Full body prosthetic for a movie

[seanbreathnach]

Hey all,

just looking for some advice or thoughts here from all you experienced horror heads.

I'd love to have a creature in a full body prosthetic in my new movie. I'd really rather that than have the creature in clothes. I've talked to a few movie people and they say body prosthetics can be very expensive.

Has anyone here any advice? Would you use prosthetics over VFX, or am I being too old school? Are there places where I could buy good quality prosthetic suits or are there tutorials showing how to make a good one?

Been surfing the net without much luck.

Cheers!

[TheBossInTheWall]

Wouldn't it be best to focus on lighting and angles and such to make the monster look monsterish without prosthetics?

[seanbreathnach]

I'll need more than light. It would be nice to be able to go down this route for example:

http://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/blog/monster-of-the-week-crawlers-the-descent/

If you scroll down you can see the full creature. Yes, light will help, but the creature needs to look like a creature rather than someone dressed up.

[Roiffalo]

Knowing more about your creature would be helpful. If it's a simple vampire-esque monster like in seanbreathnach's link, then full body for sure. It's not expensive or complicated to do. If you have something more in mind of a digi-grade werewolf, that can run a little expensive. It is possible though to make a full body prosthetic of such a creature look good though without need of any CGI.

It also depends on filming. Such movies like The Howling and American Werewolf in London depended more on the build up of the reveal of their monsters, showing as little as possible until the very end so as to keep the audience on the edge of their seats to see what this monstrosity looked like. Showing fewer scenes of the creature leaves for less chance of damage and over kill on your prosthetic if you were to get one, and it would likely run cheaper too.

[seanbreathnach]

Cheers, Roiffalo

that's exactly what I'm thinking - almost a JAWS like build up where you don't see the full creature until towards the end of the movie.

Yes, that vampire-esque mosnter is what I have in mind. How would I go about creating that? What would I need?

[Roiffalo]

Alas I am no expert, I watch a lot of creature creation how-to videos, and if you want advice on how to make your own monsters I recommend doing the same (I found videos to be most helpful, as they actually show how to blend and what colors to apply in certain areas and what not). Searching for horror make up on YouTube for example turned out a lot of really awesome videos with insane looking effects https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=horror+make+up

However you'd probably want to emphasize more on 'creature' rather than 'horror' or the most you'll get is how to make realistic looking wounds (which is still entertaining if you have time to kill). My favorite is naturally 'werewolf make up' and with that you can observe and gain tips on how to blend prosthetics, as well as see how certain ones work and which may be best for you.

Make up and prosthetics are easy enough to acquire if you Google search for 'monster prosthetics'.
After only searching the first page I found:
http://www.mostlydead.com/
http://www.instantmonsters.com/store.html
http://www.screamteam.com/collections/foamlatexappliances
and more.

Try different things and practice and see what works best for you. 8)

If you're not in the art field but need someone to make your monster and you have the qualifications, consider taking up an art student intern. Or hiring a professional in general.

[seanbreathnach]

That's fantastic, Roiffalo. Those links are great. Thanks for your help - I'll let you know how it turns out :)

[Roiffalo]

Quite welcome, and please do! I hope your project works out 8)