Cannom Caps

The most unusual approach to bald caps are the Cannom caps, named for Greg Cannom. General knowledge was in Hollywood was that latex baldcaps couldn't be made with a good edge. Urban legend has it that Cannom did not know that and made his own by stippling multiple layers of latex over a head form. The cap could be made in an hour or so on location with a custom front, no toxic chemicals and an indetectable blending edge.

A head form, a head cast, Red Heads by Kryolan or even mannequin dummy can be used with the prefered blending edge marked on for reference. Sometimes the form is stippled with a skin texture in the negative, so that the inside of the cap becomes the pore textured exterior. The trick to the cap is stipple on first layer of Sculpture House Pliatex Mold Rubber thinly with a sponge on the cap area and beyond and then to stipple on the next layer on all areas except the 1/8" on either side of the blending edge. Hair dryer can speed the process but is often unnecessary if the layer is thin.The third layer stops 1/4" in on either side of the blending edge and so on. This will make cap that tapers down in the last 3/4" to a 1 layer blending edge; also leaving a thicker area below the blending edge as a handle. Usually 7 or 8 layers is fine unless you are trying to cover a very thick or texture head of hair.

Change sponges when the latex acts like contact cement on the already dried cap. Any cutup pieces of upholstery or urethane foam will do. Once twenty layers or so are on, dried and powdered, the piece is removed and powdered carefully with the handle and blending edge intact. Generally the cap is turned inside out to catch the texture of the form instead of the roughness of the stipple. Since the piece is pure rubber it is very stretchy and almost one size fits all.

During application, lightly pulling on the handle will stretch out the blending edge. Once applied, the edge is again pulled and a brush with a little naptha or lighter fluid is held to the blending edge to corrode the one layer edge right up to glued down area. When dried, prosaid is stippled over the edge to seal. Unlike plastic caps, which hold well but can slip back during use, I've never seen these move. PAX paint, intrinsic coloring or RMG's work well as a finish. If you get good at intrinsic coloration with powder and the form is rough enough to leave a matte surface, you can prepaint PAX inside and use the natural translucency of the rubber to actually make a thin translucent stretchy cap Ed French's "BALD CAP! The Video" details the process and I think he sells similar caps at www.edwardfrench.com