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List of Practical SFX Resources sponsored by Cool Lights
I have a comprehensive list of resources for practical (non-photographic) SFX work so I'm starting this thread. Everything from SFX makeup resources to mold making to How-to's. We'll categorize them to make it a little easier to find something.
Adhesives:
AdmTronics is the home of Pros-aide adhesive which is a non-toxic medical adhesive which can be used on the skin and is also used half and half with acrylic paints to make "PAX" which is a paint that can be used on skin, prosthetic pieces and as a rubber mask paint. They also have several other water based adhesive products (not for use on skin) that might come in handy for some uses. You can buy pros-aide from many of the links below too under General and Special Effects Makeup Supplies:
http://www.admtronics.com/products.htm
Telesis makes a medical adhesive product based on a different technology that is better in some situations. For instance, it is great in sticking on fake mustaches, beards or other facial hair and will last far longer than conventional spirit gum.
http://www.ppi.cc/artsci_adhesives_thinners.htm
Artificial Eyes:
Hamilton Eye Warehouse has lots of different kinds of artificial eyes which can be used in puppet making, animatronics, etc:
http://www.vcnet.com/hamilton/default.html
Robert B. Scott has artificial eye making supplies for when you need to do a special eye that you can't find "off the shelf":
http://www.ocularist.com/
Ken's Tools publishes a video on making artificial eyes along with a mold set. It's pricey though...
http://www.drbanksensteinfx.com/
Artists Supplies:
http://www.daler-rowney.com/
http://www.rexart.com/index.html
Some of the finest sculpting tools around can be found at Ken's Tools:
http://www.drbanksensteinfx.com/
Blood and Gore How-To's:
Blood Recipes:
http://www.shades-of-night.com/painneck/blood.html
http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/blood.html
Safe techniques for bullet hits:
http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/index.html
http://www.indymogul.com/episode/BFX_20070611
Lars Carlsson has a website with many how-to's for different kinds of special effects on his website. Everything from wigmaking to using foamed latex and gelatin, silicone, false teeth, etc:
http://www.makeup-fx.com/Indexeng.html
Costumes and Costume Building How-To's:
Building various kinds of well-known costumes like Storm Trooper outfits, etc. They have some fairly sophisticated techniques including talking about vacu-forming which is a great tool to have for lots of costume or prop-making:
http://www.studiocreations.com/howto/index.html
Gelatin and Foamed Gelatin:
Harmless material that's reusable and makes super realistic prosthetics, wounds, raised burns, etc.:
http://www.makeup-fx.com/gelatinefoam.html
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Gelatin
Michael Davy in Florida was the first to commercialize a Foamed Gelatin formula and many feel its the best one too:
http://www.michaeldavy.com/
General and Special Effects Makeup Supplies:
Alcone (used to be known as Paramount Theatrical Supplies) goes back to at least the sixties and is a super great resource for all kinds of SFX stuff. They're particularly known for their bald plastic caps and liquid plastic cap material you can use to make your own:
http://www.alconeco.com/
Burman Industries paper catalog is a great resource and you should get one but their website does have all the items though:
http://www.burmanfoam.com/
Chavant clay has been used forever in special effects as a sculpting medium for an original before a mold is made to reproduce the original. Used in prosthetics, animatronics, just about anything you can think of.
http://www.chavant.com/chavant_ob/index.shtml
Cinema Secrets is in Burbank and has a great store to just walk into and find most of what you may need:
http://store.cinemasecretsonline.com/index.html
Cybergraphic Designs has a lot of different SFX supplies:
http://www.getspfx.com/
Edmund Scientific goes way back and has lots of interesting items. You never know when they just might have what you're looking for:
http://www.edsci.com/
Factor II has a lot of specialized stuff including supplies to make artificial eyes:
http://www.factor2.com/
FX Warehouse has a huge inventory of items and is based in Florida. They also have a bunch of How-to's for various common special makeup effects from simple to complex:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/
Graftobian has a few good items:
http://www.graftobian.com/index.htm
Monstermakers.com has been a well-known resource for mask making since the late nineties.
