Atlantis- The production

The construction of the designs featured below began in early February 2013, it really did take up every minute of my time- hence why I haven't posted until now when its all finished!

I started by constructing and dyeing the costumes, a bodysuit for the female character- The Priestess and a Greek style tabard for the male- The Priesthood.

 A big part of my design influence was the beauty of mushrooms, because of this I decided to include foam latex embellishments:

Moulding different mushroom types.

Examples of some of the finished foam latex mushrooms once they had been painted:

The spiral/shell headpiece:

Firstly I had to sculpt the headpiece - half life size to save time and materials

I then took a pattern of the shape, transferred it into flat and enlarged it.

I cut the pattern pieces out of Plastezote and glued them back into their 3d form using Evo-stick and a heat gun. The final process was to cover the piece to match the costumes.

The Jellyfish!

The base for the jellyfish is an acrylic dome on which I applied layers of Platgel Silicone to make it a realistic jellyfish texture. 

I imbedded oil paints in between the layers of silicone to make it look more natural. 

It was necessary to create a custom-made skull cap to fit the model exactly, I attached this too the piece using silicone sealant. 

The final touches were the tentacles for which I gathered strips of organza and attached El wire so that they lit up.

Barnacle Prosthetics:

I sculpted the pieces out of chavant with lots of detail.

I moulded the sculpts in platgel silicone and cast in the same using deadener. 

After 24 runs I was satisfied I had enough for the models face, I painted these in oil colour.

Solon the crab:

I dissected a real crab into 12 pieces so that it could be moulded.

Clay-walling and creating a silicone mould.

Casting in fibreglass and then sanding

After casting the parts in fibreglass I then sculpted the mushroom cluster for the crabs back.

The caps and the stalks needed to be moulded separately in silicone. I cast the caps in foam latex and the stalks in liquid latex.

Piecing the fibreglass limbs together and priming them.

Crab after painting and finishing.