This was a design that I had been playing with and revising in my head when the host of the 6th Element party put out a call for someone to airbrush a few girls as Orion Slave girls. I immediately had the thought that I could make up several sets of the appliances and do a simple paint application. The pieces themselves were simple to design and cast. The whole set consisted of a large piece that laid across the chest, above the curve of the breast and had 2 glass drop stones set in it. There was a forehead piece that was set with a single glass drop stone and followed the eyebrow line. Finally there were two pieces that mirrored the curves of the main pieces and were placed upon the cheeks. All of these pieces were cast in latex that was a dark blue color, and fluoresced vibrantly under UV light. Purely by accident, I discovered that the glass stones I was using were of a very unique color that under UV light they are rendered completely clear. This gives the impression that the settings are empty where viewed under black light. The next step in the process would have been a 3 tone application of body paint to cover all the skin that would be exposed by the outfits the girls decided to wear. I mixed a midnight blue to use as a under tone and shadow definition. Then I mixed a very rich blue that had a significant metallic sheen to it, to use as the primary tone. Then I made a slightly ice blue tinted metallic silver to use as a highlight color. None of the body colors had any UV reactive quality so that in the finished costume, under UV lighting, the applications would stand out in a very striking manner. This was the original color test that I did:

Model (name withheld), Photos by Sashala

As the event neared, things changed. Instead of the costumes going on slave girls who would be acting as hostesses and servers, eventually it shifted to a troop of hoop dancers called Kaivalya Hoops, and a pair of lovely Belly Dancers. I believed that my designs and paint would be able to stand up to the challenge of this level of activity and all its effects. The application process went fairly smooth, though having some one assist me who was familiar with skin adhesive and appliances would have made it a lot easier and may have prevented some of the problems I had later. With each model, I began with the chest piece as it was the largest and would require the most time to set properly. Also the chest pieces didn't seem like they were going to require the modifications that all the other pieces ended up needing. I discovered that the cheek pieces looked great in theory and work well right up until someone smiled. Fortunately I had made the pieces thin enough that once the adhesive had fully set, it didn't have too much of a problem except on the girls who had the deepest dimples. I did have to trim some of these pieces to fit on the girls, as I had sculpted them in a size that would have fit my face and not the petite faces of some of the dancers. The forehead pieces had the same problem and all of them required a bit of trimming on the top points in order to fit completely on the forehead and not end up glued into the hairline.

After all the appliances had been done, the problems began. I eventually ran out of time to do the costumes completely as I had planned. I decided to just do some simple tribal-like designs on the Belly Dancers. I used the same color to stencil leopard-like spots on the Kaivalya Hoop girls so as to be differentiate between the two groups.

Belly Dancers

Kaivalya Hoops

The stencils were of three basic sizes, and 2 or 3 different patterns in each size. I had cut them out of 5ml clear PVC. Originally they were going to be used on a ice blue Snow Leopard costume, but the model for that one changed her mind and ended up in the Reptilian costume.

The Belly Dancers had a few problems with the applications due to a basic design flaw that I will discuss in a future post. The Kaivalya Hoop girls had a more significant problem with these flaws as they were performing far more vigorously and had the added effect of the hoops beating on the pieces. This lead to some mid performance failures that I regret. At least one of the hooper girls commissioned a second set of this design with additional pieces in a vibrant, UV reactive fuscia color. Over all I was moderately pleased with the costumes. I wish that I had been able to do the complete design. I know that the only reasons I wasn't able to accomplish what I imagined had to do with my trying to do it alone, the over reaching with the amount of work I committed to, and pushing my equipment beyond what it could really handle. I do intended to have one of the models sit for me and apply the full costume so that I can photograph the complete version.

Models: Leigh, Danielle, De Soliel, Meta, Manda, Sunfire,

Photos by EJO

This was the most ambitious costume I had planned for the party. I put out a call for a woman to volunteer for this particular costume. I was not confident that I would get any as the main requirement for the costume was that who ever volunteered would have to shave her head. I was pleasantly surprised when Faithlotus jumped right in and said she would shave her head. The idea was to paint her entire body with latex tinted a shimmery gold tone. The gold also had a distinct UV reactive aspect. Once that had cured, I would then blow a metallic green thru the diamond mesh bags that produce comes in. This would allow the gold to appear thru a diamond scale pattern. I would also leave an oval shaped area from chin to navel uncovered by green, like a lizards underbelly. Then the model would apply make up and detail paint for effect. And finally a cloth wrap and heavy boots. "well laid plans of mice and men..." My first failure occurred during (literally) the first leg of this costume. if you look at my face you can see that the moment was duly captured:

I did manage to coax enough work out of my gun to apply a single layer to her chest, arms and face.