http://www.monstermakers.com/
Another supply company but I never tried them:
http://www.monsterclub.com/
Need a "Thing" (Adam's Family) wig that covers an entire body. National Fiber Technology can do it. A wigmaker and artificial hair suppliers:
http://www.nftech.com/
Screamteam has some really great foam rubber masks already made. Can save you a bunch of time if you can use their design off-the-shelf:
http://www.screamteam.com/
Special Effects Supply in Salt Lake City has lots of mold making supplies, rubber products, etc:
http://www.xmission.com/~spl_efx/
The Compleat Sculptor has all the tools, mold making and life casting supplies you could ever need:
http://www.sculpt.com/
A well known supplier of false "character" teeth with lots of styles:
http://www.toothfairyteeth.com/
And for tooth paint, you can try this:
http://www.fanteeth.com/
Special effect expendibles, etc:
http://www.rogergeorge.com/expendables/
General How-to's:
Building a painting booth. Painting the safe way:
http://pages.interlog.com/~ask/scale/tips/booth.htm
Common Special Makeup Effect How-Tos from simple to complex:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=FW&Category_Code=HowTo
Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook is a classic that came out in 1965 but was updated in the eighties sometime. Many professional special effects makeup artists started with this book when they were kids. Has very simple and easy to use basic techniques to create classic monster characters. You can get results very quickly and inexpensively with this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Smiths-Yourself-Monster-Make-Up-Handbook/dp/0911137025
http://www.monstermakers.com/product/dick-smiths-monster-make-up-handbook.html
And the bound collector's edition of the same book:
http://www.halloweenonly.com/website/store/product_detail.asp?UID=&keyword=&cat_keyword=&item_no=81129
Making masks. Monstermakers has several how-to's but a very comprehensive mask making tutorial is great:
http://www.monstermakers.com/content/howto.html
Life casting How-to. Need to make a cast of someone's face or other body parts? Maybe you need to make a severed arm or someone's head for various effects. These techniques can also be used to duplicate other objects too with a little imagination and common sense:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/facecast.shtml
Latex, Foamed Latex:
Indispensable for prosthetics but requires a great knowledge of sculpting, mold making and casting.
Burman Foam Latex is well known and comes from an original formula by the great Gordon Bau (of Warner Brothers) who marketed it privately in the fifties.
http://www.burmanfoam.com/
GM Foam. Gil Mosko perfected his foam latex formula while working on all the varied alien characters of Star Trek TNG and started GM Foam to market what many feel is the best foamed latex formula around:
http://www.gmfoam.com/
Monstermakers has a foamed latex formula too but I never tried it personally. It has its own following though and is used a lot in the animatronics/puppet areas for making puppet skin:
http://www.monstermakers.com/
For those in the UK--Mouldlife carries not only GM Foam but also silicone gel which is a really advanced prosthetic material:
http://www.mouldlife.net/index.asp
Models and Props:
CultTVMan's Fantastic Modeling Company provides all kind of super well built space ship models:
http://www.culttvman2.com/dnn/
Cinema Secrets in Burbank has a large selection of "body parts" for that horror feature you're planning:
http://store.cinemasecretsonline.com/props.html
Boland's has great looking blank firing guns as well as breakaway glass bottles.
http://www.bolands.net/
More breakaway glass:
http://www.sfxbreakawayglass.com/
Liquid Silicone and Other Synthetic Casting Materials and Mold Making Supplies:
Learning how to make molds is the holy grail of doing your own special effects work. For props, special effects makeup. They all need molds. Lots of ways, lots of materials you can use. Start with stone molds made of Ultracal and progress to the more complicated materials like epoxy, urethane and silicone. Silicone gel is about as advanced of a prosthetic material as you can find. Very realistic but is super complicated, takes a lot of practice and is far more expensive than foamed latex or gelatin. Many of your molds will start with taking an initial impression of a subject and go from there. Many of the sites below have a wealth of information on mold making, so use it as a great resource.
