Cambridge Portfolio Week 7 3/27, Finger Prop

Hello, welcome to Week 7 of my Cambridge Portfolio project. The reason for my lack of posts this week is because I've been hard at work. I was planning on doing my blog as I went by, but there were setbacks and it was not easy to work consistently and compile enough info for each respective blog.

In this post I'll discuss the process behind a finger prop I did for the film.

I started with the glue process I previously found online. I put on 4-6 coats of glue, but it was very time consuming, and it only ended up cracking. Then, I tried using a hairdryer to speed up the drying process for each coat.

It didn't tear, but it was difficult to get off. I ended up not using this method. I don't know if I didn't powder my hand enough to prevent sticking, or if it just wasn't a good method, but I opted to try another.

What I ultimately went with is using a wax mold.

I started with melting a candle in a cup using boiling water. It took a while, but it finally melted.

I tried putting in my fingers, but it really hurt to put my finger in scalding hot wax, so my dad helped out.

It wasn't really painful for him, so after covering his entire finger, we went into the garage and got some Easy Sand to make a cement/clay mixture that would harden up.

We carefully pulled out the finger and put it in a small plastic cup.

We mixed together the sand with water and made a clay-like mixture.

We initially tried putting it into a glove to see if it would turn out well, and it did. It broke easily though, so we needed to be careful later.

We poured in the clay and waited for it to dry.

After waiting overnight, it was hardened.

We tried shipping it off, starting with the exposed area, but it was too hard.

Instead, we cut some off with a knife and sliced bigger lines so we could safely take off bigger chunks.

This is how the finger turned out.

I got some acryllic paints and painted the finger. I mixed some colors and did a light coat.

 However, it was a bit too pale, so I lightly and gingerly rubbed black paint on to to make it look dirtied and more convincing. This is the final product.

I think me and my father did a good job on the finger. It's not extremely convincing, but for something that was made from scratch without a big team, I think it looks good. It may have been a bit too much work for one shot, but it's always something I can reflect back on and it was fun to make.