Olive you!

Materials: Polymer Clay, Spray Paint

Well, it's almost Valentines Day, so I think we should do something romantic here in the Fake-n-Bake kitchen, and what could be more romantic than making fake olives?  What's that, you say? 'Almost anything is more romantic than fake olives? Even saving the cherry post from a few weeks ago would have made more sense- at least they are red like valentines!' To you, dear reader, I say this. Shut up!  Olives are plenty romantic and, more importantly, I don't have anything else to blog about at the moment. So, there.

These olives, like the hilarious white olives from the Dirty Martinis post, are made from Sculpey, a  polymer clay that hardens when baked.  For these olives, I decided to start with polymer clay that was closer in color to the finished product. I was hoping that this would be exactly the right color as is, but we will talk about that a bit later.

The first thing I did was to shape the olives.  What makes an olive look like an olive?

The oblong shape, of course...

A pit....(I used the hollow end of a pen to make this)

The x shape made by the pitting machine....

...and a pimento!

Hehehe! Olives on parade!

Once I had sculpted the olives, I baked them according to the directions on the Sculpey package. This worked well, but I found that the olives didn't look exactly right. For one, they lost much of their sheen in the baking process. Also, in comparing them to real olives, I found them to a be a bit dark in color.  To solve both of these issues, I used a bit of Olive Bright Design Master spray paint to brighten them up, and add a bit of variation of color over each olive.  (Part of what often gives fake food away is unnaturally uniform color.)

Aluminum foil olive trough!

Once the paint dried, all that was left was to put the olives in a bowl, and set them on the bar cart next to those maraschino cherries I made.

Olive you 'til the end of time.

Happy Valentines, y'all.  Olive you lots.

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Taco!

This blog post is dedicated to the mayor of East Haven, CT. Oh, I'm kidding, calm down. Wait, you're not riled up? You don't follow the news in Connecticut? Oh, well, um....carry on then, never mind.

TACO!

There are people who go into theater with great ambitions.  There are actors who dream of moving an audience to tears with an emotional performance, designers who contribute to the elegance of a well told story, and directors who aspire to shed light on the human condition and pay homage to our common experience.  And then there's me, and I dream about making fake tacos...

....and my dream came true.

This taco is for 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged" which just opened this weekend.  It was a quickie, given a bit more time, I might have worked on the shell texture a bit longer, but I think it does the job.

The delicious meaty filling of this taco is made out of good old bead foam. I like the bead foam because of its texture.  I carved the rough shape of the taco filling, and then broke off bits of the foam, leaving the lumpy shape and texture of ground beef.  I gave this a coating of flex glue to prime it for painting, and then used acrylic paints to make it beef- colored.

Taco blanco.

The shell of the taco is made of Fosshape, a felt-like thermoplastic material. (You can buy it at Dazian.) I cut out the shape of the shell, pressed the Fosshape, steamed it into shape, and painted it with Design Master sprays.  Once dry, I used hot glue to attach the filling to the shell.

The shredded lettuce in the taco is fake lettuce that I cut up with scissors, and the fake cheese is made of scraps from the acrylic caulk cheese in the last post.  I sparingly used fabri-tac to glue the lettuce and cheese into place, doing my best to place it securely and convincingly.  Then, I found a stage management intern on which to test the believability of the taco.

It passed.

Happy Propping, y'all.

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Cheese!

Materials: White Latex Acrylic Caulk, Acrylic Paint, Spatula

Well, all, I promised you cheese for our sandwiches and, unlike most of my other 'Part One' posts, I'm gonna give you the part two for this one!

You might remember another post about cheese that I wrote a while back.  That cheese was made with hot pour vinyl. The vinyl cheese has an incredibly 'cheesy' look to it. It looks greasy and wonderful. The caulk cheese (insert 12 year old- like guffaw) can be glued to things, and is a little more shelf stable. Plus, if you don't have hot pour vinyl in your shop, you can make this for a lot less money.

