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Joanne Finnegan

BA [Hons] 3D Design Modelmaking + Digital Art

I'm Joanne Finnegan from Waterford and graduating from 3D Model Making. I love horror, gore, and SFX make-up. My ideal career would be in prosthetics or prop making because I enjoy sculpting, molding, and casting. I also have an interest in architectural model making and I make and sell polymer jewelry in my spare time.

My project was to produce two severed head props and a guillotine. Here, you can see the concept images for the final design and also a look at the two characters. The death scene is set during the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution where thousands were decapitated with the new structure called the guillotine. One was a nobleman named a traitor to the revolution and the other man was a petty thief. Both are sentenced to death by guillotine.

There was a lot of molding and casting in my project. To begin the project I did a life cast of a plaster bust! This was done with a brush on layer of silicone, keys, and a plaster jacket. After sculpting, the sculpted heads were molded in plaster and cast in Plastil Gel 10 silicone that was tinted with a skin tone pigment.

After life-casting the plaster bust, I melted chavant, an oil-based clay, and cast a head from the mold to start sculpting on. The younger man is based on Charlie Cox, so I used photo references to finish the sculpt. For texturing, I used an array of tools, sponges, and wires to mimic human skin. I designed the blueprints for the guillotine as an accessory to my decapitated heads. My lecturer cut the pieces of Douglas fir wood and I sanded and varnished the wood before putting it all together.

Once the silicone head casts were removed from the plaster mold I started painting. To paint silicone you need a mixture of solvent, silicone, and pigments. I used a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 solvent to silicone. I used sponges, cut chip brushes, and small brushes to paint. Once I was happy with the painting I moved onto the finishing touches. The wigs were bought in a costume store however I did a lot of work on them to get them to be more realistic. I removed some of the shine by soaking them in fabric softener and straightened the fake curls out. I gave them a rough haircut and glued them onto the heads with silicone. I used hair punching needles to hair punching the hairlines to remove the straight edges of the wig. I used leftover wig hair for the eyebrows which I hair punched individually. I used fake beard hair for the nostrils and ears. Fake eyelashes were used for the eyelashes after a trim. The very last finishing touches were the fake blood which I applied during the photoshoot with a spray bottle or just pouring from the bottle. Below you can see the results of the photoshoot of my final project!

Final Project - Decapitated Silicone Head Props

My final project was about producing two silicone head props to be used in a death scene of a tv show set during the French Revolution. The heads were accompanied by a handcrafted guillotine. This project involved lifecasting, sculpting in chavant, molding, casting, and painting in silicone. The finishing touches were hair punching, wig attaching, and fake blood.

Full Final Project Presentation PDF Thesis - Joanne Finnegan PDF

Thesis Title - The Stylization of Violence in Film

My thesis is about understanding how violence is stylized in film through the different elements of filmmaking, such as; cinematography, special effects, lighting, sound, and screenplay. To explore this in detail I used three directors and their work for case studies; John Carpenter, Tim Burton, and Quentin Tarantino. I was able to compare these director's use of violence and draw similarities or contrasts between them.

Full Final Project Presentation PDF Thesis - Joanne Finnegan PDF

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