Severed Pinkies

Inside the envelope he found a note and something wrapped in cotton wool...



Alana and I have been working on a severed finger effect. Above is the finished effect! Close ups of both finished severed pinkies:





This was out first attempt at making a mould. As expected when teaching oneself a new technique it did not all run as smoothly as we'd hoped. However, we learned a lot from our first attempt and managed to get a successful effect on our second.

Step one

To begin with we took an impression of our fingers using alginate and gauze. From this negative impression we then made a positive cast of our fingers using Hydrocal. The Hydrocal positives looked like this:



Step two

Then we set about creating a mould of these positives using Ultracal 30 to give us some work time. We also covered the positive cast with some petroleum jelly. For out first attempt we used half a plastic cup for the bottom half of the mould. Then used the other half of the cup to make the other part of the mould.

The biggest problem with making a mould this way was that the two Ultracal 30 halves stuck together a bit. Worse the positive moulds also stuck to the Ultracal. The failed attempt looked like this:



I think there were 2 reasons why this happened:

1. We did not give the Ultracal 30 mould a long enough dry time between making one half and the other.

2. We did not coat the Hydrocal positives with a sealant before trying to make the mould. We probably also could have used a little more petroleum jelly too.

So we refined the process somewhat and tried again. We repeated step one but this time we made several important changes.

1. We let the Hydrocal dry for 24 hours. Then sealed it with two coats of mat varnish. Books recommend Krylon crystal clear spray which is an art product used to protect pictures. We used a similar product that we had on hand. Then coated the finger with petroleum jelly.

2. We then made an Ultracal 30 mould for the bottom half using the same process as we began in step 2. But this time we let this dry for 24 hours. For the top half of the mould we decided to paint the Ultracal on to avoid air bubbles and then reinforce the top of the mould using gauze. This time we also used some dye to colour the different halves of our moulds. Pink for girls and blue for boys!

Step three

We then pulled apart our moulds! Unfortunately Alana forgot to put petroleum jelly on the top half of the mould! So her positive broke in half and stuck in the mould. I took out a jeweller's drill and slowly bored out enough of the remains stuck in the mould to get it out. My positive broke neatly in half when I pulled it out. We then filled some of the very small holes left by air bubbles with a little Ultracal 30. They looked like this:



Not pretty, but functional.

Step four

We then put the two halves back together and poured some uncoloured latex into them. The latex at the end shrank a little bit as the rubber dried, so we topped up the ends a bit to give a flat end. I think we shall have to experiment with colouring the latex before pouring next. We'll also have to try the same process with foam latex in the future once we have an oven that we can cure foam latex in, which releases toxins so you probably don't want to use the same oven you bake cakes in!



Step five

Next we had to trim the mould lines off the finger. Although we had a sharp surgical razor on hand I had more luck with a sharp pair of scissors as the latex just seemed to stretch against the scalpel blade. Perhaps an old school razor blade might work here.

Step six

The latex also went somewhat yellow when it was curing. This is not too much of a problem with this effect as the fingers are severed. But we are trying to cast another 2 using latex that has been tinted with a flesh colour.

For the finished product I used some setting powder on the finger. Then I added some detail using our trusty bruise wheel and some water based white makeup on the nail. I then used some more setting powder before applying some skin coloured powder - foundation. I then painted the nail with PVA glue to give it a shiny layer.

Alana did something different to finish hers. She first used setting powder on the finger, then some dark foundation to get into all the cracks and define the fine lines. The she repeated this process and added a layer of lighter foundation. Then she painted the nail with enamel nail polish (which I thought might eat away the latex but it didn't).

To complete the effect we added blood gel and voila! We have severed pinkies ready to be sent with a ransom note!