The Uncanny Valley: Crafting a White Walker: The Face

Hair, Eyes, Clothes - Wearing and Final Notes

Items needed:

Queen sized pantyhose
Liquid Latex
3D gel
Ben Nye clown white
Ben Nye black
Spirit gum

Face

For the face pantyhose I bought a queen sized pair, cut off one leg, and put that over my face.

It looked a bit silly (especially with the wig).
I thought about trying to incorporate this freaky thing happening with the lips, but did not.

Making the ridges

For the face, I started by sculpting the face lines. For this I used 3D gel, which I only have a bit of experience with.

Start by painting a layer of liquid latex as a base.

To use 3D gel, you place the bottle in a cup of hot water, which melts the gel into a malleable state. I believe I used the handle of a cheap paint brush to apply mine into the lines. Something like a popsicle stick would work as well. You'll have to work quickly before the gel cools.

Note on the 3D gel: I think I will be researching other options on materials to create the lines. Because 3D gel melts with heat, it does not hold the shape that well in warm conditions. Someone suggested trying hot glue for this.

After the 3D gel cooled, I covered the face with liquid latex.

Here is the face with the 3D gel. I believe this is before any latex, but may be wrong.

Latex surface

Note on the latex: I did not put the latex high enough on the mask to cover my hair line because getting latex stuck in the hair is hell. Sometimes (not often) my wig would slip and you could see my hair. What I would do in the future is ball up wax paper inside the mask, and continue painting the latex higher for better covereage.

Make sure you latex around the eyes and the mouth to solidify those shapes. Keep your mouth open and make sure the latex forms around the shape of your lips. Be careful with the eyebrows. If you are going to latex over them, put vaseline generously on the skin first. Optionally, you can latex around them and then fill in the gap after you remove the mask.

After the latex is dry, cut out holes for the eyes and mouth.
Be very careful cutting around your eyes.

Painting the color

Once the latex dried, I used acrylic paint to make the interior surface dark (grey) and the exterior white. I'm not sure this was that effective.

Here is the face with gel, latex, dark undercoating, and some light white over painting:

Later, I ended up using Ben Nye Clown White on the face, especially on the ridges--this really made them pop. I also later painted a water based black, Ben Nye again, on the surface to bring out the dark areas of the white walker face.

The clown white is water resistant and my black is water based, so I then applied setting powder before using the Ben Nye black. I used the water based because it's what I have and am experienced with. Depending on how much you load your sponge with pigment, this will end up lighter or darker. I cover all of this with more setting powder.

Here is the complete face once done, without make up on the eyes.
These will be painted in with the same clown white and black face paints used on the rest of the face.