Moulding A Cyclops stuart bray 2020-12-18 | The podcast: battleswithbitsofrubber.comA friend of mine, Helen McKenna, had sculpted this cool cyclops character on a Don Lanning sculpture course (check our awesome chat with Don battleswithbitsofrubber.com/37-the-mighty-don-lanning-part-1) and wanted to mould it. She didn't have a workshop space and was nervous about damaging it so we decided to do it here in my workshop and film the process to show how it went. We used epoxy, and I got to try some materials out for the first time.It worked well, and we were really happy with the result! --------------------Check out the podcast: battleswithbitsofrubber.com, available wherver there are podcasts.
#93 - Falmouth Part 2 stuart bray 2024-04-07 | In this second and final part of our trip to Falmouth Uni, Neill Gorton joins us as we discuss making mistakes and learning the hard way in the workshop. We also discuss how to approach workshops and folio critiques and why latex and plaster are such great materials when starting and budgets are tight. Latex and plaster are a big theme in this episode. Be sure to check out the blog post with the show notes and the latest free workbook download, which is all about making latex pieces and plaster moulds from the UMAE 2024 makeups Stuart recently did. This is a hefty episode, and the workbook is 26 pages full of step-by-step processes and techniques! If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell people about it? Send them a link and help the show grow!
#92 - Falmouth Uni Part 1 stuart bray 2023-12-29 | Our trip down to Falmouth Uni preceded The Prosthetics Event 2023. It was a great trip, and so nice to see the work being done by students there and talk shop. As always, we have a rough idea about what we want to talk about, but it's always led by the feeling in the room at the time, questions that come up and current events within the group . We spoke for so long in a packed room using a single recorder, so the sound is a little different from our usual close microphone stuff. It went on for nearly three hours, and fell into two distinct sections - the first half we present here. The second part we shall release soon, and was when Neill Gorton arrived after just having beaten Covid again. Present were lecturers and all-round good eggs Brad Greenwood and Duncan Cameron, plus a room crammed with the students from the Prosthetic Effects MA who we had come to see. Thanks to Duncan Cameron for his awesome sketches which feature in the episode art of parts 1 and 2. Check his work out on Insta @brokensharkcage. Thanks for listening! Incidentally, the 'Hi, welcome to passes with bits of brother' bit comes from an automated transcript attempt in Word of the near 3 hour recording. Needless to say,I don't think we will be using that as a way to pull text from audio! More notes on the blog post found at battleswithbitsofrubber.com/falmouthp1
#91 - Digital Tools In The Workshop stuart bray 2023-11-28 | Makeup artists typically like makeup. It is a tactile medium, and they enjoy products, how they feel and smell and respond to brushes and pressure. Making prosthetics similarly has its tactile qualities, and it is hard to separate these sensations from the very nature of the joy in the work. It is little wonder then that this same group of people may not have developed an extensive love of digital versions of the same work. Doing a digital makeup effect in Photoshop requires the makeup artist's mindset but somehow it is not the same thing, and I think this reluctance to do digital work can put the makeup community at a disadvantage. The digital ship has definitely sailed, but the opportunity to join the crew is always open. This is our attempt at starting a wider conversation within the makeup industry regarding digital tools in the workshop. Check out the extensive notes available on the blog post that corresponds with this episode. battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#90 - Joel Harlow stuart bray 2022-12-31 | Joel Harlow is an academy award-winning artist who started out in animation before he moved on to makeup. Gradually building multi-faceted skills, confidence and workloads, he has evolved and expanded into the makeup effects heavyweight we know today with a hefty rollcall of credits. Check out his company, morphologyfx.com/. It is always fascinating to go through the IMDb of an artist and see their credits creeping up the hierarchy over time. Evidence of trust earned as supervisors see a way to pass the responsibility on, and nothing breeds more work than showing up on time and doing more than the client bargained for, happily smiling through it all and happy to be doing it. This was certainly the impression Joel gave us in the chat too, and we think you’ll love it! Drop us a line @ stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on battleswithbitsofrubber.com --- Stuart & Todd
#89 - Maddie Scott-Spencer stuart bray 2022-10-03 | Maddie is a talented concept artist and teacher known mostly for her ZBrush work. Coming from a practical background, her skills come from familiar ground - Fangoria, a love of monsters and sculpting for fun! She has taught classes for Gnomon since 2006 - we recommend the ‘Introduction to ZBrush 2021’ video course. Todd and I both cite this as the breakthrough moment for both of us, making what previously had been indecipherable to us accessible and understandable. The way she comes across reminded us of Dick Smith, with a generous nature coupled with a thorough understanding of the subject. Maddie graciously invited Stu and me into her museum-like flat in London, where we chatted for hours surrounded by an eclectic collection of curios and oddities; it is a little 'Ripley’s Believe It Or Not' and a little bit Smithsonian, with a dash of Natural History thrown carefully in. We talked about everything, concentrating on how digital sculpting has become a permanent part of the special makeup effects world.
#88 - Adam KreatureKid Dougherty stuart bray 2022-08-16 | Adam Dougherty and his company kreaturekid.com are based in Colorado. An incredibly talented artist, he is an inspiring soul who makes things happen with determination and persistent hard work. Although he considers himself lazy, his output shows anything but. In particular, his style celebrates the warmth and unique character that Jim Henson created with puppets, and has himself produced some jaw-droppingly effective puppets for various projects such as the upcoming Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, directed by Andrew Bowser. Adam has a flair and a style for big, expressive characters and, as you will hear in the podcast, celebrates and works hard to put practical effects front and centre. He is a sculptor working both digitally and practically, so he understands both sides of the coin. He also has a clear vision of a good story and isn't happy to mindlessly follow the herd. We left inspired and impressed! We think you will be too. Check out his homepage, Instagram and YouTube account. It will be time well spent. In particular, this video from ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics) is an excellent account of Adam's journey and is a joy to watch: youtu.be/xKEA_JV7jF8 ----------------------------------------- Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us directly at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#87 - Frank Ippolito stuart bray 2022-08-14 | Frank Ippolito is something of a practical effects polymath. From starting out with makeup effects and putting in solid work in the lab, he has gradually expanded to running a company and crew with impressive credits and a high standard of work. Checking out Frank's IMDb, you’ll see a switch around 2016 as he started working on speciality costumes. This is a big overlap in the practical effects industry as creature and ‘hero’ suits become more sophisticated. Frank started as a freelancer doing the thing; now, he runs a shop and has a well-trusted and reliable workforce at his shop, Thingergy INC. Because of his heavy lifting, now a team of folks get work and get paid, and our chat was an amazing dive into how a workshop is set up and run. This is a great episode to listen to if you are serious about getting work in the industry and want to understand how workshops work. We particularly appreciate Frank discussing budgets with actual numbers. Not often will folks spell out the costs of making stuff so clearly, but this is SO important. Often, a suitable budget is put together and whittled down until there is no profit or financial gain from an endeavour. It is particularly the case for creative freelancers who are often people pleasers and feel uncomfortable discussing money and defending their costs. (Hint: Just because they say they can't afford it doesn't mean you have to work for nothing and do the job! Saying no to something that takes your time and gives nothing in return is often the wisest move.) ------------------------------------ Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#86 - More Noses, Fewer Horns stuart bray 2022-07-30 | In this episode, we look at a makeup I did nearly 30 years ago at college. Adrian Rigby sent me a remaining original piece from the mould, along with some photos (prints, no less, which I scanned). We talk about remembering what you knew then (the past) and how you thought it should be done. You can also advise your old self on how it could be done better using the knowledge you know now (the present) and