Prosthetic Appliance Codpiece for Big Bad Short Film

I was commissioned to create a codpiece appliance for a film that requires a shot of an actor who has had his "junk" mysteriously removed by some witches. Here are some pics of the build process. There will be more to come!

Setting up for plaster cast

Casting actor's lower torso

Plaster casting

Negative mold

Positive mold

Adding material to mold

Clay sculpt

Finished sculpt

2 piece mold

Wax release for silicone

Dragon Skin slicone

Mixing silicone

Pouring silicone

Finished appliance

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Some underwear choices

Test Application

Final Application for Shoot

I was asked to build an appliance for a film about some witches who cast a spell on a college bro, which removes his genitals and leaves him with a blank slate, not too different from a Ken doll.

After a lot of research and designing, I came up with an approach that would cover most of the actor's lower torso area. I wanted to make the appliance out of silicone, as it looks the most realistic to skin compared to the likes of latex.

The appliance needed to fit snugly so I needed a cast of the actor's lower torso. He was a great sport and after putting on some boxer briefs, he allowed me to cast him with the help of make-up artist, Malaina Toner.

The budget was tight so I wanted to be creative in how this could be approached. Plaster is not ideal as it is heavy, rigid, and prone to breaking. Silicone molds would have been ideal but plaster ended up being the solution.

After casting the actor, I took the negative mold and added after adding a release agent of petroleum jelly, added a tinted plaster to create the positive mold.

I cleaned up the positive mold, added some material to mimic the underwear the actor will wear, and began a sculpt of what the appliance will look like to make it look like a non-genital area. Once the sculpt was complete, I added a finishing spray and prepped it this mold with more petroleum jelly to create the secondary mold. Even with the release, these two molds were challenging to remove. It was good that I cast a lot of the actor's upper legs so that I had more room to pry the two molds apart with tools.

I then removed the clay and prepped the 2 piece mold for silicone. I have been talking with the people at Reynolds who distribute the materials that I use. They suggested Dragon Skin and since I have used this before, it seemed like a good material to use. I did use a wax release for the silicone as I was not sure if it would stick to the plaster mold.

I used silicone pigment to tint it lighter than the actor, since he wasn't available and all I had were reference photos. It's easier to color the appliance darker, rather than lighten it up. I added the silicone to the mold, added the positive mold, and let it sit. The cure time for this silicone was 40 minutes so it was a quick turn around. I removed a lot of the flashing and the prosthetic came out flawlessly.

Now the next step is to do a fitting on the actor. The challenges will lie with adhering the prosthetic. But since this will be a static shot, it shouldn't be prone to too much movement. More images to come!