Guide to applying prosthetic nose

Hi all. As some of you may already know, I am working on a cosplay of the Shadow for Halloween this year, and I plan on going as far with it as I can. The costume itself is more or less ready, but I plan on a prosthetic nose as the Shadow has a beak lol.

So the qustion is, does anyone know of a comprehensive video guide on Youtube, or a written guide for applying a prosthetic nose? I have some minor experience with prosthetics, having been in a horror film back in 2000, and also helping pn the makeup fx side of same film, but I know things have changed ALOT since then.

So if anyone can point me to some modern prosthetic guide videos or whatever, I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Btw, I should add I am buying the prosthetic itself.
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First thing to know would be what material is the prosthetic made of. Foam latex (looks like), silicone, gelatine...to know what adhesive to use in first instance.
I think things will have not changed that much in this particular area since year 2000.
 
First thing to know would be what material is the prosthetic made of. Foam latex (looks like), silicone, gelatine...to know what adhesive to use in first instance.
I think things will have not changed that much in this particular area since year 2000.
Yeah, it'll be foam latex. I plan on using Pros Aide, as when I had prosthetics on me for the film the fx guy used spirit gum, which apparently I am allergic to.

I have found tutorials on Youtube, but the only one longer than a couple minute, is one for a partial face piece, though I suppose the techniques aren't different.
 
Yes, pros aide is the standard for that. Spirit gum is not that good. You might need to prepare thickened pros aide to blend the edges depending on how good they are.
This is a link to Lars Carlson's Make Up Fx website. There is very good and valuable info about fx make up in it. Good website.
Browse Tutorials/Foamlatex.
Foam Latex
For a nose I would start gluing the tip and then go with the rest. Better little by little instead of trying to glue it all at once.
 
Yes, pros aide is the standard for that. Spirit gum is not that good. You might need to prepare thickened pros aide to blend the edges depending on how good they are.
This is a link to Lars Carlson's Make Up Fx website. There is very good and valuable info about fx make up in it. Good website.
Browse Tutorials/Foamlatex.
Foam Latex
For a nose I would start gluing the tip and then go with the rest. Better little by little instead of trying to glue it all at once.
Thanks! I will look into that at some point today.

Yeah, that is in line with both my gut assumption and the couple videos that bother to explain much.

Again, thank you!
 
To be honest, you could in all likelihood get that mostly all on in the one go which might be a bit easier if you're doing it to yourself. As foam is porous it both draws in the glue and helps let it dry by continuing to keep air in contact with the (air drying) prosaide. As long as the glue is still wet, you'll be able to reposition it before it grabs.

If it was me ( disclaimer - I do this all day every day for work ), I'd first clean my nose. Noses are oily so this step will definitely help. I'd then load enough glue to make the surface wet into the piece (not enough so it runs all over the place) with a q tip. Keep the glue at least a good 10mm from the edge. Then get this situated on your face where it wants to sit and is comfortable. Hold it in position until you can feel that it's grabbed. Doing it this way rather than letting the prosaide dry first lets you have some repositioning time.

Once the weight of the piece is held by the glue, you can go about doing your edges. This will be tricky as it's in the middle of your face and you'll need to cross over your eyes as you work round the edge. Use a damp rather than sopping wet qtip and work from the glued section outwards, being careful not to fold your edges over. You can seperate the edge of this happens but that's easiest to do with 96/99% alcohol so wouldn't be overly pleasant round your eyes. (96 is far less fumey).

If the above is your piece, the main area you'll have trouble with is the underside of the nose where it meets your top lip. For this section, I'd probably get most of the nose on and secure and then apply glue to both your face where it meets and the piece. Let that dry and then carefully (making sure it's in the right place) contact the two surfaces together. That'll get you a better bond than just gluing as you go.

If the piece is made for a your face then the edges should be pretty good. If not and it's more generic, offer the nose up before you even open the glue and take note of any areas that it doesn't quite fit. When you then come to glue these down later you'll have an idea of which bits might need a gentle tug to get them to lie down nicely. You'll have more luck hiding tricky edges in the corner of the nose and underneath than you will smack in the middle of your face around the top edge.

To finish foam edges I often make Dick Smith's edger, comprised of 99% alcohol and spirit gum. As you're allergic I'd skip this and stipple your edges over with prosaide on a sponge (you need an open cell sponge like you'd wash a baby with, not a foam latex wedge as this won't work so well). If there's a small ledge you can either thicken some prosaide ahead of time like udog said or you can buy a small pot of prosaide cream when you're buying your glue. In all likelihood this is enough to disguise your edge.

