fun with eyeballs

[steeplechasers]

i spent most of the afternoon practising building a prosthetic eye-patch for my halloween corinthian costume and given that i have never made a prosthetic anything in my life i think i did a damn fucking good job???









it took about 5 hours and quite a bit of trial and error and went a bit like:

• watch "worst cooks in america" while cutting and filing 12 fake nails into teeth shapes with an antique nail file your coworker found in a book
• cover a book in a plastic bag
• mix foundation with liquid latex
• use the ass-end of a brush to draw the outline of the eye socket on the plastic with latex
• realise the ass-end of a brush is shitty at filling in outlines with latex and switch to a cosmetic sponge instead
• wonder why the latex isn't drying
• desperately try to smooth out weird clumpy latex bits with more latex
• borrow your housemate's tiny fan to dry it faster
• build up four layers of latex
• wait for a long-ass time
• use the weird unnecessary sharp end of the nail file to pull the latex off the plastic
• panic when the latex rips in places
• fix holes with more latex
• wait
• forever
• fit latex eye socket to own, real socket and cut off dangly bits
• cut a slit in the middle, conveniently using one of the rips that didn't actually get fixed in that previous step
• glue fake teeth down with even more latex
• worry that you're going to run out of latex
• realise you glued them on upside-down
• make it work anyway
• use the sponge and more latex to make some eyelids on the plastic bag
• wait
• forever
• peel off the eyelids successfully without ripping them and celebrate this way too much
• glue eyelids over teeth
• struggle with said eyelids
• try to attach finished eye-patch to face with latex that gets way too close to your eyeball
• realise that adhering it directly to your eyelids means you can't blink
• glue toilet paper to eyelids with spirit gum, because ????
• use more spirit gum to re-attach eye-patch
• regret this because spirit gum gives off fumes
• smooth out edges with even mORE latex
• model the fuck out of it
• try to rip it off your face without tearing it to pieces
• end up with a little rip anyway
• don't care
• too happy
• i did it
• spooky as FUCK

things i learned: lash glue is probably better for my face than spirit gum and i should buy some; sponges work better than the ass-ends of brushes; mixing shitty foundation with latex actually works; i might be kind of good at this??