Post 6: Love the skin you're in

"Was his face made up of human skin, like in The Texas Chainsaw?"
"Ben, everybody's face is made of human skin."

"That is so true."

 — Reaper

The good news is that the clay head came out of the plaster pretty painlessly; I was expecting the clay to be torn in the process, but since it survived intact I can make a second mould if something goes wrong. The only problem is that the tub wasn't quite deep enough to accommodate the long, pointed nose that I gave the head. Oh, well, the puppet will have to get by with a stumpy schnozzle.

The first thing I noticed about the latex is just how quickly it dried. While applying it with a paintbrush it was just a few seconds before I ended up with a wad of rubber on a stick.

But anyway, I managed to get a few coats done, and this is the result. The nose needs work, and there are some bumps and ridges which need sorting out.

The latex turned out to be rather hard to cut. Knives didn't do the job, so I had to snip away with scissors. It still needs to be evened out in places, but this'll do for the time being.

I must have misjudged the size of the clay head, as its latex copy isn't big enough to contain the polystyrene egg. No matter, I can just whittle away at the egg for a while until it fits.

So, everything's going smoothly, then... except for one problem. And it's a pretty big one: the jaw motor isn't strong enough to open the latex mouth.

So, where to from here? Should I trim away at the back of the latex, to make it lighter? Will I need to rig up a new motor of some kind?

Hrmm...