things you would attain in the future. By seeing your errors written plain, having an actual artefact from the past, you can connect with both then and now. We also answer a few listener questions about how to work out softnesses for appliances and what to include in a successful portfolio. -------------------------------------------- Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message direct on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Eyeblanks Video 1 stuart bray 2022-07-16 | battleswithbitsofrubber.comWhen sculpting heads, it is often useful to use hard eyeball shape, known as a blank, inside the head rather than a soft clay eyeball. This means you can place the eyeballs in position, move them around as required to get perfect placement and sculpt the eyelids around them in clay without fear of damage to them. You can then make your mould of the head with these eye -forms in place, bolt them into the mould so they are correctly placed and create an accurate cavity for the proper fake eyes you will place in them each time.In this video, I decided instead to model up an eye-blank in CAD and then print some on a 3D printer. Because I thought that would be a useful shape to keep, I also moulded and cast up some resin copies and documented the process to show you its progress. If you haven't already, subscribe to the channel and check our podcast, Battles With Bits Of Rubber, available on all the podcast platforms.--------------------------------------battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#85 - Bill Corso stuart bray 2022-07-03 | "Bill, there's a scene where The Blob attacks a woman who's in a 'phone booth and it covers the 'phone booth, it crushes the 'phone booth and here and then it goes on the sidewalk and goes into a gutter and disappears into this sewer." I'm just looking at him and I go…"Okay." And he says "Figure out how to do that scene!" I was, like "Well, what IS The Blob?" He goes "I don't know…you come up with something. Come up with 5 things and I'll pick one." That was it. That was my first day Bill who? Pardon our manners. We're talking about Emmy and Academy Award winner, Bill Corso, makeup designer extraordinaire, whose credit list is mind-boggling. We talk about respect and the future of our industry, which is mainly what this episode is about. There are full-on makeups being done digitally now, but they're being done by people who are not makeup artists. Bill's push is that more makeup people do get involved. Rarely is the makeup department consulted when digital modifications are employed which affect makeup so Bill has taken the step of formulating the Digital Makeup Group to address the absence of the makeup artist in the digital process. This is a great episode for those looking to get into the industry! Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. -Stuart & Todd
#84 - Pete Tindall stuart bray 2022-02-04 | In this episode, we talk with materials maestro Pete Tindall about all things making related, along with a dose of rantage. I moan a bit about ZBrush (although I love it) and the fact that despite the terrifying interface and the huge number of tools available in ZBrush, freedom comes from accepting that you likely need only a handful of them. Early on in ZBrush, you are can indeed happily ignore most of it with confidence. Pete is an adept materials man, knowing and using a broad range of materials. We first met on Batman Begins (2005) where Pete worked in the Bat-suit workshop and miniatures for the monorail sequence. ------------------------------------------------ We also start the podcast as usual with a little FX chit-chat and this time we talk about creating the illusion of hard things in soft tissue such as horns protruding from foreheads, teeth showing from exposed gums and foreign bodies sticking out of the skin (knives or arrows for example). In the reality of filming, the scene may need to be repeated and used in intense action, so things that are really hard or sharp in real life could break off or cause real injury. As a result, often it is made up of either soft or semi-rigid material which looks solid but is safer. Sometimes the thing may be designed to break away, be replaceable if multiple takes are needed, be incredibly lightweight or even detachable so it can be removed when not needed. ------------------------------------------------ Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! Stuart & Todd
#83 - Ian Morse & Cliff Wallace Part 2 stuart bray 2022-01-28 | Check the shownotes on the blog: battleswithbitsofrubber.com This second part of our chat with Ian and Cliff takes a look back at the company they had together, Creature Concepts - or as Ian puts it ‘How not to run a business'. Ian and Cliff mentioned Blood On The Satan’s Claw (1971) and I watched it on their recommendation. It whetted my appetite, and I had to rewatch some of my favourites, The Creeping Flesh, Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter and of course The Curse Of Frankenstein. It also reminds me of the joys of direct-applied makeups. Things like burns, or wound interiors for example have many random details which can be created in different materials. Sculpting in plastiline is the usual method for creating the forms in appliances, but some things are better created - or at least started - using other techniques. Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#82 - Ian Morse & Cliff Wallace Part 1 stuart bray 2022-01-21 | This episode was recorded at Cliff's studio, with all four of us present and correct. Ian and Cliff have worked together and separately in the industry for a long time - Ian's credits include Little Shop Of Horrors, Alien 3, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, Fury and Dr Who. Cliff racks up an impressive listing on IMDb with Hellraiser (1987), Lair of the White Worm, Black Hawk Down, World War Z and 28 Days Later. It was a hefty chat that we split into two parts as it was so long, but also they divided into two clear conversations which lent themselves to being broken in two. We had a great time recording and producing this one and we hope you get a kick out of it too. It's not often Todd and I get to be in the same room when we record so getting to do this was a dream. --------------------------------------------- Check out the website for more info and full show notes: battleswithbitsofrubber.com Thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#80 - Bolton Part 1 stuart bray 2021-12-26 | What does digital sculpting have to do with battling with bits of rubber? Speaking in one of the VFX classrooms, a huge space with rows of monitors and Wacom Cintiqs, we gathered as a group to discuss training to work in film and TV. We looked particularly at the pipeline and workflow of VFX and how that has changed over the years with regards to practical work and why confidence matters and how it can be generated. One aspect of confidence is to know how and when to exercise what is your responsibility when you may feel like it is someone else's job. What can you do practically to accumulate confidence and where does that come from? What are the stepping stones? Many makeup schools do not know how or teach how practical effects may work with VFX. There isn't an extensive history yet of that combination, so fewer resources and gurus to call upon. If you want to make a nose or a wig, there already exists a long history of practitioners and techniques one can call upon to get that information. Some places are teaching this such as Bolton, Falmouth & the University of Wolverhampton (instagram.com/digital_prosthetics/?hl=en). Now if you want to take a head scan, clean it up and correct it, make cores so you can print out sections to be remoulded or sculpted on, there are ways it can be done but it is new enough that there isn't a standardised method easily accessed by everyone. It's a new thing so there isn't an extensive range of ways to do it or a plethora of experienced practitioners willing to share what may be for them hard-won knowledge or a new process they may have pioneered themselves recently. VFX and practical were once very separate disciplines but the increased use of digital processes in the practical world (photography, scanning, machining, 3D printing and sculpting in ZBrush) are very much part of the VFX world and crossover is more common. A shared language will assist in departments blending their expertise rather than dividing them. The VFX may be less willing to share their processes compared with practical, but this may be in part because pipelines and workflows are so unique that one may not align with another even though they are both under the umbrella term of VFX. Larger commercial pipelines are often customised, so they will approach a process in a specific way that may not be the same way as another company doing the same kind of work. These make incredible efficiencies within that unit of work, and changing pipelines isn't always compatible. The lowering cost of scanners will mean increased availability of information and tutorials. They will become commonplace and so being able to work with them will become important. We imagine that in no time ZBrush will be even more ingrained in the educational workflow of fx programs teaching both practical and digital fx. It will be the standard, no longer any differentiation as two disciplines; it will all be part of fx training and execution. ------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site.