The sliced cheese is actually incredibly simple to make.  Basically, all it is is colored caulk left to dry flat.  First, tint the caulk to the desired color. I used acrylic paint for this batch, but any water based tint should do it.  Then, spread the caulk out until you have a thin, smooth sheet of it.  I did my first batch on wax paper, but that got a bit wrinkly. Aluminum foil or plastic seem to be the best way to go, but make sure to avoid wrinkles. 

 

 

Then, I let the caulk dry to the touch.  It's going to have to dry on both sides, so plan to peel the backing off and let that side dry, too.  You should be able to judge pretty well when the caulk is dry enough for you to peel off the backing, and you can always test by peeling off a corner.  If you let it sit too long, it will be harder to peel off, but it shouldn't be impossible.

Once the cheese was dry on both sides, I cut it into 4" squares.

It's the best thing since sliced bread!

Happy Propping, y'all!

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Wunda Bread

Materials: Latex, White Upholstery Foam, Design Master Sprays, Bread Bag,
Special tools: Electric carving knife

Hey all, I thought we'd start off 2012 here in the Fake-n-Bake kitchen by making some sandwiches, cheese sandwiches to be exact.  Let's start off with the bread, we'll get to the cheese later.  This bread was made for our recent production of 'Next to Normal' for a scene in which a woman is making sandwiches on the floor. You know, like you do.

I had a lot of fun playing with all of the samples over at Active Foam Products, and I chose an upholstery foam with a color and texture similar to angel food cake. After putting in an order for a thick slab of the foam I wanted, I began plotting my bread loaves.

The first step was to carve the foam into shape. I did this using the band saw, the foam saw, and my trusty Olfa knife.  The foam will dull the utility blade quickly, but you can help to mitigate that by putting a little bit of sewing machine oil on the blade to lubricate the cuts. It helps make cleaner cuts, as well.  (That's a tip I learned from Marit A. Thanks, Marit!)  Otherwise, change the blade often. I also highly recommend using a curry comb for carving. It shapes very nicely, but does leave grooves in the surface of your foam shape. Since the bread was going to be reset in the bag every night, I tried to make the loaf as uniform as possible along its length, and square off the ends to avoid oddly tapered end pieces.

The carved loaves.

To make the crust, I went with my bread crust go-to, latex.  I used casting latex from Cementex, but any liquid latex should do the trick.  I gave the foam several liberal coatings, letting the latex dry between each. I wanted the crust to be smooth enough to look....well, to look like crust.

Once the coating is complete, it's time to add color.  Design Master Sprays are, of course, a staple in any prop shop. I love the Honey Stain- I think it's exactly the color of "fresh out of the oven, golden brown" so I use it liberally. I also used a bit of Glossy Wood Tone to darken some areas, but it's wise to be conservative with this color because it can end up looking dirty.  (Insert joke about dirty conservatives here.)

The next step, and the fussiest, is the slicing. I was really hoping to slice these bad boys on the band saw: set up a fence, zing them on through. Alas, the band saw grabbed at the soft material and ripped it to bits. After attempting a few other methods, I found one that worked.  After carefully measuring out half inch slices, I used an X-acto knife to cut the thick latex crust on the top of the bread. Then, I very carefully used the electric carving knife to finish slicing through the loaf.  The carving knife slices very evenly, but you have to be careful to keep it going straight, or your slices will be all wonky. Once the slices were done, they were still a bit too smooth, so I took a rasp to them to give them some texture.

The one on the right is the real one.

The final touch on any processed-food prop is the packaging. Bread packaging is easy, you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. You take the real bread out of the package, wrap it, and put it into the green room. This works well for everyone: you get a bread bag to use, and the interns get free toast for a few days. Hurray!

Not bad, huh?

There is something else I should note, here, and that is the problem of oxidation. The white foam that I used yellows over time when exposed to air.  It is likely that I won't get more than a show's worth of work out of these slices.  I would like to do some tests in the future to find out if a sealer of some sort would prevent this, but I didn't have the extra time on this show.

So there you have it folks, bread ala Anna. I've had a good little run of food projects lately so I've got cheese, olives, and tacos coming your way soon.   Happy New Year, and Happy Propping!

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Mind Blowing Icing Tip

I'd like to thank the folks at Reddit Crafts, Dollar Store Crafts, and Karen's Cookies for pointing me to this awesome tip.
Happy Propping, y'all, and Happy New Year, too!

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Hi-Ho Cherry-oh!

Materials: Mold, Casting Resin, Pigment,  Mono filament, Spray Paint, Super Glue

(Read this in a Jimmy Cagney voice.)

So we're dressing this bar cart, see, and the cast is making manhattans. Sure, we say, manhattans, gotta have those maraschino cherries. So we give 'em some maraschino cherries, and all but two of them sit in the bowl all night getting dusty. Bad business, see, wasting food and money on spoiled cherries.  Bad business. So, my boss says to me,'Miss Anna, hows about you make 'em some fake cherries? Hows about you make em so good everybody thinks they're real?' So I say 'Sure thing boss.'

I get out my trusty cherry mold. Lucky for me, I been down this road before. For 'Eurydice', see, I had to make gallons of cherries, so I made me a mold.  I get my mold out, and I get some Smooth Cast 320. I grab my So-Strong Pigment, and I pour me some cherries. It takes me a try or two to get the color right.  While my cherries are settin' up, I gotta make some stems.  The hard part about maraschino cherry stems is the translucency.  I get some thick, clear, monofilament, and I get some red spray paint, and I make me some stems.

All I got to do now is trim the flashing from my molded cherries, give 'em the old drill hole up top, and glue in those stems. Nice and easy.  Put 'em in a bowl, and the subscribers don't know the difference.

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Spray Painted Turkeys and Brick Brownies

Hey, Propsters, I wanted to pass along this link that just came across the SPAM net.  The fine folks at Deli Garage are making an edible spray paint. Shipping to the US is still a bit up in the air, but the site promises tasteless metallic paints for all of your food gilding needs.  Silver steak? Sure! Gilded Goose? Why not?  While you're over there, take a look at their blog. I think you'll like the brick shaped brownies (for wall building) and some of the other clever vittles these guys have on offer.

Oh, and is the website only coming up in German? Up in the right hand corner is a little button marked ENG. Just click it.

Happy Propping, dears.

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Hand Casting Part 1

BRAAIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNS!

Alright, readers, I have to admit that there aren't a lot of fake food props being made here in the Fake-n-Bake kitchen lately. For the past few weeks, I've been up to my neck in breakaway plates that aren't breaking and script covers that are being manhandled to death.  So, I haven't had much to report. Since there aren't any fake food projects on my horizons, I thought I'd take a look back at some older casting projects, and write a few posts about those.

These lovely beings are the first step in a pair of hands that got crushed in a trap door in 'The Government Inspector.'

Materials: Alginate, Hydrocal or Dentstone (or any high strength casting plaster), your carpenter (or any pair of hands), Petroleum Jelly, and Buckets

The first thing you need to do is convince your shop's carpenter to let you use his hands. Why do you need to use his hands? Because he has the most marvelously huge hands you've ever seen. His hands are like hams with fingers. You can use no lesser hands- only these will do.  Our carpenter was pretty easy to convince, but if yours isn't, I recommend baked goods. Real ones. No nerf muffins.

Once you convince your carpenter to allow you to cast his hands (or her hands, but ours is male, so I'm sticking with that pronoun), make sure your set up is comfortable for him.  Set up your containers near a chair or stool that will allow your carpenter to easily hold his hands in the alginate for fifteen minutes or more.  This make take some adjusting, which is why it is important to do this before you have mixed up your alginate.  Uncomfortable models lead to bad life casts.

Once you've got your set up ready, have your carpenter apply some petroleum jelly to his hands. Alginate (of dental impression fame) releases very well from skin, but petroleum jelly will help with any hair on the hands.

Once your carpenter is lubed up, get him settled into his position, and talk about how you want him to hold his hands; we went for a relaxed curl.  Then, mix up your alginate (follow the directions) and pour around the hands, and wait for the alginate to set.  It's important, when lifecasting, never to leave the model alone.  If a fire or other emergency occured, you'd need to be there to help. What's more common is that you'll need to make slight adjustments for the model's comfort. Can you imagine having both hands encased in goo, and then get an itch on your nose? TERRIBLE! 

Once the alginate is set (it will be stiff and won't be tacky) have your carpenter start to gently flex his hands and wiggle his fingers.  As he does so, the alginate will release, and he can slip his hands off from the mold.  Hand your carpenter one of the clean towels you had waiting (ha, gotcha) and send him off to wash his hands. Thank him for his time.

Alginate molds don't keep well for long- they dry out and shrink.  You can usually hold on to a mold for a day or so by wrapping it in wet cloths and keeping it in the fridge.  For best results, I recommend pouring your cast right away.  In this case, we only got one shot at the casting (some shapes allow for more), so we had to make it count. 

Mix your casting plaster according to directions, and pour it on in. Jiggle your mold to make sure you aren't trapping any air bubbles.  Once your plaster is set, you can remove the mold from the casts. I did this by removing the mold from its bucket, and carefully tearing away the alginate.  I did break a finger or two, but a little white glue took care of that. Oh, you can also see on the finger pads where some air was trapped. I sculpted those bits in with clay before making the next mold.  There you go! The first step of smashy hands! More to come soon, happy propping.

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Whipping Muffins

Once in a while, your boss will come to you and say something magical. Something like "Anna, (or, you know, your name) I need you to make some muffins to be thrown into the pool every night." These are the moments when you think 'I have found my true calling in life.' If you work in theater, and you don't have these moments occasionally, you should probably start thinking about a job that pays you in real money. 

To be fair, these muffins are being thrown 'into the pool' which actually means upstage. There isn't really a pool on our 'Ten Chimneys' set, so I didn't have to make these muffins waterproof.  I decided that I wanted to make the muffins out of Smooth On Flex Foam-it X because it's light, durable, and really fun to make things out of. Most importantly, if I made soft, nerf-like muffins, we could have muffin fights in the shop.

The first thing I did was to try out the material.  I grabbed an old muffin tin, one that I won't use again, and gave it a good coating of Universal Mold Release before mixing and pouring some of the Flex Foam in and letting it cure.  As you can see, above, the expansion is pretty good, but the smooth, shiny tops of the muffins aren't very convincing. So, I needed to think of something to sprinkle on the top of the foam while it was curing.  The first thing I tried was crushed cork which I've used very successfully as crushed nuts in the past. This worked really well on the muffins, or, it would have if I wanted the muffins to look like they had Grape Nuts sprinkled on top. Back to the drawing board.

After a bit of thinking about tasty, tasty muffins, I decided that a streusel top would be the way to go, so I set out to make a good fake streusel topping. Real streusel is made of butter, flour and sugar. My streusel topping is made of sawdust and flex glue.  I also tried corn starch, but it didn't work as well, and I was worried that little micies would eat it in storage.

To make the streusel, I just sifted some sawdust and slowly stirred in flex glue until the topping was the right consistency.  I let it dry over night before it was ready.  When it came time to pour the foam, with a drip of brown tint in it, I waited until the foam was starting to rise, and I sprinkled some streusel onto each of the muffins.

 

The texture came out just as I'd hoped, but the muffins needed a bit of paint. I used a combination of Design Master sprays and acrylic paints to finish the job. I'll admit, painting isn't my forte, but I think these are passably muffiny.   
                                      

I used hot glue to secure the muffins into the tin. I also bent a piece of aluminum wire to fit inside the lip of the muffin tin. I glued it onto the tin, in hopes that it will help protect the edge from all of the flinging that's going to occur.

So that's that. Whipping Muffins. Oh, and by the way, my computer kept trying to replace 'streusel' with 'stressful,' and that amused me. Happy Propping, y'all.

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My Hero the Hoagie, a Submarine tale.

So, it is possible that some of you may noticed that I haven't posted in a while. Yup, the summer got away from me. To make it up to you, and long post about a long sandwich. Enjoy.