Accucast is about the best life casting alginate material around. Need to make a cast of someone's face, head or arm? This is the material to use. Can also be used to duplicate other objects or replicate molds:
http://www.accu-cast.us/home.html
BJB has lots of different silicone, epoxy and plastic foam products that are of great use to the SFX artist:
http://www.bjbenterprises.com/
Factor II has lots of supplies used by SFX artists including silicone, silicone gel and molding and casting supplies:
http://www.factor2.com/
Polytek is about as great a resource as they come for not only mold making supplies like silicone and polyurethane but also molding and casting information and how-to's:
http://www.polytek.com/
Smooth-on, a company similar to Polytek has a lot of the same type of products and resources for mold making:
http://www.smooth-on.com/
Sculptshop has all kinds of clay and mold making supplies. Great selections of sculpting tools:
http://www.sculptshop.com/home.php?SID=
Walco not only has materials but has a great 32 page mold making guide:
http://www.walcomaterials.com/main.html
http://www.walcomaterials.com/pdf/rhodia_web_pdf.pdf
Reference Sites:
Need to duplicate a wound or medical condition? This site has pictures of "forensic pathology":
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/FORHTML/FORIDX.html
Specialized Materials:
Cab-O-Sil. You'll see Cab-O-Sil sold at many of the special effects supply companies and may wonder what it is. It is "fumed silica" powder and has about a hundred different uses but mostly as a thickener for adhesives, paints, blood, mold making materials or whatever. You can mix it with just about anything. It's a feather light, (looks like snow) powder and you need to wear a respirator when working with it in powdered form. Once mixed with whatever you're using it for, its completely safe and non-toxic.
http://w1.cabot-corp.com/controller.jsp?N=23+4294967127+1000&entry=product
http://www.burmanfoam.com/estore/Se...tegory+=+'CABOSIL'")&Recordset1_Position=PAR:
Methyl Cellulose. Ever wondered how slime is usually created in horror movies? Remember the drooling Aliens--just before they bite... You can bet its one of the various grades of the very harmless and non-toxic methyl cellulose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylcellulose
http://www.monstermakers.com/category/slime-compounds-components/
http://www.rogergeorge.com/expendables/items/etmeth/
I have a comprehensive list of resources for practical (non-photographic) SFX work so I'm starting this thread. Everything from SFX makeup resources to mold making to How-to's. We'll categorize them to make it a little easier to find something.
Adhesives:
AdmTronics is the home of Pros-aide adhesive which is a non-toxic medical adhesive which can be used on the skin and is also used half and half with acrylic paints to make "PAX" which is a paint that can be used on skin, prosthetic pieces and as a rubber mask paint. They also have several other water based adhesive products (not for use on skin) that might come in handy for some uses. You can buy pros-aide from many of the links below too under General and Special Effects Makeup Supplies:
http://www.admtronics.com/products.htm
Telesis makes a medical adhesive product based on a different technology that is better in some situations. For instance, it is great in sticking on fake mustaches, beards or other facial hair and will last far longer than conventional spirit gum.
http://www.ppi.cc/artsci_adhesives_thinners.htm
Artificial Eyes:
Hamilton Eye Warehouse has lots of different kinds of artificial eyes which can be used in puppet making, animatronics, etc:
http://www.vcnet.com/hamilton/default.html
Robert B. Scott has artificial eye making supplies for when you need to do a special eye that you can't find "off the shelf":
http://www.ocularist.com/
Ken's Tools publishes a video on making artificial eyes along with a mold set. It's pricey though...