#79 - Jake Garber stuart bray 2021-12-18 | Our conversation recently with Jake Garber at The Prosthetics Event in Coventry was, we think, a very important chat worth listening to for anyone who is trying, or thinking about trying to get a foot in the door into the (oftentimes) wonderful and exciting world of movie and television makeup. Even for peeps already working in the industry, Jake’s extensive level of expertise and experience in a special and makeup effects career has seen him in many roles from straight beauty makeup and workshop lab work, as well as supervising workshops and sets, key makeup artist as well as being a personal artist to talent such as Samuel L. Jackson. His TV credits include over 100 episodes of The Walking Dead, The Orville and Westworld. Movies include Avengers: Endgame, Hateful Eight, Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, and Kill Bill 1&2. That broad range of experience was wonderfully displayed at the Prosthetics Event to a packed education room. We asked him about his work and how he broke into the industry, and then focussed on the specific skills and areas of attention someone looking to get into the field should be aware of. It was a fantastic discussion, and Jake dropped gold nuggets everywhere with his revealing and incredibly useful talk. It’s important to learn to create small in the beginning; a realistic nose has no fanfare, no pazzazz, but if you know, you know. It’s not about calling attention to the work, it’s being able to fool the viewer into believing it’s real by not calling attention to it. ----------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on the website. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Amelia Rowcroft: Strong Foundations stuart bray 2021-11-26 | Figurative sculptor Amelia Rowcroft lives in the lovely Sussex town of Lewes on the South East Coast of England, which dates back to 961AD. She was kind enough to invite us into her studio in a building that once housed a brewery in the 1600s, and that’s where we recorded this episode of BWBoR. Amelia has been sculpting practically, working in clay for over 20 years, creating primarily fine art portraits and figurative sculptures, though she has also worked within the film industry, and for the world’s leading wax figure museums including Madame Tussaud’s, and we talked about it all. She studied at Central St Martins, and the Florence Academy in Florence, Italy, and interestingly enough, was also a student at Wimbledon School of Art where Stuart attended, though a few years behind him. As fate would have it, another of our upcoming podcast guest artists, ZBrush Master Madeleine Scott Spencer, also studied at the Florence Academy and remembers Amelia, but we’ll save that for later. We chatted for a good hour and a half and covered a variety of sculpture-related topics, such as why isn’t there a Museum of Crap Renaissance Sculpture so we can see the failures of the Masters – because there had to be some - and creating a likeness sculpture vs. creating a caricature of a subject. We also chatted about sculpting digitally vs. pushing actual clay around. Amelia was kind enough – incredibly generous is more like it – to allow us to explore her online sculpture course, and it is jaw-dropping in content and ‘lightbulb’ moments. We urge you to at least look at the sample video lessons on Amelia’s website www.sculptingmasterclass.com/collections. We suspect you’ll want to enrol to take advantage of the instruction offered by this incredible sculptor. Whether you sculpt practically or digitally, this information is invaluable and transferable between mediums. -------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#77 - Truth Is Grosser Than Fiction stuart bray 2021-11-20 | Click Here For Blog Post Of This Episode Paul Savage is a returning guest on the show. We caught up with him at the Prosthetics Event in Coventry. Merging medical knowledge with movie makeup, he aims to bring more realism to training scenarios. Raising the bar in simulation can help to save actual lives. It is quite often that makeup students will work with a local emergency service and offer up their skills to make up casualties for training first responders and combat medics. As makeup artists, we often let the dramatic effect take the reins, however, it is easy to inadvertently misdirect a clinical field assessment with incorrectly applied makeup that has been applied for dramatic effect rather than clinical accuracy. It is important to use primary references of genuine trauma rather than copying trauma makeup that isn't necessarily accurate. By copying even good makeup, we can also reproduce their errors unintentionally. We talk about the merits of using the right material, the right amount of blood and setting the scene. Even though it is a simulation, seasoned first responders will take their cues from what they see rather than what they have been told. So it better look right! Regarding the mastectomy makeup mentioned in the episode, it was for the ITV Drama 'The Walk' (2005). The makeup designer was Caroline Noble and made for Millennium FX. It was applied on location by Rob Trenton. Click Here For Blog Post Of This Episode
#76 - 1.9 Million Sq. Ft Needed stuart bray 2021-10-20 | This episode is in two parts. The first part is the generally good news of the increase in film industry activity which sees many people run off their feet with work. After a year of lockdowns and closed up shops, this is good news indeed. Film and TV productions are picking up because of the build-up of work owing to shelved ideas, and owing to the massive amount of free time folks have had to consume box sets and start to want the next season. --------------------------------------------- Incidentally, it was Gorezone #9 which had the awesome Evil Dead 2 stuff I mentioned. -------------------------------------------- Breaking pieces down (unnecessarily) We also discuss the breaking down of pieces when moving from the sculpting to the moulding stage. Covered at length in a piece we did a while back (link below), it was worth a good chat about why this may even be necessary. Why do we break pieces down at all? No two makeups break down the same. Usually in thinnest area of sculpt. http://www.learnmakeupeffects.com/floating-pieces Extra work and time/materials/cost involved Design and purpose of makeup decides what needs to be broken down and why. Collapsible cores vs flaring out/overlapping pieces. For amazing mould work (plus great craft generally), I highly recommend these two excellent artists: instagram.com/carl_lyon_ instagram.com/rob_freitas_ Check out the podcast website battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#75 - Cutting Edges & Flat Moulds stuart bray 2021-07-20 | We covered cutting edges in episode #61 but this one is specifically about cutting edges on flat moulds. Cutting edges on appliance moulds do the work of separating the fine appliance edge from the flashing and excess, allowing the mould to close properly and achieve the feather thin edge you have sculpted. The exact width of the distance between the cutting edge and the sculpted edge varies between artists and techniques, preferences and materials. I have seen many sculpts where folk have had a massive distance between the cutting edge and the sculpt, and this is what prompted this episode. The book I was reading which mentioned 'Stereo Type' with regards to printing was The Village Carpenter: The Classic Memoir of the Life of a Victorian Craftsman by Walter Rose, published originally in 1937. Check out the Stereotype process on the Wikipedia page. See what books are freely available at Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org/. Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Flat Moulds & Cutting Edges stuart bray 2021-07-20 | We covered this topic in episode #61: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/61cuttingedges but this is specifically about cutting edges on flat moulds. The blog post for this episode is here: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/75-cutting-edges-flat-mouldsCutting edges on appliance moulds do the work of separating the fine appliance edge from the flashing and excess, allowing the mould to close properly and achieve the feather thin edge you have sculpted. The exact width of the distance between the cutting edge and the actual edge where the sculpt stops and the real skin begins varies between artists and techniques, preferences and materials. One thing is sure - make it too narrow and there isn’t enough mould to provide a stable cutting edge and make it too wide and you have an excessive amount of cap plastic bordering your piece which can cause unusual wrinkling, flatten hair or skin textures and generally make a piece have a larger footprint than necessary. In a typical rigid core and mould made from plaster or resin, the ‘cutting’ action of the mould on the core is caused by the thin edge being pressed down using a clamp, strap or weight usually. The appliance material (usually silicone or foam latex) is essentially a liquid and therefore responds to the pressure exerted on it by the cutting edge (assuming the mould is accurate and material strong enough to withstand the closing pressure required). With flat moulds, however, there is no core being squished into a mould. Instead, typically the back of the mould is left open and wiped clean with a rigid scraper to arrive at a clean border of cap plastic around the appliance. This clean border should have no silicone residue on there, which allows it to be then melted away on the skin later and thus blending into the skin. Subscribe to the audio podcast 'Battles With Bits Of Rubber' on your favourite podcast app!
~73 - Rod Maxwell stuart bray 2021-02-20 | Rod Maxwell is a bit of a Renaissance man, and the more we talked the more you can see how wearing many hats has informed his approach. Of late, Rod has become known for his fusion of digital techniques with practical outcomes. Looking at his Instagram, you can see trailblazing work with 3D printed moulds, scanning lifecasts and moulds and using that data to create things impossible to do any other way. Overlaying lifecasts done years apart to animate the changes in features displaying the effects of aging? Yes please! Rod created a short movie, The Wishing Well, in which he created and wore 26 makeups to play the various characters...all self applied. Check it out on Amazon Prime and see this behind the scenes video here: youtube.com/watch?v=PYJmW3KYtTw He was on Syfy's Face Off season 3, which he took as an opportunity to take full advantage of the opportunity to make something with an amazing facility at his disposal. He created an app to help artists improve their colour theory skills, called Flesh Master. There is also a corresponding Skin Illustrator 'Rescue On Set' palette to then use those techniques to correct appliance colours to better match skin. Taking it all in, it's a great insight into the work that goes into acquiring the skills and experience which make an accomplished person. We think you'll get a kick out of this one. Check out Rods Instagram: instagram.com/rodmaxwell --------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Battling With Bits Of Rubber: Prosthetics Process & Practice stuart bray 2021-02-11 | Battling with Bits of Rubber: Prosthetics Process and PracticeA webinar hosted by Andrew Schlussel and Framestore, recorded on Feb 8th 2021.-----------------------------"Stuart Bray creates prosthetics and makeup effects for a living, essentially making bits of rubber the right shape and colour to blend into skin. Within that, there are a number of sequential processes all building on each other to complete the task. In this live discussion, Stuart shows examples of the various steps and why they matter, what the limitations are and the problems the work has to overcome. Also, looking at how digital has been incorporated into practical elements and the effect of digital on the practical workflow.Stuart has been working in makeup effects since 1994, and has credits including Saving Private Ryan, Shaun of the Dead, Stardust & Game of Thrones."-----------------------------Check out the podcast: Battles WithBits Of Rubber: The Podcast About Making ProstheticsWherever there are podcasts and at battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#72 - Adam Beane stuart bray 2021-02-11 | Adam has become well known for his miniature and smaller-scale work which has both great expression as well as high levels of detail, and even developed a material which allowed such tight detail for miniatures called Cx5. The man has done a lot of things and has worked many jobs - let's be clear his feet are on the ground and he knows what hard work is. He also has cultivated a very positive and effective mindset which is infectious and inspiring to behold and makes you want to try harder as you see that he walks the walk himself. There is a great body of work to be seen online, so check out his Instagram, (www.instagram.com/adambeanecreates) so you see what we are talking about. Adam also teaches so check out his website www.adambeane.com and his Patreon at www.patreon.com/AdamBeaneCreates. It's new at the time of writing, so go give the man a hand and check him out. ------------------------------------- Links The study Adam mentions (by Aude Oliva, Antonio Torralba & Philippe. G. Schyns) with the hybrid images is worth checking out here: https://studylib.net/doc/14424564/hybrid-images-aude-oliva-antonio-torralba-philippe.-g.-sc... Adam mentions Sight-Size as a technique in drawing, which is an arrangement of the artist, subject and artwork that allows the artist to see their subject and artwork one-to-one. See more on this here: sightsize.com Also, Persistence Of Vision is mentioned: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_vision Adam mentions Generative Adversarial Network, which I must confess I had not heard of before. Check it out here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network Also seeing this example, an automatic realistic person generator: thispersondoesnotexist.com We mentioned the awesome creature designer and artist Carlos Huante, and his stuff is well worth checking out: http://www.carlos-huante-monstruo.com ------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#71 - Daniel Parker stuart bray 2021-01-08 | Daniel was the first professional prosthetic professional to look at my portfolio. That stuff sticks with you. That was back in 1994, and there was still a lot of Frankenstein stuff kicking about in the workshop from the previous year. I learned a lot being in that workshop, and got to see a makeup test on Ian McKellan for Richard III in my time there. Daniel has recently been praised for his work as makeup and hair designer on The Queens Gambit (Netflix) and Chernobyl (HBO). He has an extensive range of credits spanning 37 years, including Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker, Band Of Brothers, Frankenstein (Academy Award nominee) Empire Of The Sun, Cloud Atlas, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and Enemy Mine. In this conversation, we talked about how often simple techniques and good paintwork can do so much and using appliances wisely. It is very easy for an artist to fall in love with the processes and things they have learned, and to decide to inflict themselves as extensively as possible on anything they do. Instead, the aim is to see the full picture and work with the raw material of the performer and make only the correct changes for the character. Daniel also is a director at his temporary Tattoo company, TattooedNow! which he runs with Serbian artists Igor Strangliczky and Nikola Prijic. ---------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#70 - Dominic Hailstone Part 2 stuart bray 2020-12-28 | In this second and final part of the chat with Dominic, we look at his art and discuss the drawing and sculptures. As usual, this podcast episode is a tale of two stories. Todd and I talk about the difficult work involved in lifecasting the deceased, which can be much trickier than dealing with the living. Then the chat with Dom, looking at his processes for creating artwork, using traditional and digital media and how they can work off each other. ZBrush has become such an integral part of many design processes and is a powerful tool with a terrifying interface which puts many people off. It's a good chat, and it pleased us greatly that the feet-on-the-ground attitude Dom has, despite being such an accomplished designer, was an inspiration. It's the kind of thing you need to hear if you are intimidated by good work. ---------------------------- This past month has seen us produce some new videos for the channel. It's been a while since we have made some video tutorials, and so we present a couple on using cap plastic - one comparing the methods of application using an airbrush and a conventional brush: youtu.be/A71eYQF-Ot4 Todd also made a cool video showing some alternative methods of applying cap plastic as a spray if you are not in possession of an airbrush: youtu.be/YSKcDClVZ8s Finally, a video of a mould Stuart did with makeup effects artist Helen McKenna. Helen had sculpted a neat cyclops bust on a Don Lanning workshop and had kept it under plastic for almost a year. She wanted to mould it but wasn't sure how to go about it. We decided the best way to help would be to mould it in the workshop and video the process: youtu.be/KatTvV8dOrU ---------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Making a silicone mould using the brush-on technique stuart bray 2020-12-16 | Check our podcast: battleswithbitsofrubber.comAfter you’ve taken a lifecast of a performer, you have a solid copy of their face.This is presumably an accurate copy which has recorded the surface of their anatomy as true as is possible. Are we to then leap straight to the joyous distraction of making your modifications – making the nose bigger, changing the chin, adding a wound or a scar, or completely remodelling their face to change them entirely?It is worth taking a moment to recall this original cast you took of the performer is a precious object – it is the only one you have and presumably it was gained at great cost. Drop it and we’ve had it! Now you have this perfect head shape, it is time to make a master mould (usually in silicone) to allow copies to be made.Now we can produce multiple versions in a harder plaster for sculpts to be floated/separated off at a later date or make lightweight versions for attaching finished appliances to for painting or shipping (air freight is rather expensive, you know!). Three people can sculpt different appliances on the same nose simultaneously. A copy can be sent to the performer as a gift, and