Again, many concepts used here have already been detailed in my Melting Mutant Face (half-head) post, so I will not be going over them again.

I sculpted this in water-based clay over a generic male headform.  The concept is supposed to be a baby who is mid-transformation into some sort of demon.

After building up a mold wall out of oil-based clay and creating the mold, I popped it open with a crowbar and started cleaning out the clay.  I had a LOT of flaws in my mold which I had to manually piece together with plaster.  Also, the teeth completely fell out and were useless.  This project is proof that anything is fixable (more on that later).

After fixing and cleaning the mold as best as I could, the latex was poured in.  When the final latex mask was pulled, there were large air bubbles throughout (which you can probably see around the mouth/chin area in the raw pictures above).  I also had some pretty noticeable seams from where the two halves of the mold met.

All of the latex flaws were filled with a mixture of latex and Cab-O-Sil (be careful with this stuff…very toxic! Wear a ventilation mask!), stirred together until at a pasty consistency and then smeared on.  The flashing was cut with scissors as best as possible, and then I used a rotary tool (with sanding bit) to smooth it further.  Any other flaws were fixed with the latex/Cab-O-Sil mixture.

This was like two paint jobs in one, because I was painting a human side and a creature side.  The paint job that I did served to cover up most of the rest of the major flaws.   Paint techniques included a combination of splatter/flicker, airbrush, and hand-paint.

For finishing touches, I sculpted the missing fangs out of Sculpey clay and adhered them with epoxy.  I also used epoxy to add a gloss to the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Until next time…

Matt joins friend and podcaster-extraordinaire Rob Cesternino to discuss the latest episode of “Celebrity Apprentice”.  Matt also takes questions from the audience.

CLICK HERE to listen!

The wedding was taped for television and will be airing as the season finale of My Fair Wedding on the WE network on December 15th at 9PM EST.  For some teasers on the details of the event, check out some of the press links below.

• Entertainment Weekly
• E! Online
• The Examiner
• People Magazine
• Reality Nation
• Mrs. Carter
• Hollywood.com
• Seattle Pi
• Wet Paint

Also, I recently did a brief interview where I went on tangents ranging from politics to the British to domestic violence to self-gratification while reading.  It’s 19-minutes of pure ecstasy! – CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Matt recently made a quick impromptu appearance on Night Of The Living Podcast’s 300th episode, broadcast live from Horror Hound Weekend in Indianapolis.  In this brief 19-minute interview, Matt gives his take on a wide range of topics, including:

• Why British people aren’t funny
• Hoff-O-Ween
• Stalker Big Brother fans
• Domestic violence
• The 2012 presidential election
• Arguing with idiots
• New marijuana laws
• Troma Entertainment
• The Mayan apocalypse
• Turkeys on Twitter
• Classic horror films
• The inefficiency of reading
• Why musicals are a waste of time
• Masturbating with tweezers and a Kindle
• Getting lost in your own home

CLICK HERE to listen to the full, uncensored interview

The Matt Hoffman / Rob Cesternino moviecast magic is back! Following their classic “Hangover 2” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” ones, you won’t want to miss the latest “TEEN WITCH” moviecast!

CLICK HERE to listen to Rob and Matt fully dissect this timeless holiday classic!

Speaking of the holidays, there is also some exclusive information about the much-anticipated and overly properly-hyped HOFF-O-WEEN 2012!!!

Also, if you’ll be at The Vegas Bash this weekend, then keep your eyes out for me!

This was yet another in my longstanding series of “happy accidents” when playing with makeup.

I read online somewhere that you could make a DIY silicone type compound by combining equal parts glycerin, gelatin, and water, and then microwaving it for 20 seconds.  Bored on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to give it a go.

Initially I was seeing about making a scar with the silicone, but it wasn’t really working out too well.  Not knowing what to do with a Tupperware container of homemade gel, I swirled it around with a paintbrush and started dripping it onto my hand as it dried up.

The effect started looking kind of cool, so I got a couple of q-tips, some cheap red and blue makeup swatches, and some fake blood.   In what has probably been my quickest and easiest makeup job yet, I used the q-tip to fill in all the areas between the drips with red.  Then I used another q-tip to darken certain areas with blue and blend things around for depth.  Finally, I q-tipped some blood throughout.