Then, with time crunching down on me, I enlisted the aid of Kara and Calamity who picked up brushes and painted the rest of the costume on Faithlotus. I am very grateful to these two. They did a wonderful job!

In the end it looked, not quite like I had designed, but pretty good and alien. Faith seemed to revel in it as the night worn on.

Photos by EJO, Model Faithlotus

Alien Abduction Nurse

So the plan was for a sexy, alien nurse. I intended to paint a dark purple base over the arms, thighs and face. Then I would blow multiply layers of a white liquid latex to form the pattern of a nurse's uniform dress. Then I would add a red cross over the latex to complete the detail.

Putting the purple on went quite smoothly.

Bit of run, but easily cleaned. You can see the dark tone I was trying for. Next came the white latex. And all the nightmares that came with it.

Half way through the first coat I began to have the same failures I encountered with the Reptilian design. Eventually I simply conceded and ended up applying the latex liberally with a soft brush. Fortunately i had the dryer on hand to help speed the cure time of the latex. Once I finished, she found some metallic tape to make cross to cover her nipples and the painted latex did not provide the complete coverage that the multilayer of blown would have. Then I applied a some final touch-ups with the purple.

When she left the paint area the costume looked pretty good, but not any where near as impressive as I had imagined. During the course of the night the paint around her mouth disintegrated rather drastically. I don't know why it happened the way it did. It may have been a combination of her skin, that particular paint, or just the activity of the night. I wish it had gone better for this model.

Photos by EJO, Model Chelsea

For this design I planned a murky green base coat with UV reactive purple splotches. I also crafted a new size set of horns. They are approximately 2.5" long, 1" wide at the base and have a slight curve. I think these will be a standard horn I use from now on. I also did a "Q-n-D" cast of a skull and crossbones belt buckle. I then cast it in an antiqued white, with a slight greenish UV reactive quality. I placed one of each of these on each of my models shoulders.I the effect was of a sub-dermal style tattoo/implant. During the process, one of the horns refused to stay attached. So I ended up just leaving the single horn in place. and over the course of the night, the arm tattoos came loose. I am not so sure it wasn't due to using two different bottles of spirit gum, one of which is quite old. Unfortunately my photographer didn't get any final shots of this costume and I know of one picture that was shot later in the evening, after things started to fall apart.

Photos by EJO, Model Ms.Terious

Update: I have given permission to post a link to this pic by L. Bombus.

Thanks!

As you can see the costume was starting to show signs of wear.

This was the second simple design idea for the party. Just a nice layer of translucent metallic purple with silver highlights. Kara was my model and I am so grateful for her. she was one of the first to arrive and sat patiently with me through the entire process. She jumped in and assisted me with a fair number of the designs, helping with drying and even applying latex for the Reptilian costume. She was the last to get done and I regret that I did not do a better job of it. By the time I started on her I had done 10 people in 7 1/2 hours, suffered a large number of setbacks and hardware troubles, and had people pushing me due to deadlines and time crunches. So all my frustrations and fatigue fell on her. Overall it looked pretty "okay", but I could see the flaws. Quite a few uneven color patches and the silver was not heavy enough to show up as I intended. I hope she was not too disappointed in the effect. By then end of the night I had taken to calling her "Lil Miss Patience".

See how happy she was even this late in the game...

At this point she seem less sure of the process....

But here she seems to be getting in to it and showing some alien "styl'n".

The silver didn't stand up as well on the rest of the body as it did on her face.  

Finished costume was great for wandering around a crowded alien party, but i was not so proud of it in the bright light.

Thank you Kara!

Photos by EJO, Model Kara

The idea was to be a simple and quick design. I cut three different stencils out of 2ml pvc (as that is what I happened to have handy). Each stencil was a different graduated flame profile. I planned to put these flames at each of the major joints of the body: Knee, hip, waist, elbow, shoulder, chest, neck, jaw and eyeline. I would layer each over the others for depth. Under normal light the flames would be nearly invisible, but under blacklight the flames would appear to jump away from the skin.

I put down a base coat of a medium transluecent red. Then starting with the larges of the three stencils, I blew a hyper-UV reactive yellow. The next layer I used a fluorescent orange thay I steped down with a bit of transparent red. For the smallest flames, I created a dark shade of red that also had a UV reactive quality. This required a blending of tranparent red, fluorescent raspberrry, and flourescent hot pink.