When you think Opera, you think elaborate sets, elegant costumes, tremendous music, and giant hoagies.  Well, maybe you don't, but the good people putting on 'The Last Savage' sure do. When our Master Craftsman was going through the to-do list, and said 'four foot hoagie' I volunteered immediately. Well, okay, by volunteered, I mean that I squeaked like a chipmunk and clapped my hands. It worked, I got to make the sub. It ended up being only a three foot hoagie, in order to fit in the trunk, but who am I to question?

So, what do we need to make a sub? Well, in this case bread, lettuce, tomato slices, cheese, ham, turkey, and olives, or, actually, reasonable facsimiles thereof.  Let's start with the bread. I used upholstery foam to make the bread, and I learned a few new tricks while I was doing it.

The first trick is a way to keep your Olfa blade sharp while carving foam. I heard about it a while ago, but didn't really put it to the test until this project.  The trick is simple, just put a little bit of oil onto your blade, I used the oil that we use to lubricate our industrial sewing machines.  This keeps the blade sharp, which makes the cuts cleaner.  The second trick is to use a tool called a curry comb to carve the foam.  The curry comb's sharp teeth carve the foam well, but they can also leave grooves in the foam- so beware.

Once the bread was carved, I coated the foam in some old liquid foam latex that we had laying around the shop.  The dark color actually ended up being perfect for the fresh baked bread look. I love it when that happens!

 

So, next up would be toppings.  I haven't yet found a good way to make fake lettuce, so when I need lettuce, I just go for the commercial stuff.  I wanted to secure the toppings together, so I cut a piece of canvas, and stapled the lettuce leaves to the fabric using an office stapler.  Quick, easy, and effective!  As for tomato slices, this time I went commercial there too.  I grabbed some fake tomatoes from our stock, and sliced them with a bear saw.  Since the other toppings were covering the tops and bottoms of the tomato slices, and only the edges were showing, it wasn't necessary to paint the top and bottom.

Then, for the cheese! Now, as I am from Wisconsin, you all know that I'm pretty serious about my cheese. That's why this sandwich has two types of cheese, provolone and cheddar.  Both are cut from fun foam, that stuff you buy in sheets at the craft store. The foam is pretty good for the cheddar, but a little too opaque for provolone. Again, the fact that the provolone will be mostly covered is helping me get away with this.

Oh, as you can see, I used a plastic lid to trace the circles out. Resourceful!

Cheddar is better.

So, next up, ham!  I really wanted to use materials that were already available in the shop (the budget was tight this season) and I also wanted to get the prop done in a reasonable amount of time. Now, I've made ham slices before (see Hammy Sammies) but that process was pretty time consuming, and I wanted to bang this bad boy out.  Luckily, we had some pinkish fabric in stock that worked really well as thin sliced ham.  I cut the fabric into ovals, and hit the edges of each with a brown Sharpie to give it a rind.

Sham!

The turkey slices were also fabric from stock. We had some light colored spandex that was just the color of deli sliced turkey. Again, I cut the fabric into circles, but I rolled these cold cuts into tubes to give some variety to the sandwich.

Now, you maybe be asking yourself 'Self, what are those bits of ethafoam rod doing on that sandwich?' Well, I'll tell you. Once the ham and turkey made it onto the sandwich, the weight of the 'bread' was pressing down on them, and the were losing their shape.  I cut short pieces of ethafoam rod, and carefully glued them (with low temp hot glue) into some of the turkey rolls and ham folds.  It boosted the sandwich slightly, but was not easily seen.

Assembly was mostly done with low temp hot glue.  It wasn't my first choice, because I was worried about it degrading in the heat, but it was the only thing I could find to stick to everything.  Everything was glued to the lettuce/canvas staple combo in order. Then, I used a contact adhesive similar to green glue (3M Fastbond) to attach the bread to the fillings. It wasn't a perfect adhesive, but it did seem to work.

For good measure, I decided to add a mechanical fastener as well.  I used a tufting needle and monofiliment to tie the sandwich together at four places. That's what the olives on top are for!  Each one is a wooden bead that I used as a tie off point. Then I stuffed the ends with plumber's epoxy (paper clay is lighter and cheaper, but takes longer to dry. No time!)  and painted them to look like olives.  Tips for tufting a sandwich? Wear safety glasses and use a leather tufting needle. The blades will help you cut through the foam more easily.

