BUILDING A CHARACTER

PART II: Dental Appliance

In the 20's when "London After Midnight" was filmed,
Lon Chaney had a special mouthpiece made of dental
wire to keep his mouth in a constant ghastly,
unearthly grin. This enhanced the frightening quality
of the character's face. Accurately reproducing
Chaney's mouthpiece was no easy task, so Wally
contacted Los Angeles Orthodontist Dr.David Rudolph
for help. First, to make a custom-fit piece for
Wally's mouth, his entire top row of teeth had to be
cast with a dental material called Alginate.

Here's a better shot of the Alginate being
loaded into a dental tray. The assistant has
to work fast because the Alginate begins to
harden rather quickly.

The trayful of Alginate is given to Dr.Rudolph
who places it carefully inside Wally's mouth.
Placement must be perfect to insure an accurate
impression of Wally's teeth.

Asia wraps the Alginate impression (called a
negative) in moist towels to preserve it until a
casting compound can be poured in.

After the casting compound has hardened, the
Alginate "negative" is removed, leaving you with a
"positive", or exact replica, of Wally's teeth. All of
the work with the dental wire to construct the
mouthpiece will be done on this model.

The finished tooth cast was delivered to Gary Archer
of GA Enterprises, the TOP teeth maker in
Hollywood! Gary has provided teeth for
Austin Powers, Anthony Hopkins, Wesley Snipes, Russell
Crowe and more! In a very time consuming procedure,
Gary had to sculpt each individual tooth on Wally's
cast. Plus, Gary had to be conscious of color all the
while to be consistent with the "monochromatic" nature
of the finished character. He experimented with all
sorts of pigments and rinses to give the teeth the
proper gray tone.

Here, Gary tries the teeth on Wally to mark
the spots where he'll place the wires that will hold
his top lip open in that famous ghoulish Chaney grin.

Gary adds the wires to the front of the
veneers in a very intricate, time-consuming process.
He'll add some additional wires to the inside of the
dentures to make sure they stay secured over Wally's
real teeth. He'll finish them off with more tinting
and a realistic looking glaze. Come back soon to see
the finished product!

Continue to PART III

Building the costume from scratch

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