This particular design went on with out any glitch or problem. It is so hard to capture UV reactive glow under black light on camera so there are not any good pictures of the effect. Here you can almost see the effect though.

 My model did give me a fright though. When she walked out of the painting area and in to the party she looked great. Later in the evening I saw her and the paint had nearly disentegrated on her face and neck. I found out that she had received a massage on her face and that the oil had loosened the paint. After the event I learned that she had also had a reaction on her face. I had done a skin test with her and all the colors I used prior, but some thing didn't agree with her skin. I can't say weather it was the paint, the oil,or some combination of the two, but will be very careful if i ever use this model again.

Photos by EJO, Model Naughty Nurse

So Hoopiniti had a solo performance and wanted to use the Zetalien apppliances from the Sixth Element party, with an additional set to cover her breasts. I was not confident that I could match the color and the UV reactive properties of the original set, so we decided to do a complete set in a color of her choosing: Fuscia! The only catch was that I had a week to complete the set.

I decided that since the new set was going to include the breast covers, I needed to make them a custom fit. This is because she would be wearing them while performing and I knew that they needed to fit well so as to avoid the ripple effect when trying to wrap a flat piece over two planes of curve. I started by doing a simple ridgid wrap mold of her chest. It was three layers thick and extending 4" above and below the breast. I made sure that her nipples were as hard as I could so that I would be able to sculpt ample space for them in the final piece. Once the mold was set, I filled it with plaster. I would have prefered the hydrocal, but I dont have the containers of leftover from the Faces project labeled so it is hit or miss which I get. After pulling the positive I began to scult the pieces on a flat peice of 1/4 glass covered with a piece of clear vinyl sheeting.

Once sculpted, I put the vinyl into the freezer until I could remove the pieces without distorting them. I placed extra clay over the mipple so that I could create a hollow in the final for her nipples to move freely. I then centered and set the design pieces on the positive and did my final sculpting.

Once I finished the sculpt, I built a mold, (hydrocal this time) but made sure to block all negative space so that I could remove the positive. When the mold had cured completely I remove the positive and all excess clay. I allowed the interior of the mold time to cure in direct air contact as well. My final preparation was to apply a liberal coat of hairspray which I have found makes it much easier and cleaner to pull the latex from the hydrocal. I painted 4 layers of the fucia latex into the mold before filling it with clear latex. I then placed the positive back into the mold and set it aside to cure. I let it set 24 hours and pulled the positive out of the mold. I then discovered that around the clay I left to form the pocket the latex had not finished curing and it pulled away from the mold. This left a pucker visible on the surface of the piece and a rough, lumpy texture to the skin side of the pocket. I discovered this problem on Friday evening and the performance was to be the following night. I attempted to repair the damage and smooth over the interior by smoothing the interior with a dremel and by addign addtional layers of latex to the surface. My final result was less than perfect, but I was out of time. While doing all of this, I had also pulled out the original Zetalien molds and preped them for a new casting. I managed to pull a complete set, but I don't think those molds are usable again, as I found significant detail that has become too worn in the mold. Due to a calender error, I ended up having an extra week to continue working. I immediately restarted the casting process, this time I decide to applay 8 coats of the fuscia to the mold before adding the clear. And I allowed 48 hours in the mold before removal. This time I had a perfect set of peices that only needed to be trimmed and finished. So this new version includes the forehead piece, the two cheek peices, a second set of cheek paices that will be on each upper arm, the chest peice and the two new "pasties" covering the majority of each breast.

And as is my preference they all have a vivid UV reactive component:

I am pretty happy with the overall effect and I hope to get some photos of the costume on her soon.

Here is a simple costume design I did a few months ago. It was for a theme party titled : Damn Nation. I used simple latex horns that I sculpted and a basic coat of red paint applied via airbrush.

The picture quality isnt the best, but the costumes were a hit. The paint lasted many hours even standing around bonefires and dancing with abandon.

So I have been working on a design (or three) for the upcoming Sixth Element Event.

Here is the first look at the Zetalian: It will consist of four simple appliances: one for the forhead, one on each cheek, and a larger peice that will lay across the chest.

Each of these pieces will then be cast in latex and have a dark blue glass stone in them.

These peices have been colored so as to fluoresce a white blue color under UV lighting while the rest of the costume remains dark.

Once the appliances are in place the model will then be painted in shimmering translucent shades of blue. (I did some color tests on my daughter)

I think the final color will be somewhere between the two shades above. I will also post final shots later.