we could even test makeups by applying to a copy of the head without the cost of booking the performer to thrash out paint schemes and best approach.This video takes a look at one way to make a master mould. Obviously, techniques vary and no two moulds get made the exact same way so I present to you here a typical process I would use for a master mould in silicone. Thanks for watching!Check our podcast: battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#69 - Dominic Hailstone Part 1 stuart bray 2020-12-13 | In this episode (and the next), we have a chat with artist Dominic Hailstone. He works extensively with visual effects and has a background in makeup effects and practical effects which inform his approach. Being an early adopter of visual effects and using computers places him in a unique position of seeing both sides and is well versed in the processes and business in film making. As you will hear, his intimate understanding of film making as a storyteller and a designer gives him a good insight into the business. Necro Deathmort Album Cover Art Check out Dominic's website dominichailstone.com where you can see his work as a director in The Eel, artist, sculptor and visual effects reels. The variety and range of mediums and styles is fantastic, and you really have to see this stuff to appreciate what he is capable of. We think you'll get a kick out of it. Dom is also on YouTube and Instagram @dominic_hailstone_ In this first part, the areas we cover include: Management meddling with effects and design choices. Being responsible for more than just effects, creating your own work. The struggle between old school & new tech. What is special now, and the insubstantial nature of the internet ------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
Cap Plastic & Airbrushing stuart bray 2020-12-11 | battleswithbitsofrubber.comIn this video, we want to look at cap plastic and how it is used when making silicone gel-filled appliances. Cap plastic has been used to make baldcaps for years and is often used as a material to encapsulate silicone appliances as it gives you a blendable edge and a surface which can take glue and paint. How that cap plastic is applied to the mould surface is important, and the options are usually airbrush or conventional paintbrush.In this video, I’ll take a look airbrushes and compressors used, as well as comparing the results of cap plastic applied by airbrush and a paintbrush. If you want more prosthetic makeup information, check out our podcast, Battles With Bits of Rubber, found wherever there are podcasts. You can leave us a voice message through our website and take part in the show!instagram.com/battleswithbitsofrubber
#68 - Q&A stuart bray 2020-11-29 | This episode is a catch up on some emails and questions we had over the last couple of weeks. We have some great questions this time around, so many thanks for getting in touch! We talk about epoxy surfaced moulds, crinkly edges, and dodgy makeup course practices. Books mentioned in this episode: Silicone Art - Silicone As An Art Material By Tom McLaughlin V1.3 Fundamentals of Facial Prosthetics By Robert E McKinstry Products mentioned: MAC Matte Cream or 'Crème Matifiante' A quick shout out to Thomas Tuohey for making this awesome mixer head available on Thingiverse: thingiverse.com/thing:4648372 This fantastic materials calculator: https://www.fxcalc.monster/ Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#67 - Brian Kinney stuart bray 2020-11-16 | Brian Kinney is a primetime Emmy-nominated makeup artist and a Journeyman in IATSE Hollywood Local 706 Make-up Artists and Hairstylists Guild, where he serves as Makeup Craft President and Executive Board Member. His work can be seen in feature films and television shows, such as Fear The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Purge: Anarchy and CSI. Check out his extensive IMDb page to see the hefty list of credits. Brian came to my workshop just after Christmas 2019 and we had a great afternoon catching up and recording a chat. It seems funny to remember when you could just be in a room with other people normally and not wear masks... Anyhoo, we started our chat with the time Brian visited the workshops of Stuart Freeborn (original Star Wars trilogy, 2001, The Bridge Over The River Kwai) which is eye-watering nostalgic. Brian has a fantastic manner, combining the makeup artists skills with exquisite etiquette (plus a great voice for radio as you'll hear!). We chat about being responsible for things on set, how bosses may allocate tasks to their freelancers, case-hardening skills learned in makeup school in the real world and being available to help others. Check his website out here. He is on Instagram @bekinney. -------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#66 - Lars Carlsson stuart bray 2020-11-11 | Lars is a generous self-taught artist from Sweden. He works in film, TV and theatre productions often using new technology to scan and print items for practical effects. We wanted to chat theatre stuff, as that is not something we have spoken much about on the podcast. It's an area which may well be more available for people starting out, as many sizes of theatre and regional playhouses have small scale productions offering great opportunities for creative people starting out. In this episode, we talk scanning, printing and sculpting in virtual reality, trouble with new LED lighting in theatres, making mistakes and having the courage to say YES to things in order to figure out how to do them. We also chat about the famous airbrush splatter nozzles which Lars came up with and freely shares on his website. Check out Lars' website, shop and in particular, the tutorials which cover so many important areas in makeup effects, from sculpting, moulding, painting and of course, hair punching. Of particular note is the excellent silicone calculator on there too! Lars is on Instagram @makeupfx. We mention the Effects Lab, which was a big deal in the early days of the internet before everything became a massive echo chamber. It is currently being overhauled and upgraded, but much of it is accessible here. Well worth checking out if you haven't already. Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#65 - Ghosts, Goblins & Cutting Edges stuart bray 2020-10-29 | battleswithbitsofrubber.com It’s Halloween. A Saturday! A full moon! Also not happening because of Covid. Boo. It’s a damn shame, but I imagine around the world, a lot more horror movies will be watched. I can only hope such mass consumption will drive production to make more stuff as we burn through the back catalogue of shows with a worldwide captive audience. Cutting Edges On appliances, a cutting edge is often employed to mark the boundary of where appliance stops and real skin should begin. With foam and gelatine, the end of the piece was the end of the piece. With silicone appliances, we usually have a cap plastic barrier which extends beyond the silicone edge to provide that nice, melt-to-nothing transition. However, on a lot of flat moulds, we have seen varying takes on how far away a cutting edge should be from the sculpt. We chat about that! Cap Plastic On The Back Of A Piece We also chat about cap plastic on the back of pieces. Usually necessary when a mould and a core is involved, but there are some reasons why it is desirable to not have cap plastic on the back of a piece. For one, often when removing the appliance, the cap plastic will stick better to the skin because of the glue than it does to the back of the appliance. This ‘delamination’ means it takes longer to clean up and can be a pain. Why cap plastic the back at all? Usually two reasons. One reason is deadened/softened silicone is very sticky, so the barrier makes it possible to handle the piece during demoulding. The other is to allow ‘cheaper’ water-based adhesives (as opposed to the more expensive silicone adhesives) to bond better to the piece. Let’s not forget that silicone is a material much used for moulds precisely because not much sticks to it. Including most glues and makeup. By having a barrier on the surface which is not actually silicone at all, but cap plastic, suddenly a whole world of things can be used on the makeup and blendable edges are possible. The sheer joy! So, when running flat pieces, now I don’t bother with cap plastic on the back. I did it, like many do, out of habit and seeing it down without really asking myself why it was necessary. By spraying more cap plastic on the back, we essentially double the edge thickness and it’s an extra step in the job. We talk through some notions of why it can be a problem, and how one might get around it. Podcast recommendation Check out a great podcast I just discovered via Kiana ‘Freakmo’ Jones called Red Carpet Rookies. In particular, episode #5 with Bill Corso talking about digital makeup. It’s a great show done by someone who cares about the subject, and I’d add it to your podcast subscriptions if you dig film chat. So, getting the horror on with audio books to keep us spooked during the workshop hours…Salem’s Lot and the The Exorcist was a double bill which put me in the right mood for some Halloween Horror Movies this weekend. Sculpting a vampire face whilst listening to William Peter Blatty read Regan’s tirades at Father Karras felt like a peak moment of Halloween fun. --------------------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#64 - Danny Marie Elias stuart bray 2020-08-27 | Danny has done some interesting things with prosthetics, leading with fashion and high concept looks and bringing appliance work into the mix. Most demonstrations at trade shows involving appliances are showing just the tail end of a much longer hidden process which perhaps isn't at all evident in the final piece. It's nice to hear about what happens in the lead up to such a thing. As with many artists sealed tight with Non-Disclosure Agreements on professional projects, trade shows offer a real opportunity to try something new and experiment with ideas and processes without the risk of shooting days or high-stakes schedules. We chat with Danny about her influences, approach and work ethic and get into some pretty useful stuff. For example, Danny keeps records of makeup applications and lists what was used, including techniques, materials and products as well as notes on what well and what didn't. The result after a number of years is a great resource which will supply a record of a journey, as well as a very practical guide to your own best practice for similar jobs in the future. It takes a deal of humility to acknowledge what didn't work and address those shortcomings. It is also good practice to acknowledge what did work and take note of what went well. It is easy to become automatically self-critical as a default position, but the ability to have genuine regard for your own work, objectively seeing good and bad and using them both as a guide to improvement is a useful tool. It was a great chat and we got fired up as you'll hear. Links to things mentioned in this episode The Dip by Seth Godin: (summary: Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun until it hits a low point - really hard, really not fun. At this point, you might be in a Dip, which will get better if you keep pushing, or a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try. The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it.) Science Kits for kids: robocube.co.uk/collections/stem-kits We mention a popular chain of hardware stores in the UK called B&Q, the name is an acronym of the original owners' names, Block and Quayle. In the US, Home Depot would be an equivalent. If you have been on the hunt for unusual uses for conventional materials, then you may be familiar with the odd looks when responding to enquiries. Check out Dannys' work on her website and instagram. Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#63 - Things That Go Wrong stuart bray 2020-08-19 | We have all spotted things in shows which were never meant to be there. Scars swapping sides, hair up one minute and then down the next, blood which moves shot to shot or an errant edge which can't be hidden. Those are the things which you notice, and maybe take great pleasure in spotting and shaming those unfortunate artists who were 'responsible'. However, there are many things which you didn't spot which could have been issues if they were not overcome before the cameras started rolling. We go through some of these hidden problems which are not so rare, and which will tax the creative minds of those on whose shoulders these things fall. We have had a long lay-off and been quiet coping with one thing and another, so apologies for the radio silence. We have a few new toys which will mean things are going to be more regular on the podcast front. ------------------------------- Links to things we mention in this episode Nomad sculpting app: nomadsculpt.com Procreate art app: https://procreate.art/ Infinite painter: https://www.infinitestudio.art/discover.php Forger sculpting app: forgerapp.com ZBrush (all bells and whistles): pixologic.com Zbrush Core (stripped down, lighter version): store.pixologic.com/zbrushcore-2020 ZBrush Core Mini (even more stripped down and free): zbrushcore.com/mini/# Sculptris (free sculpting app): pixologic.com/sculptris What we do in the shadows (excellent TV show): imdb.com/title/tt7908628 ------------------------------ Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#62 - Mould Closure stuart bray 2020-06-21 | Closing moulds correctly is vital to get good casts out of them. There seems little point in making a good mould and then getting bad casts out of it. In this episode we chat about things to consider when looking at ‘mould closure’. Essentially, a mould other than a flat or open mould will usually need to be attached or fitted to another component to produce a cast. This could be another part of the mould if a ‘multi-piece’ mould is made and/or a core which will be placed into the mould to create the interior. These pieces need to remain securely in position, and may be required to exert a lot of force if the cast piece needs to have thin seams which are more easily repaired. That has cost implications - think about having to repair bad seams of fifty casts out of a mould which wasn’t closed correctly! Small block moulds are often clamped together for speed and convenience, but what happens if the mould is huge, such as a full body or a dinosaur? This episode has another hefty set of notes to help make sense of it all. It is picture heavy and goes deeper into what to look out for. Get them here or the blog post for this episode. ---------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#61 - Cutting Edges stuart bray 2020-06-11 | Cutting edges are the point at which a core meets the mould, and is crucial in creating a fine edge for many appliances. In flat moulds, there can be something similar even though a core isn’t involved, as it establishes where the appliance actually stops and the skin begins. A cutting edge and overflow are critical in foam appliances, especially where a mould has foam latex added and a core is pushed into it. A gap between the core and the mould face would ensure the excess foam could escape, and the contact point where the mould meets the core would be decided carefully and precisely. Go to our website to get the free booklet supporting this episode, or go here. This principle has carried on with silicone, although usually excess waste is minimised owing to the fact silicone isn't mostly made of air, as is the case with foam latex. Wherever the core meets or touches the mould - be it keys, the cutting edge or an unintentional, is known as a touchdown. Getting great edges is important in making pieces which will blend into the skin and appear as part of it, rather than exhibiting a clear boundary where the fake stops and the real begins. Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow! -Stuart & Todd
#60 - Tim Baggaley stuart bray 2020-06-09 | Blog Post for this episode here. Tim Baggaley played the one-armed zombie in Shaun of the Dead. He's a damn nice fella, an actor, talented graphic designer and a fabulous dancer. In this episode, we chat about his experience on set and his recollections of being among the undead. As we chatted, he reminded me of a few other things we had worked on together and we get into the nitty-gritty of whether or not we should see the genitals of monsters. Sounds like a fun tangent, but it is a serious consideration when making creature suits. After all, their absence may be as strange as whatever freakishly upsetting creature-junk one may wish to design in their place. Who wants to write that back story? ---------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow to the right people! –Stuart & Todd
#59 - Mark Donovan stuart bray 2020-06-01 | Here is a little treat - an additional little episode that checks in with Mark Donovan who played The Hulking Zombie in Shaun Of The Dead. We talked through the difficulties involved in getting ready to be attacked with records and cricket bats, shovels and the heat whilst caked in blood. Also, as you'll hear, some very cool comic book related stuff which was an exciting discovery. You may recall in the bumper podcast episode #55 that Stuart Conran mentioned the back story to the Hulking Zombie, how he came to be a zombie and why he was there with Mary. I mentioned this to Mark and not only was he aware of it but he has the actual original panels framed at his home! Check pics in the accompanying blog post here. Many thanks for listening. -Stuart & Todd
#58 - Air Bubbles stuart bray 2020-05-23 | Air bubbles of one kind or another are inevitable if you deal with materials which start out life as a liquid and then later solidify such as plaster, latex, silicone and resin. Let’s take a look at what can happen, why, and what to do about it. Blog post accompanying this post: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/58-airbubbles
