<Production Report No. 3> Rendering True-To-Life Skin Tone by Blending Four Colors on a Silicone Face

Kazu Hiro created two larger-than-life sculptures of Audrey Hepburn's face in clay. The first face was of a young Audrey in her mid-twenties, when she appeared in the movie Roman Holiday. The second was of a much older Audrey at sixty-three, shortly before she died. To produce a sculpture twice the dimensions of the real Audrey's head, Kazu had to use eight times more clay than he would have used working in life size.

Kazu Hiro clears his mind when applying the colors: "The environment around us affects how we see color. In a room with red walls, for instance, the remnant red on your retina affects how you see the colors in front of you. Before applying a color, I try to reset my mental pallet by staring at a neutral colored surface."

Kazu carefully adjusts the transparency along with the color tones. If the pigment is too dark, the sprayed pattern will appear pointillist and opaque. If the pigment is too light, the colors will blend together, producing a muted effect. The pigment must be balanced.

The next color was yellow. The skin color tends to be lighter in parts of the face where bone lies close underneath. A faint melanin shade was applied to highlight the thin skin covering the brow, nose, and cheekbones.

Kazu also used olive color to capture in suntan tones, which naturally vary in different parts of the face. A person who often drives a car will have deeper tan on the side of the face closer to the window.
"When we see a person, we subconsciously register natural irregularities in their face," Kazu explains. "A portrait looks more lifelike to us if the irregularities are shown."

The sculpted heads of Audrey Hepburn are turned slightly to the left. The left side of the neck was painted slightly darker since the skin was compressed.

Kazu points out that his work could never be finished without careful planning of the colors to use, and in what quantities.
"Skin color isn't just a single color. I have to consider which colors are needed, and how they should be layered. I form a mental picture of the final skin tone I want to achieve and then calculate backward, simplifying the color combinations to a minimum as I go. If I paint on too much color and then try to adjust it by adding more, the result will be muddy or dull. The key is restraint, to know when the color is finished and stop."

The final color Kazu painted was a muted red, mainly on the lips, cheeks, and skin around the eyes. As the colors are layered on, the coloring beneath gradually disappears. The outermost red is mixed with hints of blue to dial down any intensity.

Once the skin color was complete, the next steps were the lipstick, rouge, eyeliner, and mascara. Pigments blended with silicone vehicle were used for the makeup colors, as well. At last, with the skin colors and makeup complete, Kazu was ready to move on to hair work for both sculptures.

* This is not a realistic rendering of the subject but the artist's interpretation.

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