A Body Double for my husband

I've been doing creature makeup with my husband now for about 8 years. Most of the time we buy foam latex prosthetics for my husband for Halloween and I then transform him into something scary. What is a foam latex prosthetic? A facial prosthetic is a soft and flexible appliance that can be bonded (that sounds scary, it's just glue) to a persons face. Most of the time the prosthetics start out white and you have to paint them to achieve your desired look. Here is an example:

Latex appliance (raw) without paint:

 Latex appliance after 5 hours of Painting:

Anyone can achieve a look like this with a little time and practice.

Often, masks might not fit my husband perfectly. Seriously, we joke about is caveman bone structure all the time. Why doesn't he just be a caveman for Halloween anyway?  So, after YEARS of using appliances that SORT OF fit my husband we decided to make our own. And this....is where the fun begins!!

To make our own we needed to make a cast of his face to form a NEGATIVE. We accomplished this using SMOOTH ON  Standard Set Body Double Silicone.

You can find a helpful tutorial of FaceOFF's Frank Ippolitio demonstrating how to use this product HERE.

I needed a few helpers for this project. Since my 3 year old and 5 year old each possess about 2 years of experience in special effects makeup (more than anyone else I know) I decided to enlist their help.

They were useless. Just useless! It's so hard to find good help these days. I decided to use my "phone a friend" option for a little more help, and got some awesome assistance from my friend Christa the Art Major. Here's a little known fact: being an Art Major doesn't seem to help much. Anyhoooooo, we came up with this:

And, miraculously, this IS what it's supposed to look like. The question I get the most when people see this picture is "Can he breathe?" Ummm....no. He can't. He can hold his breath for a really long time. 

Wait, what? 

Just kidding. All fun aside, if you are going to attempt something like this you must thoroughly educate yourself before proceeding so that your LIFECAST does not become a DEATHCAST. (duh)

I often think about the kind of lifestyle that my kids have inherited. What types of traditions are they going to have in their own households? Will they be lucky enough to find spouses that will help them apply their foam latex appliances? I hope so. For now, I just hope that they think their SyFy mom is pretty cool. I'm pretty sure they think their Dad is pretty cool. Check it out. They look happy, right? I better not be screwing them up for life. 

Next step> >>The Plaster Cast. Silicone doesn't hold its shape well and needs a "support shell". It looks a little something like this: (See the little nose holes? Safety first!)

This was so much fun! The kids had a blast. To be honest, we couldn't really keep that much of an eye on them during this time. Jon, of course, was of no help at all. Poor Christa doesn't have kids and looked terrified (they had kid-goo on them). And I, well, my hands were covered in plaster. So, they were super happy with their snack cups full of Cheerios and some Kindle Kid-Friendly Apps. No judging...your kids will come home and tell you how much cooler we are than you. Just sayin'.

Another benefit of this whole experiment? My handsome hubbs is immortalized forever! FOREVER!!!!! MMMWHAHAHAHAHA!