#57 - Little John Cormican stuart bray 2020-05-18 | It was a great pleasure to chat with John face to face (before lockdown, I hasten to add) back in December of 2019. John is a well known FX artist who has since gone on to work at Tussauds and is a freelance artist. I think you will get a real kick out of hearing his take, a perfect attitude to how to feel when creating. We chat about what it means to sculpt, that internal dialogue we all have when creating something new, Fact checking bellend: In this, I mistakenly assign Constantin Brâncuși as the artist behind 'Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)' which of course it wasn't - it was Marcel Duchamp. Links to things we mentioned. The Barclays Bank commercial directed by Ridley Scott. youtube.com/watch?v=JnVyANe0ZnE John Schoonraad Episode: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/14-scanners-schoonraads Neill Gorton Episode: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/51-neill-gorton Kris Costa: instagram.com/theantropus Olya Anufrieva: instagram.com/he77ga Follow John on Instagram: instagram.com/jcormican Johns website: johncormican.co.uk Some of John's work Nightbreed at Image Animation, Pinewood Studios. Vasty Moses sculpt in progress. The Judge Dredd wall panels for the movie. Many thanks. Don't forget you can get in touch by leaving us a voice message or email stuartandtodd@gmail.com. - Stuart & Todd
#56 - Q & A stuart bray 2020-04-28 | This episode of the podcast, we catch up with some questions left on our answerphone, emails and comments. Clay issues, alcohol colours, and a nice message from sculpting master Amelia Rowcroft. Cheers to those been in touch, and leaving messages. You can get in touch by email at stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave a voicemail here. I mentioned working at the BBC Visual FX department, and I was reminded that I have a book about it - BBC Vfx: The History of the BBC Visual Effects Department 2010 by Mat Irvine (Author), Mike Tucker (Author) ISBN-10: 1845135563 ISBN-13: 978-1845135560 I mentioned 'enjoy the suck' and it was, of course, 'embrace the suck', and it's meaning is as follows: (military, slang) To consciously accept or appreciate something that is extremely unpleasant but unavoidable. Quite appropriate right now. Check our podcast website here: battleswithbitsofrubber.com
#55 - Shaun Of The Dead: An Appreciation stuart bray 2020-04-26 | The Shaun Of The Dead prosthetic team reunites and talk through the movie effects shots. Blog post for this episode here : battleswithbitsofrubber.com/55-sotd I thought it would be fun to chat with Stuart Conran and Dan Frye, two FX buddies who I have known and worked with for many years on many projects. I rewatched the movie to refresh my memory and listed the effects in chronological order. Make sure to download the free booklet which accompanies this episode:battleswithbitsofrubber.com/55-sotd This little nod of appreciation comes from that place which still makes me warm and fuzzy when I flick through old Fangoria and Gorezone magazines. You can easily get in touch with the show by leaving us a voicemail on our website here or emailing us at the usual address, stuartandtodd@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. -Stuart & Todd
#54 - Approaching Workshops stuart bray 2020-04-17 | Blog Post link: battleswithbitsofrubber.com/54-approaching-workshops Folio under your arm, at some point you may wish to appeal to those who could give you a job. It's nervewracking to be judged, but your folio is maybe pages of your heart and soul now made visible for others to assess and rate. The main way anyone gets work is simply by having a portfolio of good work and then show that to someone who pays for people like that to solve a problem they have. There isn't a single path or trick to game the system. You are not likely to be given a job you are wholly unsuited to - the work is too precious to those who are looking to hire, and there is a pretty robust system of hiring. Here we discuss some main points to help you get your head straight. Think through what you could mean to them rather than what they can do for you. Listen to the podcast for the full monty, but the key points are listed below! 1. How much to charge. Know your worth Know how much it costs you to stand still for a day and do nothing. How much do people get paid? Check with trade union pay rates for your region to compare and see what is current. 2. The film industry isn't looking to take you on and train you. It doesn't need another mouth to feed. The machine which is the film industry isn’t looking to take on someone, spend time training them only to have them up sticks and work for someone else. The ‘industry’ isn’t a single entity, so much a mass of small companies, individuals and private interests. For anyone to take a chance on someone unknown, share their contacts, processes and the inner circle is quite a thing to undertake. The risk is you could take that and use what you have learned to help a competitor, so it’s a peculiar situation to be in. 3. Waiting to be picked. Someone waiting to be picked V an independent self-starter. Evidence of motivated and talent. Show evidence of your desire to do the work. A chef doesn’t require a fully fitted kitchen before making their first omelette – make what you can when you can to the best of your ability. Doing so will give you practice and display your journey to an interested party. The people you are trying to work for are like that and they know their own. If you want to do it for a living then you should be doing it whatever. 4. Awareness of the state of the industry. Do you know about the industry? About current artists names, credits and back story? We have taught at many places where students didn’t know the masters or even watch films to have an awareness of what went before. This is something your potential employers will notice as they DO know and care about it. How good are those currently working and do you measure up? What can you do to improve? What do people pay for? ... People pay to have their problems solved. Whose problems do you solve? Do you know the industry well enough to know that and how you can fit in to it? What can you provide and where do you fit in the workflow? 5. Actual ability levels. Are you an asset or a burden? Are you asking to help them or are you asking them to help you. Conisder their needs first, and how it will shape your approach. Does your folio show examples of what problems the employer will need you to solve? 6. How Busy is the film industry right now? The industry sweeps between crazy busy and deathly quiet. Are they too busy to see your folio? Not busy means they may have time but they are not hiring either. How can you find out and what questions should you ask? It is easier to turn down an email than a phone call. Hard copy letter is something not too many do so maybe that is an option. You can’t game the system – good work and a good attitude will win. Some will hire because of the right attitude and whether you can fit into the organisation as it currently stands. They will pay for someone who is competent enough to do what is asked. Chances are they already have their key players in place, so they are not looking for a Jedi Master. They need enthusiastic and capable people they can slot into an existing framework and who will do what they are asked to do. 7. How close do I live near the work? If you don't, consider the following points. Travel costs Accommodation costs Loss of income from previous job you may leave See it from employers’ point of view Language/visa/immigration issues to consider 8. Luck. Right place, right time. The harder I work, the more good luck I seem to have. You can't control your employers or their desire to hire. 9. People hate 'dear Sir/Madam' It...
#53 - 5 Big Questions Commonly Asked stuart bray 2020-04-12 | There are often a number of questions about prosthetic makeup that get asked often. We put together the top 5 that keep cropping up and do a deep dive into our responses. 1. How do I match an appliance to a person's skin tone? 2. How do I ensure a good edge on an appliance? 3. How can I create good work without spending a fortune on materials? 4. How do I get work? 5. Will computers take over the work of makeup artists? Check out the blog post with extensive notes (and a downloadable booklet) by tapping here. Also, you can leave a voice message directly on our website through our 'Speak Pipe' feature. Check it here. -Stuart & Todd
#52 - Brandon & Jacquie Ryan stuart bray 2020-04-02 | Todd talks with his good friends and fellow artists, Jacquie & Brandon Ryan. This episode looks at how people teach, learn, and maybe don't learn. We all need a motivation to learn, and many of us will require different styles of learning such as visual, auditory, practical hands-on tasks or live demonstration to get started. One simple rule to remember is this: Sucking is learning. Making mistakes is when you learn. Learn how to make mistakes and pick yourself up. Nobody likes failing, but using that as fuel is worthwhile. As the military put it - 'Pain retains!' Check our blog post with extensive notes here.