http://www.drbanksensteinfx.com/
Artists Supplies:
http://www.daler-rowney.com/
http://www.rexart.com/index.html
Some of the finest sculpting tools around can be found at Ken's Tools:
http://www.drbanksensteinfx.com/
Blood and Gore How-To's:
Blood Recipes:
http://www.shades-of-night.com/painneck/blood.html
http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/blood.html
Safe techniques for bullet hits:
http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/index.html
http://www.indymogul.com/episode/BFX_20070611
Lars Carlsson has a website with many how-to's for different kinds of special effects on his website. Everything from wigmaking to using foamed latex and gelatin, silicone, false teeth, etc:
http://www.makeup-fx.com/Indexeng.html
Costumes and Costume Building How-To's:
Building various kinds of well-known costumes like Storm Trooper outfits, etc. They have some fairly sophisticated techniques including talking about vacu-forming which is a great tool to have for lots of costume or prop-making:
http://www.studiocreations.com/howto/index.html
Gelatin and Foamed Gelatin:
Harmless material that's reusable and makes super realistic prosthetics, wounds, raised burns, etc.:
http://www.makeup-fx.com/gelatinefoam.html
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Gelatin
Michael Davy in Florida was the first to commercialize a Foamed Gelatin formula and many feel its the best one too:
http://www.michaeldavy.com/
General and Special Effects Makeup Supplies:
Alcone (used to be known as Paramount Theatrical Supplies) goes back to at least the sixties and is a super great resource for all kinds of SFX stuff. They're particularly known for their bald plastic caps and liquid plastic cap material you can use to make your own:
http://www.alconeco.com/
Burman Industries paper catalog is a great resource and you should get one but their website does have all the items though:
http://www.burmanfoam.com/
Chavant clay has been used forever in special effects as a sculpting medium for an original before a mold is made to reproduce the original. Used in prosthetics, animatronics, just about anything you can think of.
http://www.chavant.com/chavant_ob/index.shtml
Cinema Secrets is in Burbank and has a great store to just walk into and find most of what you may need:
http://store.cinemasecretsonline.com/index.html
Cybergraphic Designs has a lot of different SFX supplies:
http://www.getspfx.com/
Edmund Scientific goes way back and has lots of interesting items. You never know when they just might have what you're looking for:
http://www.edsci.com/
Factor II has a lot of specialized stuff including supplies to make artificial eyes:
http://www.factor2.com/
FX Warehouse has a huge inventory of items and is based in Florida. They also have a bunch of How-to's for various common special makeup effects from simple to complex:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/
Graftobian has a few good items:
http://www.graftobian.com/index.htm
Monstermakers.com has been a well-known resource for mask making since the late nineties.
http://www.monstermakers.com/
Another supply company but I never tried them:
http://www.monsterclub.com/
Need a "Thing" (Adam's Family) wig that covers an entire body. National Fiber Technology can do it. A wigmaker and artificial hair suppliers:
http://www.nftech.com/
Screamteam has some really great foam rubber masks already made. Can save you a bunch of time if you can use their design off-the-shelf:
http://www.screamteam.com/
Special Effects Supply in Salt Lake City has lots of mold making supplies, rubber products, etc:
http://www.xmission.com/~spl_efx/
The Compleat Sculptor has all the tools, mold making and life casting supplies you could ever need:
http://www.sculpt.com/
A well known supplier of false "character" teeth with lots of styles:
http://www.toothfairyteeth.com/
And for tooth paint, you can try this:
http://www.fanteeth.com/
Special effect expendibles, etc:
http://www.rogergeorge.com/expendables/
General How-to's:
Building a painting booth. Painting the safe way:
http://pages.interlog.com/~ask/scale/tips/booth.htm
Common Special Makeup Effect How-Tos from simple to complex:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=FW&Category_Code=HowTo
Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook is a classic that came out in 1965 but was updated in the eighties sometime. Many professional special effects makeup artists started with this book when they were kids. Has very simple and easy to use basic techniques to create classic monster characters. You can get results very quickly and inexpensively with this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Smiths-Yourself-Monster-Make-Up-Handbook/dp/0911137025
http://www.monstermakers.com/product/dick-smiths-monster-make-up-handbook.html
And the bound collector's edition of the same book:
http://www.halloweenonly.com/website/store/product_detail.asp?UID=&keyword=&cat_keyword=&item_no=81129
Making masks. Monstermakers has several how-to's but a very comprehensive mask making tutorial is great:
http://www.monstermakers.com/content/howto.html
Life casting How-to. Need to make a cast of someone's face or other body parts? Maybe you need to make a severed arm or someone's head for various effects. These techniques can also be used to duplicate other objects too with a little imagination and common sense:
http://www.fxwarehouse.info/facecast.shtml
Latex, Foamed Latex:
Indispensable for prosthetics but requires a great knowledge of sculpting, mold making and casting.