If none of this gives you the finish you want, the nuclear option is making some Bondo / cabopatch. This is a filler made of prosaide and fumed silica. Fumed silica is very much not something you want to breath in in its powder form (much like asbestos), however it's inert once suspended in a liquid. If you do choose to do this then you should be wearing a respirator and in an ideal world, do it outside with everything you're using inside a bin bag to avoid throwing it everywhere.

Once you're glued, apply some translucent powder (I like RCMA powder, others exist) to your glue to stop it being tacky and allow you to move your nose without it sticking to itself.

Colouring can be done a number of ways. Generally I'd start a raw foam paint job with pax paint. Pax paint is prosaide mixed with acrylic paint that can be stippled on with some more of that sponge from earlier. Traditionally it's made from liquitex paint but any non-toxic acrylic paint will work. Mix in some colour to your glue untill you achieve a density slightly more like cream than milk. It dries darker than it looks when wet so bear that in mind. You can do this before you apply the nose but make sure that you leave your edges clean as the paint will sink in and make them less malleable and prone to deformation if not which will hamper your application. If you do prepaint - powder when it's dry before you touch it. Same powder as above. If you're painting it on your face, powder also after this step to stop it being tacky.

There are a number of paints you can use to tie in the rest of your nose to your face. Industry standard is alcohol activated colours like skin illustrator or reel color (other brands exist) but these are quite expensive for a one-off however so you might be better off with some rubber mask grease paint (rmgp). Kryolan sell various 6 shade pallets one of which would likely suit (other brands, also exist) This you can apply with a brush or a latex wedge, building up colour to match your own skin tone. This will need powdering when you're done to set the makeup.

Noses are tricky as they're smack in the middle of your face so any irregularities are easier to see. You'll also spend so long looking at yours in the mirror that youll likely be overly critical. As long as the general tone is there and it looks like a nose, you'll probably be fine and dandy.


*** Make sure you buy some remover when you buy your glue. Proclean works well. Supersolve also works very well. Use a wide, soft brush (I use a foundation brush) and work the remover into the glued edge until you can get the brush underneath. Then work back and forth along the piece to lubricate it off your face. If you pull at it it's likely to rip. If you don't use remover it's likely to hurt. Don't get it in your eyes.

Robb
 
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To be honest, you could in all likelihood get that mostly all on in the one go which might be a bit easier if you're doing it to yourself. As foam is porous it both draws in the glue and helps let it dry by continuing to keep air in contact with the (air drying) prosaide. As long as the glue is still wet, you'll be able to reposition it before it grabs.

If it was me ( disclaimer - I do this all day every day for work ), I'd first clean my nose. Noses are oily so this step will definitely help. I'd then load enough glue to make the surface wet into the piece (not enough so it runs all over the place) with a q tip. Keep the glue at least a good 10mm from the edge. Then get this situated on your face where it wants to sit and is comfortable. Hold it in position until you can feel that it's grabbed. Doing it this way rather than letting the prosaide dry first lets you have some repositioning time.

Once the weight of the piece is held by the glue, you can go about doing your edges. This will be tricky as it's in the middle of your face and you'll need to cross over your eyes as you work round the edge. Use a damp rather than sopping wet qtip and work from the glued section outwards, being careful not to fold your edges over. You can seperate the edge of this happens but that's easiest to do with 96/99% alcohol so wouldn't be overly pleasant round your eyes. (96 is far less fumey).

If the above is your piece, the main area you'll have trouble with is the underside of the nose where it meets your top lip. For this section, I'd probably get most of the nose on and secure and then apply glue to both your face where it meets and the piece. Let that dry and then carefully (making sure it's in the right place) contact the two surfaces together. That'll get you a better bond than just gluing as you go.

If the piece is made for a your face then the edges should be pretty good. If not and it's more generic, offer the nose up before you even open the glue and take note of any areas that it doesn't quite fit. When you then come to glue these down later you'll have an idea of which bits might need a gentle tug to get them to lie down nicely. You'll have more luck hiding tricky edges in the corner of the nose and underneath than you will smack in the middle of your face around the top edge.

To finish foam edges I often make Dick Smith's edger, comprised of 99% alcohol and spirit gum. As you're allergic I'd skip this and stipple your edges over with prosaide on a sponge (you need an open cell sponge like you'd wash a baby with, not a foam latex wedge as this won't work so well). If there's a small ledge you can either thicken some prosaide ahead of time like udog said or you can buy a small pot of prosaide cream when you're buying your glue. In all likelihood this is enough to disguise your edge.

If none of this gives you the finish you want, the nuclear option is making some Bondo / cabopatch. This is a filler made of prosaide and fumed silica. Fumed silica is very much not something you want to breath in in its powder form (much like asbestos), however it's inert once suspended in a liquid. If you do choose to do this then you should be wearing a respirator and in an ideal world, do it outside with everything you're using inside a bin bag to avoid throwing it everywhere.

Once you're glued, apply some translucent powder (I like RCMA powder, others exist) to your glue to stop it being tacky and allow you to move your nose without it sticking to itself.

Colouring can be done a number of ways. Generally I'd start a raw foam paint job with pax paint. Pax paint is prosaide mixed with acrylic paint that can be stippled on with some more of that sponge from earlier. Traditionally it's made from liquitex paint but any non-toxic acrylic paint will work. Mix in some colour to your glue untill you achieve a density slightly more like cream than milk. It dries darker than it looks when wet so bear that in mind. You can do this before you apply the nose but make sure that you leave your edges clean as the paint will sink in and make them less malleable and prone to deformation if not which will hamper your application. If you do prepaint - powder when it's dry before you touch it. Same powder as above. If you're painting it on your face, powder also after this step to stop it being tacky.

There are a number of paints you can use to tie in the rest of your nose to your face. Industry standard is alcohol activated colours like skin illustrator or reel color (other brands exist) but these are quite expensive for a one-off however so you might be better off with some rubber mask grease paint (rmgp). Kryolan sell various 6 shade pallets one of which would likely suit (other brands, also exist) This you can apply with a brush or a latex wedge, building up colour to match your own skin tone. This will need powdering when you're done to set the makeup.

Noses are tricky as they're smack in the middle of your face so any irregularities are easier to see. You'll also spend so long looking at yours in the mirror that youll likely be overly critical. As long as the general tone is there and it looks like a nose, you'll probably be fine and dandy.
Thanks for the advice!

My Girlfriend will be helping me, but all you say is good advice regardless, as she doesn't have any experience with prosthetics, and mine is small.

Bondo is another thing we used on the film my former friend made when they did the demon makeup on me, and the fx guy and I found out that its not too great on skin like mine for some reason. I have overly oily skin, and scars from tons of blackheads, and we had a heck if a time keeping the edges, especially the upper lip, glued down. By the end of the filming day I had a giant wedge of bondo flapping about on my upper lip. Thankfully my former friend who was the writer/director had what he needed.

I just hope pros aide works on my skin. I had to vigorously clean my face before the fx guy did the demon makeup, and even while he was applying it he had to use wipes cos once I started sweating, we couldn't keep oil from collecting on my face from the sweat.
 
There are a couple of things you can do to help without adding to your shopping list - don't drink alcohol for a while before you're applying it (makes more of a difference than you'd think) and apply a stipple of prosaide to your skin before you start, dry it and then powder. This can help prime the surface.

It's more than likely the heat from your full makeup / costume / exertion than broke down the bondo. As this is just a nose it likely won't be as warm. You'll probably have the most difficulty under the nose where your breath warms everything up.
 
There are a couple of things you can do to help without adding to your shopping list - don't drink alcohol for a while before you're applying it (makes more of a difference than you'd think) and apply a stipple of prosaide to your skin before you start, dry it and then powder. This can help prime the surface.

It's more than likely the heat from your full makeup / costume / exertion than broke down the bondo. As this is just a nose it likely won't be as warm. You'll probably have the most difficulty under the nose where your breath warms everything up.
Fortunately I don't drink, so that is good.

I think the one decent video I saw on YT mentioned the undercoat of Pros aide for that. Very good idea in my case I'd say.

Yeah, I had a full face Goatman with big dragon horns, a black wig down to the small of my back tied in a pony tail, goat ears, shark teeth and a black business suit on, and even though we were filming in an abandoned house (with permission), in the winter, we did have large gas heaters to make it comfortable, but I was sweltering in all that. I was playing the villain of the film, and I had some rough times lol.

I was thinking of possibly cutting the underside and nostrils away, but not sure if theat may make it harder to glue down. My nose itches alot, and is very sensitive on the underside and nostrils, which is why I was toying with cutting those parts off the prosthetic.
 
I often cut pieces about when I'm working with foam so it's entirely doable but be aware whatever you cut away will leave a ledge as your blending edge will be gone. This is harder to disguise the larger the ledge is. Bondo, being made of prosaide is air-drying and doesn't dry well in thick layers.
 
I often cut pieces about when I'm working with foam so it's entirely doable but be aware whatever you cut away will leave a ledge as your blending edge will be gone. This is harder to disguise the larger the ledge is. Bondo, being made of prosaide is air-drying and doesn't dry well in thick layers.
Ah, hadn't thought of that. Ok, then. Will keep that in mind.

Yeah, would probably turn int a repeat of what happened with the demon makeup and my lip if I cut those away.

Thank you for the advice, I genuinely appreciate it!
 

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