Creating a Monster 1: The Name of The Puppeteer and Cutting my Teeth

I'm in the process of creating the look for 'The Puppeteer', who, incidentally, now has a name - he'll be known as Mr Lancelot Squeeze.

I wanted a name that fit with some of my imagined characteristics for the puppeteer and the setting of the animation:

Eccentric - The Puppeteer (Lancelot Squeeze) is an outsider, with himself and the Puppet (Poppet) existing in a twisted, claustrophobic, distorted microcosm behind closed doors, in which their relationship has been able to go off on an unhealthy, abusive tangent from the superficially normal everyday standards. It's also more apt to me for a puppet to have life in this slightly unreal setting than in the 'normal' world.

Old-fashioned - I'm leaning more over time towards an Edwardian/music hall era implied setting for the animation, when puppetry would have had more of a place in entertainment, but was perhaps in decline with the development of technology, cinema and other new media.
 Whether this is an old man from a past era in a modern setting or if the setting actually is Edwardian era England doesn't need to be explicit for the purposes story and narrative. The combination of squalor and theatricality is what's important to me, along with a sense of redundancy and hanging on to past success.

Funny - A slightly ridiculous, unbelievable ring to the name was something else I wanted. Names and images of musicians and performers from times before slick, modern marketing often appear bizarre and comical from today's perspective.

Threatening - 'Lancelot' and 'Squeeze' are both evocative of physically violent, aggressive actions. The juxtaposition of quirky and ridiculous with threatening and violent is core to the character of the Puppeteer and the intended feel of the animation.

Stage name/play on words - The name originated from the working name of the puppet, 'Poppet', as I wanted a complementary name for the pair's double act, with a view to making some music hall-style posters and/or flyers as promotional material for 'Ties' and possibly to be integrated into the backdrop and/or flashback sequences for the animation.
'Lancelot Squeeze' allows for the double act's name of 'Lance Squeeze & Poppet' (or simply 'Squeeze & Poppet')...

...and the teeth:

I decided some time ago to play the part of 'Lancelot Squeeze' myself, rather than working to a tighter timescale making up and animating an actor/'human puppet'. The advantages of this, for me, are time and control, along with the opportunity this lends for experimentation, developing some of my own skills - and because I think it'll be good fun!

One of the substantial poses this challenges is to create a convincing and appropriate physical look for Lance that works well. To this end, I've been researching, investing in and creating various resources to create his look, most of which is for his head and face, as we only ever see him from the chest up.

I have all the resources, but still need to do some of the 'making'. These include:

Eyebrows - I bought some bushy, grey, human hair false eyebrows, which I've trimmed down somewhat as they were HUGE - I guess intended for a stage or just epic exaggeration.

Moustache - A grey, human hair, handlebar moustache - I felt that this was suitably old fashioned and evoked the 'cruel ringmaster' aspect of Squeeze's character.

Contact lens - a single, milky, semi-opaque contact lens. a bit embarrassed at how much I spent on this, and totally white ones were quite a bit cheaper, but it became an insistent and essential part of my mental picture of Squeeze, so it had to be done.

Scar wax - a soft wax that can be molded into prosthetic scars and other features. I bought this both to help with a cut on Squeeze's head - which he sustains during one of the flashbacks, when Poppet rebels and 'pulls back' on his strings, sending the surprised Squeeze tumbling - and, possibly, to create an old scar running from one cheek to the 'milky' eye and continuing onto the brow, as well as the option of some smaller scars and blemishes.
These are important in reflecting Squeeze's age, his own rough and violent life and also in alluding to his genesis as a perpetrator of violence stemming from being a victim of violence and abuse himself.

Grey hair - I bought a bunch of synthetic grey hair from a local hair and beauty shop, with the intention of making a latex-based hair piece that sits above Squeeze's ears and goes round the back of his head, leaving the bulk of his head bald. for this, it's a blessing that I shave my hair, as it offers a 'blank canvas' for me to add these effects to.
I intend to 'grease' the hair so that it is long, lank and greasy, hanging down, with several loose strands running across Squeeze's head, in a nasty, dirty old man style.

Latex and colourant - as well as making the hair piece, one of the most important tasks is to age the character. By stippling latex on stretched skin with a sponge, drying it and then letting the skin return to it's normal position, it's possible to create a convincing wrinkled look. I intend to mix some latex colourant to a suitable skin tone and add a small amount of this to the latex so that it provides some colour, but still retains some degree of transparency and translucence.

Black food dye - This is to colour the inside of Squeeze's mouth, to add to his sense of rottenness and to complement...

...Teeth - I created some individual, crooked, stained teeth. These were cut to size and shape from false nails, hand painted and sealed with a satin acrylic spray-on coating/varnish. They'll be temporarily attached to the front of my own teeth with a suitable fixative.  I took some 'in progress' photos while I was working on them:

Top teeth cut from false nails, bottom row showing showing how they started:

Top and bottom teeth both cut:

 

Both sets trimmed down after some 'test fitting' and painted:

...with acrylic lacquer added (they're a bit less shiny in person and look more reflective with the flash - actually somewhere between the shots above and below):

and with some of the other accessories in progress:

On another note, I found more problems with the green screen filming than expected with light spill from the green screen and other issues I hadn't anticipated. I did make a short sequence from the botched footage, which is flawed but was fun, and I learnt a lot in the process of getting it wrong. Please bear in mind that the animation of the armature and myself were done as quickly as possible 'on the fly' with no planning and for the purposes of the test, rather than to show off animation, so don't expect polish on that front (c;