Prince Eric Bust

Hi everyone,
I am wondering what people have done in the past for a bust for Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid. Of course my plan is to have one that is broken and one that is intact for the destruction of the grotto. However, my director is really hoping to have a bust that looks like the actor that is playing Prince Eric. My personal opinion is that you won't be able tell from the audience who the bust looks like. But if there is a low (ish) cost option to cast his head I am open to giving it a try. I am open to any suggestions!
Thanks!

Not the same show, but when we needed a bust of one of the cast for London Assurance, we had him sit for some art students who modelled it in clay. Of the two we eventually used, one was an extremely good likeness, the other quite good but reminiscent of a UK TV presenter.

3D printing might offer some options. To reduce cost you could print just the face and apply that to the head/shoulders of a generic bust shape.

The traditional? way of replicating a face Look up the instructions for using dental alginate
heres a plaster cast of our Scarlet Pimpernel I made 20 years ago. vasoline on eyebrows, soda straws for nostrils and mouth during the slather... sets in a few minutes, reinforce wrap the soft alginate with plaster cast material for support and use the alginate negative to make a plaster positive. I put it in Jeckyls lab as a winkto our insiders this summer. I you need multiples can replicate off the new plaster positive. 20 years later you can still even see his pores Use this to build the head. The bust I would stuff clothing and spray with bronze paint.

We just carved one out of a block of dense white foam to look like our Eric, unfortunately our original production was in tech the week of the covid shutdown and never made it to performance. We recast for next year due to seniors who graduated so it didn't look like the new Eric but it still worked.

Here's a bust that was spray painted clothing.. you could stiffen with thinned wood glue first.. This head I just sculpted out of paper mache' Henry Potter for Miracle at Bedford Falls. (It's a Wonderful Life) The movie has a really interesting copyright licensing history .

Thank you everyone! I will make sure to post what I ended up doing.

Here is the final product. I ended up going the easy route, starting with a wig head with a wig on it that was sort of styled to look like our Prince Eric's hair. I covered with joint compound and just did my best to make it look less like a female wig head. Our director said she was no longer concerned with it even being a full bust so we just went with the head. We have a large stage so it read pretty well. Thank you all for your suggestions!

ScenicKatie said:

Here is the final product. I ended up going the easy route, starting with a wig head with a wig on it that was sort of styled to look like our Prince Eric's hair. I covered with joint compound and just did my best to make it look less like a female wig head. Our director said she was no longer concerned with it even being a full bust so we just went with the head. We have a large stage so it read pretty well. Thank you all for your suggestions!

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Nice! I love seeing questions then the results in the same thread! well done!