this week’s #Moulagemonday look I used a prosthetic appliance that I made in my workshop. The piece that I used is a very soft encapsulated silicone piece. The edges are blend-able with IPA.

I used to pros-aide to glue this piece down, applying it to both the back of the piece and the ankle and leaving both to dry thoroughly before placing the piece. I forgot to outline or powder around the edge before I glued it making my job slightly more difficult as it meant I had to roughly guess where I needed to glue on the ankle. I decided I was better off gluing a little short of where I needed to as once the piece is placed it’s easier to add glue than it is to take it away.

Once the glue was dry I placed the prosthetic stretching it to fit – although not too much as to disfigure the piece- and blended out the edges using IPA on a cotton bud.

When it came to painting this piece I wanted to try something that I don’t usually do. When I apply pieces that are to be blended with IPA I usually use cream based product as this does not disrupt the blending edge. This works brilliantly however I was interested to see how an alcohol activated palette would affect the piece. This lead to me choosing to use my skin illustrator palette

I started by matching the skin tone. I used both my Skin illustrator and Dashbo palettes for this. It did not affect the piece as I used a splattering motion in different colours to build up the correct shade gradually, letting it dry throughout the process to avoid soaking the surface too much.

Then it came to colouring the inside of the wound and this is where I thought I may run into trouble as I often use my brush in a sweeping motion which has the potential to pick up and disrupt the cap plastic encapsulating the piece. I started with the wash of blood tone from skin illustrator, watered down with lots of IPA and applied this wash just over the fleshy bits, avoiding any parts that I wished to colour as bone. This initial wash of colour helped me define where I was planning to paint and helps avoid the intimidation of a blank canvas.

I then moved on to the bone and using multiple stippled washes of colour with a fluffier eye brush, I swapped to an angled brow brush and added some shading around the edges and in any cracks.

Then using a dry brushing technique on a small fluffy brush to add highlights and break up the texture which helps it to appear more realistic. In order to get the colour right for this I use a range of shades from my Skin Illustrator and Dashbo Palettes mentioned before.

Again using the same techniques, I went back to the fleshy part and defined that. I tried to let the paint flow naturally where possible. I did this for two reasons; firstly so I could avoid disturbing the cap plastic barrier as much as possible and secondly because I wanted to avoid any unnatural shapes and brush strokes that could be created by attempting to curate the look too much.

I found that the cap plastic was not too much of an issue although I made sure to allow each paint layer to dry thoroughly before applying the next. I also favoured a dabbing motion rather than swipeing my brush across the surface of the piece; as I found that this was the best way to stop my brush getting sticky and gummed up with cap plastic.

Overall I feel that this technique using IPA activated products together worked far better than I was expecting. There was a bit of a learning curve when I started painting however this was very quickly rectified after a few messy spots and a change of technique. I would definitely do this again although I think cream products will still be my go to with these appliances.

After I had finished the painting I added a selection of different bloods. I nearly always start with a thick and dark blood such as Ben Nye's Thick blood which is what I have used for this. I use this to define anywhere that I want to add depth to. The dark colour makes the wound appear as though it is deeper which is great for a wound like this. If I were to do this again I think I would add a little more of the dark blood to the red fleshy area next to the bone as i think that this would draw this section back a little and make the bone stand out.

Next I used Kryolan's Supreme Blood in the colour Dark Venous. I used a good amount of this blood, running it through the edges of the wound. I then used a scrunched up piece of kitchen roll to dab at this blood. This spreads it around and makes it appear messy. I kept reapplying and dabbing away until I am happy with the way it looks.

I then added clear hair gel to the fleshy bit to make it appear wet and fresh; avoiding the bone as i thought it would retract from the perceived texture created by the colouring,

It was at this point I decided I was finished. and set up for photographs.

Overall I’m really pleased with the way this piece looks. I had a lot of fun applying it and i’m happy with the end result.

If you have read to the end of this post Thank you!

Please comment with your thoughts I would love to hear what you think.