Bone ear piece

www.surejewelery.com

Whilst discussing the subject of body modification with Charlie and John they had seemed generally against the idea of having excessive piercings and scarification to prevent him of looking "too punk". They did, however, like the idea of having a piece of bone pushed through the ear, so I set about researching this.
A number of the bone ear stretches available online were carved into intricate shapes and swirls, something that was not suitable for what I wanted; I had been envisaging something straight and sharp. The more I looked into the options, the more I realised that the majority of the stretchers, even the straight ones, looked a little too polished and perfect, something that one wouldn't normally associate with an Orc in the wilderness. I therefore decided that it might be more appropriate to use a real piece of bone which I could sharpen myself.

I had originally planned to go down to a butchers and try and source some bones that way, however, I realised that I didn't really know what it was that I was looking for. I wasn't sure which animal and which area of the body would produce a bone that was the right width and shape for the hole that I had carved into the ear of my sculpt. In the end I managed to find some ribs at home that, once stripped of the meat, looked like they might be ideal. For the purposes of hygiene it was important to make sure that the bones were not going to rot or go mouldy, and Will therefore suggested bleaching them, which I did. I was pleased to find that the bleaching process also resulted in a much cleaner, whiter colour which would make the bone stand out more from the brown tones of the prosthetic. I then cut one of the thinner ribs in half and sanded down on end into a point. I decided to leave the other end of the bone blunt as I didn't want it to catch on the prosthetic behind the ear and it was unlikely to be seen anyway once the prosthetic and wig were on the actor. I decided to bleach the sharpened bone a second time as the sanding process had revealed a large amount of the bone marrow which was very dark and not really what I wanted.