The silicone rejected most of the flake blood and cream-based makeup, so it retained its skin-tone quality which made for a cool “chemical burn” type of effect.  This was such a piece of cake that I may incorporate the technique into my Hoff-O-Ween costume this year!

 (FAIR WARNING: The silicone mixture smells exactly like a wet dog.  Quite disgusting.)

This is a simple effect that I honestly didn’t think would turn out as good as it did when I was thinking about giving it a shot.

I bought a foam head from a local Sally Beauty for less than $4.00.  Then I used a Dremel rotary tool to carve it into a decayed skull shape.

Once I had the form, I laid thin (pulled-apart) pieces of Halloween spider webbing on top of the skull, and painted on a layer of liquid latex to keep it all stuck together, and to give it a bit of a mummified effect.

Finally, I airbrushed on some acrylic paint for detail (although if you don’t have an airbrush, I suspect that light, misted coats of spray paint would work).  The entire process took me less than a half hour (outside of the overnight drying time for the latex), and cost me virtually nothing. Great, cheap effect for the holiday season!

The 1971 classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has been enjoyed by several generations of movie goers. The film, starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, is a longtime favorite of Survivor veteran Rob Cesternino’s, and he discusses the film in great detail with Matt Hoffman from Big Brother 12.

Rob and Matt discuss the movie from every humorous and critical angle as they follow the journey of Charlie Bucket from obscurity to becoming the owner of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Empire. Rob and Matt also discuss the marketing techniques of the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket plan, the ramifications it caused in the world, and much more!

At the end of the discussion, Matt also gives his thoughts on the new Big Brother 14 cast and answers some fan questions.

(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MP3)

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAIL OR TO LISTEN ONLINE)

You can also CLICK HERE for other great Rob/Matt podcasts on various topics!

I’ve probably bought no less than 20 sets of fake teeth over the years.  All of them were highly overpriced, mass-produced, and allegedly “custom fitted”, which really just means they come with a thin strip of wax that is supposed to form the shape of your teeth (but you really only get a handful of uses out of them).  I wanted to make a one-of-a-kind custom piece that was fitted to my own teeth and would have (theoretically) unlimited use.

I started by making a mold of my teeth with pink dental alginate.  The discoloration on the majority of the right side of the paper towel that you can see in the first picture above is from me drooling all over the place while the mold was in my mouth.  I would guess that I was looking fantastic at the time. Once I had my dental impression, I made a cast (and a base) with Ultracal 30, and that’s what you see hardening in that first picture as well.

After applying a few layers of Alcote Separator to the cast (which is the translucent pink color that you see on many of the cast pictures), I arranged the teeth onto the cast in the position that I wanted them using dental wax.  I used a stock set of acrylic human-style teeth, but I shaped them to my liking with a rotary tool.  Once the teeth were arranged, I slowly built up layers of pink dental acrylic powder mixed with dental monomer to create the shape of the gums that I wanted.

Once everything was shaped and hardened, I smoothed and softened the edges until it fit comfortably back in my mouth.  Then I used Skin Illustrator alcohol-activated paints to color the dentures, followed by a clear acrylic coating to seal and gloss them.

Voilà!

I’ve always been a fan of mutants/deformities, and that was the inspiration for this piece.

The figure was originally sculpted in clay.  Ping pong balls are what you see used as placeholders for the eyes during the sculpting process.

The cast was made using pottery plaster.  Due to a poor casting job, I had several pieces of my mold break apart when I was cleaning the clay out of it.  I salvaged the pieces and attempted to glue them back into place before pouring the latex, but the epoxy repelled the latex, and left me with a number of holes and blemishes when I pulled the mask out after the latex had dried (which you can see in some of the pictures above, particularly around the eye areas).

I did my best to manually (and painstakingly!) apply thin layers of latex with a brush to seal any problem areas.  It was far from perfect, but I was hoping that the paint job would cover any major flaws.

Before painting, I made several different color concept sketches by layering different coloring options over the picture of my final clay mold in Photoshop.  You can see the one that I finally decided on above.

My final paint job was done using acrylic paint thinned out with 99% isopropyl alcohol.  The end result was a little more “green” than I’d liked (hoped for a duller bluish/gray tone), but considering this was my cherry-popping experience in anything even remotely involving sculpting, casting, OR painting, it could’ve gone much worse.

** results not guaranteed

(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MP3)

(CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO FEED AND FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE LIVE CHAT)

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