When I first picked up Dante, I had intended for him to be a werewolf baby, but that didn't work out and you'll see the werewolf baby in a later post.
I don't remember what started Dante on his final look. I think it was his eyes. I wanted to do something different than the red eyes I had been doing and I had the idea to have one empty eye socket or to have an eye hanging out of the socket somehow. I experimented with seeing if I could melt the "skin" around the eye and was pleasantly surprised by how cool the vinyl looked as it bubbled and melted and that developed into his whole body look.
Dante was the most painful baby I've made ~ my fingers were killing me after a few burns! I was using one of those long lighters ~ the kind you use to light a barbeque. It has a child safety device that means you have to press really hard and after a short time it got very difficult to hold down long enough to make the scorch marks. But I kept going and finished up for the night, all excited with how he looked. Then I woke up the next morning with blisters all over my fingers from holding the stupid lighter! LOL So finishing Dante up had to take a few extra days ;)
At first, I just thought it would be cool to have a maggot or two crawling out of Dante's messed up eye. Then, after I made a few, I decided that maggots all over his body would be super gross and way awesome. The maggots are made with Milliput clay, then painted and superglued to the body. The flash kind of blew out the white, but they aren't quite as bright and white as they look. I only painted them one layer so they kept some of the green of the clay and look kind of dirty.
I finished Dante with a snake that goes in through a hole in his ear and out through his empty eye socket. I don't have a clue where that idea came from, but I loved the way it looked! I would have preferred a more realistic looking color for a snake than purple, but it was the only one I could find that was the right size.
Dante went with George the zombie to a new home in Germany! He is probably my grossest baby so far ~ people *really* don't like maggots ;) and I think he's great because his look was totally random and just came together perfectly.
