REMEMBER TO 'HAVE A HEART' - Final images

Here she is in all her glory

 

TECHNICAL CREATION OF 'HAVE A HEART'

The creation of 'Have A Heart' is layed out below in a visual format. 

I had a some serious technical nightmares to work through so you can see as I went along how I managed to work through them.

How I met my amazing model/singer- Charlotte Schoeters

While doing work experience at the Royal Academy of Music- Puccini double bill, Charlotte was one of the actresses I worked on, I new at the time she was definitely a model for me, she is beautiful inside and out and she understood me and totally got 'Have A Heart' and could relate to it, which for me is so important in a model (When you get to choose them yourself of course) .

If my model relates to what I'm trying to achieve on an intellectual level, the piece can come alive from the inside out. As I work symbolically this is very important to me.

Charlotte took on the character of 'Have A Heart' from the moment she took to the stage and carried it right through to the final moment she left the room - what an amazing talent she is and without her it would never have worked so well. 

I saw some tears on the faces of the audience and when I saw that I new we had truly done well!! To bring out emotion in those who see your work for me means success. so thank you Charlotte!

Measuring Charlotte up for creation of her outfit and prosthetic arm pieces. I went down to the Royal acadamy to measure her up.

Test piece for latex top- does it suit? yes!

                                     and yes ... I can do a lot with that gorgeous hair!

                             Using one of my headdresses to test a possible hairstyle

                  Templates/ measurements for prosthetic sculpt of the HAVE A HEART

Template for the entire face especially the eyes,

 which I was originally going to airbrush but decided to hand paint in the end

The skirt - created solely from a real beach ball

So how do you make a beach ball keep its integrity and look blown up without having any air in it ???
 Now that's a good question!!
Mmmmm technical nightmare .... maybe not ... this is how I did it, It was a huge amount of work but so worth the hard slog on it.

The beach ball has arrived ... now what ??? 

 Now how was i going to secure it on - YES - A zip!!
really happy with the outcome of the zip, it gave it a beautiful finish so very happy with that

Creation of the latex top

I have already had some orders from other performers for this top so I'm afraid I'm not going to give away to many details .

however I did use liquid latex to create this

The top took me a very long time to make, over 5 days between working on the headdress it was also a painstaking piece to create and make thick with out loosing the integrity of each beautiful drip, I must say it was quite a Zen piece to make, with slow precision and lots of patients 

 Creation of the  headdress

Layers and layers of different materials to get the perfect shape, sanding and layering this took many days to perfect

Testing it and cutting it on the model and adding the side curls to then going back and remaking and re sculpting, this took some time
At this point I also added a headband inside to hold onto her head 

The curls on the side where flicking out so I had to take great hair when Re-sculpting to push them almost into her face, which worked beautifully in the end  

Testing her top - there where some holes I had left on purpose, however these became really gaping when she tried it on,
so I had to go back and cover those holes over a two day period
I had some serious issues with the breasts as the pre made breasts in the top did not fit my model so I had to make paper mache breasts to fill out the top which I stuck onto the model with pros aid and then had to stick the top to her skin for the final show to hide all the workings underneath, this worked well and know one would have known.. ha ha

How beautiful a dog can look with Charlotte's headdress on ... AAAH Batty the milky dream looking ready for his cabaret!!

Crystals attached to the headdress, before sanding it back down to get the final texture 

Creation of the leg straps

Using bicycle inner tubes I cut them up and washed them , went to my local bike shop to get them and cut all the valvs off them to add to my straps, I didn't use the glue specifically for inner tubes and I think that in conjunction with the contact adhesive and not sanding the inner tube surface before attaching the valves , made them fall off just before the show , however there where still enough on there to look good for the show but about 10 had fallen off. 

Make up test and fitting of the outfit

 I had to cut and re structure the waist line to fit her perfectly 

All pieces half finished at this point

Eyes tested in aqua colour

The rest of the face airbrushed  

Preparation of Have A Heart

Oops I began by sculpting in the negative .. lets start all over again

There we go the final sculpt 

Making the plaster moulds

Let me pick the Have A - out and clean it up by pouring latex into both moulds 

Final cast

 I made 3 sets of gelatine positives and very carefully cut them to get ready for painting

| used a mixture of airbrushing and skin illustrator to paint the prosthetic pieces which where glued on to the model on the day with pros- aid - they where so sturdy - they would not move for love or money!!