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  • Silicone paints consists of elements the first one is Naptha (solvent) you can use lighter fluid, panel white, or low odour white spirit. Or you can use naphtha in its purest form. They all give the same result

  • The other part of the paint is one hour shower. Or you can use your a&b mix. Where possible use the same silicone that you've made your piece from

  • Once you've mixed naphtha and silicone together, you need a thick syrup consistency. You can thin it down to as thin as you need

  • You can freeze silicone, which will slow down the chemical reaction so it will take a long time to cure. It doesn't freeze properly so it'll take around 20minutes to loosen up again

  • Element number 3 is pigment.

  • You can buy silicone pigments. Dry fine powder pigment and silicone oil. Or you can use oil paints

  • Element number 4. Not always needed but silicone oil. You can use it if your paint isn't blending in as well. Helps to bind it together. Polymesister systems sell silicone oil

  • Naphtha will swell up silicone. Silicone is a pourous material and absorbs colour. Clean your silicone piece with alcohol

  • The colours need to be translucent. Opaque colours will look very cakey.

  • The more colour you use the more opaque it is

  • Mix colours for flesh tones

  • When you paint skin tones you need to be aware of what colours make up skin. Do not add blacks or white as your skin as not black or white. Reference is key.

  • For shadows start off with blue. Translucency is key. Build up layers of translucent colours to keep the translucency.

  • It will look like there's nothing there to start with, blue are the first shadows, secondary shadows are green

  • You will only see a very slight colour difference it's very subtle. (Ron muek super realistic sculptor and paint)

  • You can powder them down to dull down the paint- (cabosil or baking powder)

  • Don't use a latex sponge. Latex stops silicone from curing.

  • Where you want deeper shadows mix red to create a purple in the deeper shadows.

  • Next use green to shadow, green is a very prominent colour. Overlap a slight layer of green over the shadows.

  • For your reds and purples will be used for the areas of blushed.

  • Stipple for the blood areas. Keep them very subtle as they build up very quickly. Avoid the one uniform red colour. They need to be subtle and random.

  • To lighten areas, deepen the parts around it.

  • The paints need to be even thinner to do flicking. Needs to be slightly denser in colour. (Wayne uses Harris brushes from asda)

  • Red silk thread can help to replicate blood vessel- broken capillaries.

  • Step away often because your eyes get used to the colour.

  • Often look at primary colours to refresh your eyes.

  • You can talc at the end, the colours will stand out more. 

Painting Silicone

Notes on Silicone Painting

Wayne's Demo

I’m an artist and model maker based in Glasgow. My work for film and television includes a variety of things from making props to paint effects, but I specialise in creating models and sets for stop-motion animation.

Recently I’ve become involved in sculpting and casting figures (see Sculpture Portfoliosection), and inbetween jobs I have the chance to devote time to this area of my work – which I love!

Hyper realistic silicone painting by Judith Johnson

Judith's is extremely talented, he has re created these pieces from silicone, sculpted and painted. He has created the illusion of realism in his work. For my silicone painting practise I will continuously refer back to research and reference material in order to gain the best results.

About | Judes Blog on WordPress.com (2010) Available at: https://jubejubes.wordpress.com/about/ (Accessed: 4 May 2015)

Stan Winston Silicone Painting

  • Nothing sticks to silicone so silicone based paints are used

  • First clean the surface. Make sure you clean all the areas. The surface will feel clean with no sticky residues.

  • Use acetone to get rid of the release, scrub with a short brush

  • Make sure you move the piece constantly so it can be viewed from all perspectives.

  • It is very important to make sure the piece is clean as anything in between the two silicones will act as a release and the paint will come off

  • apply naphtha which will swell the surface a little

  • after this it will be ready to start painting

  • (naptha) helps to break down all the oils

  • tom flouts figured out this process

Materials:

  • Head is tin silicone

  • Using 641 silicone

  • Naphtha to thin down

  • Skin illustrator (You can use oil paints)

  • Air brushes (iwata) keep them clean. It's for a finer needle. It's used to map everything out

  • Paashe 3. Controls to get a bigger spray. Touch up gun

  • A regulator. Regulates air flow and splatters

  • Cups

  • Skin illustrator is good as it matches the paint job on the makeup

  • Paper towel

  • Alcohol

  • Acetone

  • Naphtha

  • To matte down silicone - cabosil (thickening agent) keep it contained. Mix naphtha and cabosil until it mixes to a hair gel consistency

  • Sil pak- a different silicone as you need to matte down some areas and not other I.e eye mouth etc. it is air dry. Has a beautiful shine good for a shine ie fish

  • paint strainer, smooth strained silicone paint

  • cocking gun (641)

  • stirring sticks

  • fine detailed brushes

  • jar

  • containers

  • be careful of the temperatures

  • chip brushes

  • inks (mix with the sil pak)

  • compressor

Mixing silicone paints.

 

  • Mix naphtha with cabosil and shake it up. (to make a cabosil mix)

  • Mix the cabosil mix with the naphtha. Stir for a long time. (Add a small of amount of naphtha at a time)

  • Check the flow of the consistency. Needs to flow and not drip.

  • Strain it.

  • Keep in one storage jar and one small jar.

  • Wipe the rim to prevent it from locking. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pigment application

 

  • Start out with a light pink. Mapping out the initial features and shadows.

  • Starts with pinks around the eyes nose and mouth.

  • Shake your pigments and mix with the silicone mixture

  • Thin with naphtha so that it is translucent.

  • Starts with the iwata air brush.

  • Used more force as it is silicone

  • Starts with the eye (do them at equal times so they match

  • Silicone takes a while to dry so it has working time

  • Spray the pink in the nostrils

  • Add some colour to the face very random.

  • Just breaking up the plain of the silicone

  • Put a shot of every colour you use in the nostril to create depth so that it appears like it goes deeper than it actually does.

  • dont forget hidden areas like the underneath the ear lobes and bottom of the chin, behind the ears.

  • Get some colour inside the mouth and around the lip (Bring out the cracks)

  • This colour will be buried so it doesn't matter if it is wrong

  • Cartilage stays pale as it is stretched slightly (remember to use reference images)

  • Shoot some in the inside the ears

  • After the base colour, the airbrush is changed to the to the paashe3.

  • Thin down the paint so it is even more translucent. Layers some splattering of purples around areas, sporadically splattering. Fleshing out-the more subtle the better it looks.

  • Leave the white line above the lip, this helps to create the tension

  • Spattering 8-10colours very translucent in total.

  • Next is adding cool colours

  • Adding greens around the eyes keeping it subtle Adds some yellows in the ears

  • He mixes up brown and a blue for the eyes.

For my practising silicone painting, I used equal parts a&b silicone, low odour white spirit and oil paints. The paints came out with little bits of paint. This may have been due to the pigments in oil paints. In preparation for level 6 I plan to purchase silicone pigments/illustrator to colour my pieces. For this project I wanted to colour my pieces after I had applied them to my model so that I could match the colours of the piece with the other half of his face. 

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