Prosthetic makeup, which may also be referred to as special make-up effects or FX prosthesis, is the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding, and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects. Prosthetic makeup draws a straight lineage from the Stagecraft of theatre and can be observed at the birth of science fiction cinema with Le Voyage dans La Lune, a 1902 French adventure short film directed by pioneer of special effects Georges Méliès.
The work of makeup artist Jack Pierce furthered pioneered early Hollywood prosthetic work and is best remembered for creating the iconic makeup born by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, his makeup for the Wolfman.
Notable artists
Modern prosthetic makeup was revolutionized by Christopher Tucker whose work on The Elephant Man was considered so ground breaking that when it failed to win any recognition at the 53rd Academy Awards letters of protests argued for it to receive an honorary awards – this was ignored but did lead to the creation of the Academy Award for Best Makeup the next year. John Chambers, whose work can be seen in Planet of the Apes. Dick Smith's work in Little Big Man. Rick Baker in An American Werewolf in London, for which he won the 1st ever Oscar in the newly created category. Stan Winston in the Terminator series. Rob Bottin in The Thing.
Many of the techniques developed during that period are still regularly used in the field today. Additionally, many of these artists taught and inspired the next generation of Special Effects makeup artists, who in turn developed more advanced techniques for effects makeup, including developing different materials, animatronics and incorporating added computer elements.
Technique
The process of creating a makeup prosthetic appliance typically begins with concept art, created by the artist or production. Once the actor has been chosen, the effects artist will prepare the actor for the process of taking a mold of the actor's face, head or body part. This process is called lifecasting. Lifecast molds are made from prosthetic alginate or more recently, from skin-safe platinum silicone rubber. This initial mold can be relatively weak but flexible. A hard mother mold, also known as a jacket or matrix, is typically made of plaster or fiberglass which is created over the outside of the initial flexible mold to provide support. This mold is used to cast a copy of that part of the actor, in a hard resin or plaster type material to eventually use as a base for sculpting the prosthetic. This is considered a "positive" or lifecast.
Before sculpting the clay prosthetic over the positive, The positive must be prepared by adding "keys" or mold points along the edges of it, which are often added using clay or more plaster or carved into the lifecast, to make sure that the two pieces of the mold will fit together correctly. Often the lifecast will be given an additional border in clay or plaster in order to have an area free of detail and undercuts to add these keys. The entire lifecast with borders and keys included is then molded. This ensures a stable area with built in keys to sculpt the prosthetic over. This also provides the artist an easily duplicated copy, if needed. Multiple copies are typically used to make variations or stages of prosthetics or different prosthetics for the same actor.
Lifecasts of full bodies and body parts are also used and reused as the basis for making fake body parts, severed limbs, and various "gore" type effects used in horror films or films where body parts are required.
The prosthetic required will be sculpted over the lifecast of that body part to become the design intended. For example, if the desired look is a pig nosed person, then the artist would sculpt the pig nose over the actor's real nose on the lifecast or positive copy. The edges of the clay should be made as thin as possible, for the clay is a stand-in for what will eventually be the prosthetic piece. Once sculpted, the new addition of the clay sculpted prosthetic part must be molded. Since the positive has been prepared with the additional boarder and keys, it actually becomes part of the prosthetic mold itself. Once molded, and clay removed, new mold cleaned out, the positive is one part of the mold and the new mold is the other side which has the negative of the newly sculpted prosthetic. This gives two or more pieces of a mold - a positive of the face or body part, and one (or more for complex molds) "negative" mold piece(s) with prosthetic sculpted in.