 

So there it is, WAH-LAH, as they say in France. Want more? Okay, one more pic, just for you.

My boss enjoying the sandwich.

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Famous Pies ala LoRyn!

So, I know that all of you read the Santa Fe New Mexican, and that you already saw this photo of Loryn working on some ginormous pies.

If you didn't, you can read the article online by clicking here.

Here's a little more info about the pies.  These pies are a joint effort by many a props crafter. First of all, Mana Butt, shopper extraordinaire bought two vintage pie tins.  Then, our apprentices Oona (see the post on Sugared Pansy Cake ala Oona) and Ellie (see Cherries Cake ala Ellie) carved bead foam into the shapes of the pies. Aimee Plant (Chickens Ala Aimee) showed Ellie and Oona to make a pastry like crust by layering tissue paper and flex glue. Then, Loryn Williams (or LoRyn, if you read the article) painted the pies.

See, Collaboration!

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Casting Call

Today on the Fake-n-Bake blog, I'm bringing you a casting project. This is a piece that I just did for the upcoming production of 'Faust' that I'm working on. This little decoration will eventually be part of a mirror stand in a jeweler's window.

*Remember, when using any chemicals, to use the proper safety equipment. Casting materials can be really, really bad for you if used without the proper protection.*

The first step was to draw out what I wanted to build, including the piece that I would sculpt and cast, in full scale.  Once that was done, I made a copy of the drawing and taped it to a piece of plywood to use as a sculpting surface.

I used modeling clay to sculpt the piece, with beads added for certain details. Once the sculpting was complete, I built a plywood frame around it to function as a mold box.

I sealed the box and the clay with clear spray shellac. This is partly out of habit (sulphur clays inhibit urethane rubber cure, and I often use urethane) and partly just too add a layer between the mold and the positive.  I used Tempo 30 silicone to make the mold.  I haven't used this much, but it worked very well.  To mix this product, you measure portions of catalyst and silicone together by weight, stir THOROUGHLY, pour, and allow to set overnight.

Once the silicone had set, I demolded by removing the sides of the mold box, and peeling the mold off of the positive.  To cast the piece, I used universal mold release before pouring two part resin into the mold. It's always important to have a level casting surface, but especially when the piece is so thin like this.  Once the piece came out of the mold, it was easy to trim away any excess bits of resin, and smooth any flaws.  The resin will stay soft until it fully cures, so if I had wanted to, I could have bent it to fit around a round surface. 

TA-DA! Here it is.  I'll try to post some finished photos when the whole prop is done.

Happy Propping!

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More Fridge Dressing

Here are a few more of the goodies from the Salesman fridge.

 Jam. These were made by putting tinted hot pour vinyl into vintage jam jars.

Pot Roast. This is repurposed from an old food prop I did a while back.  It's chunks of upholstery foam, coated with flex glue, then painted with acrylics.  It is garnished with micro-foam onions (one side sprayed red), hot pour vinyl gravy, hot pour vinyl onions (apparently, these people like onions), and silk foliage herbs. It is served on a bed of cotton batting mashed potatoes.

Tuna Noodle Casserole. Just like in the TV dinner! Real noodles, saw dust, flex glue, and mardi-gras bead peas. Yum!

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Summertiiiiiiiime, and the living is anything but easy.

Hey all, as you may have noticed, I haven't put up a post in a few weeks. Well, it's time for my annual summertime excuse. In the summers, I spend the little time that I am not working in the Opera prop shop either gorging myself on green chile, or watching the rodeo. Now, most of you theater folks are off contract anyway, and shouldn't really be reading about props in your free time, so you may not even notice that the posts are slightly more sparse.  So, here's the deal. I will try to get in a post a week- but more likely I'll be doing once every two weeks. Now, if you have a beautiful food prop that you've been dying to send me (why haven't you?), this would be a great time to send it. The summer is my favorite time to do guest blog entries. So, I hope you all have a good summer, I'll blog as much as I can, and I'll see y'all back here real soon.

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