CREATING prosthetic masks and body parts for the fantastical creatures in films like the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a marathon process, with actors having to sit for hours on end covered in sticky goo. But a little chemical wizardry is coming to their rescue. Make-up artists can now use a silicone polymer that is fast-setting and doesn鈥檛 burn actors鈥� skin.
For a perfectly fitting prosthetic mask, they first make a mould of the actor鈥檚 face or a body part and then create a plaster or fibreglass cast, which acts as a base to build the final mask. They usually apply a 鈥渃old and mucky鈥� algae-based product to create the initial mould, says prosthetic make-up artist Stevie Bettles. This can take an hour or more to set and then shrinks when the mould is removed, making it difficult to construct an accurate cast. The new material, Skinsil, is made of silicone polymers and a solution of platinum that acts as a curing agent, turning the fluid polymers into a rubber that can faithfully hold the form of a face.
The two components are mixed as they are pumped out of a caulking gun onto the actor鈥檚 skin. When the platinum hits the polymers鈥� long chains of silicone and oxygen it catalyses a cross-linking reaction, beginning to convert the linear chains into a tangled molecular ball. The artist then has two minutes to coat the body part before the substance has finished curing. Unlike other curing methods, the platinum reaction doesn鈥檛 create any by-products that can burn the skin.
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The masks made using the material should appear on screen when Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is released next year.