£1 SHOP || Bionic bunny comes to life

Today I brought my design to life and turned mysef into Pirate the robot rabbit. The prosthetics and make up were a success, and with clever photography I was able to conceal areas that perhaps weren't so successful. I also made the ears today which was very quick and easy. I simply used twisted wire and a small cardboard box to make the electronic part.

The whole makeup and latex process was quite quick, and took about 40 mins. This was good because as I began to make up my face the light outside was already fading and I wanted good natural lighting for photographing the result. One problem I encountered was that the edges of my latex pieces were too thick and did not blend as well with my skin as I would have iked. I tried to correct this as best I could once they were already on my face. I should have tapered the edges with latex before applying it to my face as it was tricky to resolve once the piece was already on my face.

The lighting was just right for my shoot. It was beginning to get dark outside and the dim light allowed assisted in concealing areas of the makeup and prosthetics that were a little off. It also gave the photographs a darker, moody feel and desaturated all colours allowing everything to blend better.

In Photoshop I adjusted the photographs, blurring harsh edges and rough textures, and enhancing certain features. I think I did a pretty good job and the result is striking. I would like to have blended edges more around the eyes but I did the best I could.

Overall I think I created a good likeness to the original character from WE3. I got the features right and put a lot of thought into elements such as the metallic top to give a futuristic, bionic feel, and the wire ears to add more metal seeing as I did not make armour.

In my presentation I was criticised by a tutor and my peers for not doing enough prosthetic experimentation and only trying one method. I think this is fair, I should have tried more things out. I was also told that it would have been nice to have photoshopped myself into an appropiate setting similar to one from the comic. I agree that this would have been a good thing to experiment with, however I believe the black background is better as one's attention is wholly on the character and every element stands out from the background.

I enjoyed this project immensely, I think it was my favourite so far and my confidence with latex, makeup and prosthetics has rocketed. I can't wait to try out more.