#51- Neill Gorton stuart bray 2020-03-19 | I first met Neill with a folio tucked under my arm for my interview I had managed to arrange at Ealing Studios in 1995. My first job with him was making oversized Casio watches, which were fibreglassed out of silicone moulds to make G-Shock watch display units. --------------------------------- Check out our new website: Battles With Bits Of Rubber Dot Com --------------------------------- One thing I have always noticed about Neill is that he has a seemingly fearless approach to problem-solving. He will go directly to the source and grab whatever is the root of the issue in order to overcome it. This seems to me to be the single best approach to fixing things which go wrong and thus continue on to better results. It is so easy for us to protect ourselves from the pain of that difficulty that it needs constant motivation and reminding to break through that in-built resistance. The film industry is couched in problem-solving, each situation unique and usually high pressured. It is an attractive career and it rewards those involved with decent pay and pride, at the cost of many long hours and the weight of responsibility. When things are done well by competent practitioners, it often looks like not much has been done at all - as if the ease with which something has been accomplished has been the result of something requiring little skill. The truth is, people who are highly skilled make it look easy, and it is interesting to discuss this with people who are successful and well connected to their efforts which made them so. It does nobody any service to imply that great success is easy, yet there is no shortage of 'get rich quick' schemes online, dangling the carrot of instant fame at the touch of a recording button. Truth is, people pay for what they value and solving problems is a valuable commodity. The job of all of us I think is to figure out whose problems you can solve, and how to be of service whilst building a body of work you can be proud of. In this episode, Neill & Stuart dig into the behind the scenes stuff about what is hard and how to address the weaknesses. We also come up with three very practical ways to get started, which don't involve massive expense or commitment: Sculpt self-portraits with clay, spending just 30 mins a day and reuse the clay to practice sculpting. Mirror, lamp and you. Do this for 30 days. Take a photo each day of what you did in the time, and rip the clay up and reuse it the next day. Repeat. Sculpt a face or creature face onto a board. Make a plaster mould of this and make a latex face mask. Avoid expensive silicone in the first instance, just stick to the basic materials. Highlight and shadow makeups. The cornerstone of everything, modifying forms with just highlight and shadow using a few brushes and a makeup palette such as the 12 colour 'Supracolour' B Palette from Kryolan. Neill also talks about his interest in psychology and how it can best affect how we see to sculpt. We do so many things automatically without actively noticing, so learning to do new things makes you meet those difficulties. That is the blockage when you start learning new things. There is no immediate reward, no endorphin rush of doing something you are competent at. When starting out, most people are awful, few people are 'natural born sculptors'. It takes repetition and powering through the crap stuff, like purging the spout of a half-used tube of glue, getting the crust out of the way so the fresh stuff can get out. I'm a better sculptor because of how I break things down into simpler forms. Complexity is just repeated layers of simplicity. Sculpting is difficult because you have a low-resolution version of things - you can't have a high-resolution version of all things in the world, it is too much information to retain and recall so we become adept at glossing over most things most of the time. When called to reproduce and generate something which is believable, it helps to have a clear idea of how to break down a given subject so it can be approached and digested systematically in smaller, simpler chunks, arranged in the right order. Asked to draw a horse from memory, most of us will realise what we don't have stored as we have instead an 'icon' of what a horse is rather than a detailed, accurate schematic. You know what constitutes a horse so you can recognise one when you see it, but recreating one will require more resolution than you have, so feed that when needed by studying reference material Lastly, a few words about social media enterprises. YouTube sells the idea that it's easy, but there is a lot of unseen work, effort and equipment which needs to be used correctly. The illusion of social media platforms is that they make you think of them as accessible. In the entire history of entertainment until recently, TV and media used up on a pedestal, that...
#50 - Richard McEvoy Crompton stuart bray 2020-01-18 | At IMATS London 2019, I sat and had a great chat with Rick from Bolton University. For those that may not be aware, a breif Rick bio: "Richard is a senior lecturer and Programme Leader of the Special Effects for Film and TV degree at the University of Bolton. He’s been teaching at the university for several years and specialises in character work, in both the prosthetic make-up effects and model-making fields. " In the episode, we talk about the massive effect 3D printing and technology is having on what was previously a traditional skills area. What is cool is that new blood is coming in, taking on board the new tech and learning old skills for the first time in equal measure, making something new and quite special as a result. He is an interesting chap and has, I think you will agree, a very good voice for radio! Give us a listen and let us know what you think. Incidentally, all the lecturers at Bolton have been doing great work there for years, making a real impact on the quality of work and competence the students leave with. The lecturers and support crew in all the courses at Bolton have been so generous and supportive, they really do deserve a shout out. We recently collaborated with various mentors to support their recent Island of Dr Moreau project which was filmed this past week. More on this exciting collaboration with Matt Winston from the incredible Stan Winston Character School of Character Arts here. In it, we discuss various things, and I mention a He-Man and a Skeletor suit made for a Money Supermarket commercial built by Legacy FX. Check out the cool behind the scenes video of David Monzingo, Brian Best and Myself wrangling suits for the commercial shoot in London here. I was lucky enough to help out just for a day - David and the Legacy FX team handled the build and full shoot days - it was a blast! Todd and I chatted about safer mould materials, which is great for anyone with limited workshop access, open spaces and extraction. This led to an interesting discussion about comparing plaster and resin use in the UK and USA for mould making. The materials we mentioned were acrylic polymers to be used with Gypsum, and sound similar in regards to mixing and properties: Jesmonite by Jesomite Acrylic Plaster Polymer by Alec Tiranti Forton MG by Smooth-On Acrylic One by Active Composite Technologies We also discuss the workspaces used by students in makeup schools and colleges, measuring accuracy in CAD and ZBrush and the amazing work of Landon Meier. If you haven't seen his stuff, it really is incredible and you can do a lot worse for entertainment than check out his stuff here: http://www.hyperflesh.com This article is also entertaining: greatbigstory.com/stories/this-guy-makes-the-world-s-most-convincing-masks His Instagram: instagram.com/hyperfleshdude His YouTube: youtube.com/user/disgustedbaby Correction - In the podcast at 19:03 it was Monsterpalooza 2018 we did the Bela Lugosi application - not IMATS as I said. D'oh! Have a splendid week! We shall return soon. Kind regards --- Stuart & Todd.
#49 - Matthew Mungle stuart bray 2019-12-18 | In this episode, I got to chat with Matthew Mungle & visit his jail cell! Matthew and his company, WM Creations have been responsible for makeup effects on scores of shows and racked up a lot of awards and nominations in the process - for a deep dive into that, check out Matthews IMDb profile. The actual real-life holding cell in the studio, now decked out with suitably spooky decorations and effects! So much fun. Todd and I also wax lyrical about the joys of epoxy and plaster, silicones we like for flat moulds and release agents for Pros-Aide transfers. We both like a firmer silicone as there is naturally some pressure that goes on when pressing a scraper over the back of the mould - so a soft silicone mould will compress too much and underfill if you are not careful! One of the sculpting areas in Matthews studio. Matthew talked at length about the process of taking a script, breaking it down and assigning it into a series of tasks - details which you don't often hear people talk about. He always wanted to do his own thing, and so he learned how to please a crew and producers before being a freelancer - getting the priorities right: Learning how to delegate and let things go whilst still controlling quality. How a job gets from words on a page to a series of jobs, and then pieces of rubber on a set. How a TV show is like a train that leaves the station that doesn't stop until it gets to the end of the line. Deciding what will be practical or visual fx. Will an effect be suitable for the target audience to keep director, producer and network happy. Discussing the effect with the appropriate crew like DOP and what to prep for. We are also on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube ... basically, wherever you get podcasts! Subscribe to make sure you don't miss the latest episodes! The video tutorial I mentioned on Freeform Sculpt and Freeform Air is here. (It was a squirrel - not a duck as I mentioned). WM Creations have a range of FX materials such as Soft Sealer, Old Age Stipple and Alcohol Colours, and are available from good retailers such as BITY in the US and The Makeup Armoury in the UK. There are endless rows of lifecasts all over the studio - talk about reference material! Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider letting everyone know - tell a friend, share this episode on the socials and leave a comment or review on iTunes if you feel moved to do so! You can email us directly at stuartandtodd@gmail.com Till next time -Stuart & Todd Click to visit the Blog Post Episode to go with this episode.
