Practical Effects
The Nosedrool Noses
One of the first things I was asked to do when I joined the Dork of the Rings team was to see if I could improve upon the existing costumes for the relentlessly congested "Nosedrool" characters. An obvious send up of the Nasgul, the Nosedrool are Dork Mart's security guards and bill collectors.
Given the limits of our project, in time and in dollars, I focused my efforts on the centerpiece of the characters: their noses. The original noses were made with a process that involved pancake batter. Needless to say, I thought I could take them to the "next level." That's the castle level with Bowser, by the way.
There are never more than two nosedrool in any scene at any time so I decided to make two distinct noses: a snozz and a beak. The snozz would be a short, bulbous nose and the beak a long, pointed affair.
I started with the thickest sheet of pink insulation foam that my local hardware store would sell me in a reasonable size (4' x 8'). I had to have them cut it on the lumber saw, which didn't thrill them, but I told "Todd" that the other guy does it for me all the time. The next time I say this, it will be mostly true.
Once I got the foam home, I sketched the profile of my noses directly onto it with a permanent, black marker and cut them out with a cross cut hand saw. Actually, I cut several of each nose in order to build up the width of the final sculpture. A large foam cutter would have been preferable and a lot less messy, but beggars can't be choosy. Can I have a dollar mister?
Next I used double-stick tape (I have two cases of this stuff for some reason-if you can think of other good uses for double-stick tape, please e-mail me) to stick the profile pieces together and I further refined their shape with the saw. This is a really worthwhile step as the plaster shaping tool I use in the next step doesn't take material away nearly as quickly as I'd like it to which leads me to the next step in the process.
I used a plaster shaping tool, also known as a sureform tool to round out the sculpture and give the project its most significant details. As you can see in the pictures, the mess of pink, foamy scraps grows with each stage. That little yellow bastard is responsible for the bulk of this deluge. Here's a useful tip: clean that shit up as soon as you can. It'll get tracked around everywhere, which at the very least is going to cause spousal irritation where applicable. Nowadays I keep a shopvac on hand to suck this stuff up as I go.
All right, the brief, creative portion of this process is pretty much over until we get to the end. I sanded the sculpture to a reasonable finish. I expected the roughness of the sculpture to enhance the surface texture of the end-product so I sanded accordingly.
I skinned the noses in latex because I have a lot of it and I thought it would be a good way to give the props a smooth, skin-like look and improve their durability. This is key because when you're working on a low-budget project like Dork, there are always volunteers around. Now, I love volunteers with every ounce of my soul, but when they get bored, they instantly start screwing with the most interesting object lying within a 3 foot radius, which is usually the most delicate prop I've got with me on the day of the shoot. I had to touch up the noses once or twice, but otherwise they held up really well.
And viola! Err, voila! Well, not exactly. The discerning among you will notice that the finished noses are painted. Unfortunately I neglected to photograph the painting process which would have come out as 37 unique photos documenting the different finishes I attempted (I've really never painted anything like this before). I used an airbrush. Does that help?
So there you have it. So, when you go on to make your very own cheap-ass film, or, say a Dristan commercial, think of Dork of the Rings…and then buy a copy of it.
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