Burman Foam Latex is well known and comes from an original formula by the great Gordon Bau (of Warner Brothers) who marketed it privately in the fifties.
http://www.burmanfoam.com/
GM Foam. Gil Mosko perfected his foam latex formula while working on all the varied alien characters of Star Trek TNG and started GM Foam to market what many feel is the best foamed latex formula around:
http://www.gmfoam.com/
Monstermakers has a foamed latex formula too but I never tried it personally. It has its own following though and is used a lot in the animatronics/puppet areas for making puppet skin:
http://www.monstermakers.com/
For those in the UK--Mouldlife carries not only GM Foam but also silicone gel which is a really advanced prosthetic material:
http://www.mouldlife.net/index.asp
Models and Props:
CultTVMan's Fantastic Modeling Company provides all kind of super well built space ship models:
http://www.culttvman2.com/dnn/
Cinema Secrets in Burbank has a large selection of "body parts" for that horror feature you're planning:
http://store.cinemasecretsonline.com/props.html
Boland's has great looking blank firing guns as well as breakaway glass bottles.
http://www.bolands.net/
More breakaway glass:
http://www.sfxbreakawayglass.com/
Liquid Silicone and Other Synthetic Casting Materials and Mold Making Supplies:
Learning how to make molds is the holy grail of doing your own special effects work. For props, special effects makeup. They all need molds. Lots of ways, lots of materials you can use. Start with stone molds made of Ultracal and progress to the more complicated materials like epoxy, urethane and silicone. Silicone gel is about as advanced of a prosthetic material as you can find. Very realistic but is super complicated, takes a lot of practice and is far more expensive than foamed latex or gelatin. Many of your molds will start with taking an initial impression of a subject and go from there. Many of the sites below have a wealth of information on mold making, so use it as a great resource.
Accucast is about the best life casting alginate material around. Need to make a cast of someone's face, head or arm? This is the material to use. Can also be used to duplicate other objects or replicate molds:
http://www.accu-cast.us/home.html
BJB has lots of different silicone, epoxy and plastic foam products that are of great use to the SFX artist:
http://www.bjbenterprises.com/
Factor II has lots of supplies used by SFX artists including silicone, silicone gel and molding and casting supplies:
http://www.factor2.com/
Polytek is about as great a resource as they come for not only mold making supplies like silicone and polyurethane but also molding and casting information and how-to's:
http://www.polytek.com/
Smooth-on, a company similar to Polytek has a lot of the same type of products and resources for mold making:
http://www.smooth-on.com/
Sculptshop has all kinds of clay and mold making supplies. Great selections of sculpting tools:
http://www.sculptshop.com/home.php?SID=
Walco not only has materials but has a great 32 page mold making guide:
http://www.walcomaterials.com/main.html
http://www.walcomaterials.com/pdf/rhodia_web_pdf.pdf
Reference Sites:
Need to duplicate a wound or medical condition? This site has pictures of "forensic pathology":
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/FORHTML/FORIDX.html
Specialized Materials:
Cab-O-Sil. You'll see Cab-O-Sil sold at many of the special effects supply companies and may wonder what it is. It is "fumed silica" powder and has about a hundred different uses but mostly as a thickener for adhesives, paints, blood, mold making materials or whatever. You can mix it with just about anything. It's a feather light, (looks like snow) powder and you need to wear a respirator when working with it in powdered form. Once mixed with whatever you're using it for, its completely safe and non-toxic.
http://w1.cabot-corp.com/controller.jsp?N=23+4294967127+1000&entry=product
http://www.burmanfoam.com/estore/Se...tegory+=+'CABOSIL'")&Recordset1_Position=PAR:
Methyl Cellulose. Ever wondered how slime is usually created in horror movies? Remember the drooling Aliens--just before they bite... You can bet its one of the various grades of the very harmless and non-toxic methyl cellulose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylcellulose
http://www.monstermakers.com/category/slime-compounds-components/
http://www.rogergeorge.com/expendables/items/etmeth/
Last edited:
