Fangs

Last weekend we shot one of our planned portfolio photo shoots that had period hair, make-up, costuming and vampires. Yes, you heard right vampires! Well actually only one vampiress, as opposed to the two we originally wanted, but as it turns out this was all for the best. This photo shoot was a lot of work and wouldn't have happened if not for the help of Con, Neil, Maddy, Yen and Ryan. Thank you one and all. Alana and I had developed the concept a while ago and it was great to see this project come to fruition. Apart from making some prosthetic bite wounds for the victims, doing direction and art direction, a bit of set dressing, a spot of costuming as well as prosthetic make-up application I also made some prosthetic fangs for our vampiress!



(I've just noticed that all the shots I took of the teeth beforehand are without the clear glaze topcoats, which brings the pieces together and makes them look far more realistically. However, when we get shots back from our photographer we should post some more images of the finished pieces in action!)

First I took a lifecast of the top teeth of our actress/model who would be playing our vamp in the photo shoot. I did this using: dental alginate, a medium dental tray for the upper teeth (a large tray would have also worked, but you may want a full range of trays on hand so you can match them to the teeth of the person you are casting), some water, a wooden tongue depressor for stirring and a plastic cup.

Then I cast the positive of our soon to be vamp in Ultracal 30 and then attached this positive to a larger block using the custom tray filled with Ultracal I had made earlier. A cut down used margarine container could also work. I then made a silicone mould of this positive to make copies, because I'm really reluctant to work directly on originals as if they break you have to do the lifecast all over again.



After making a copy in my new mould, I then sculpted the fangs onto the positive of the model's teeth using Chavant, sculpting tools, some IPA and water. After spending time doing this I then made another silicone mould of the fangs. Then a quick clean up, release agents applied, and dental acrylic into my mould, I produced a set of fangs in acrylic*.



You'll need a good mask that can deal with fumes for this part and for painting. It's also a really good idea to have some kind of ventilation operating. This is because dental acrylic can cause depression of the central nervous system and depression of your breathing and heart rate.

Once the edges were trimmed of any excess bits and the sharp edges were filled off I then set about painting them using Minute Stain. (Again use a good filtered mask and safety equipment, else forget about it!) After painting them I gave them a coat of the gloss to finish them and voila#! A couple of sets of vamp fangs!



*I've left out a few bits of information here that you should be able to work out. There are also a couple of good DVDs that are an excellent starting place for this sort of thing. Basically, you have to do your research as I'm not going to hand everything to you on a plate!

#Actually there's a lot of really tricky work involved here and I would recommend that if you are new to special make-up fx that you try a number of other things that build skills towards this, whether it be lifecasting, small scale sculpting or mould making or detailed small scale painting.