Episoder
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This time around we discuss the technical aspects of 3D modelling and printing for practical work, especially in creating detailed prosthetics and animatronic components using software like CAD and ZBrush.
We delve into teaching and learning new techniques, particularly the significance of hands-on experience in moulding and sculpting.
Then we look at taking on jobs without proper qualifications, highlighting the potential dangers and importance of safety in prosthetic and special effects work.
With Sasquatch suits, severed heads and blood gags on stage, come and join us on episode #94 of Battles with Bits of Rubber!
----Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
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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!
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Mangler du episoder?
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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
https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/falmouthp1
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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. https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/
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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, https://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 @ [email protected] or leave us a voice message on https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/
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Stuart & Todd
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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.
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Adam Dougherty and his company https://www.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: https://youtu.be/xKEA_JV7jF8
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Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us directly at [email protected] 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 -
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.)
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Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us at [email protected] 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 -
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.
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Many thanks, as always, for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us at [email protected] 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 -
"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 dayBill 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 [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.
-Stuart & Todd
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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.
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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.
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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
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Check the shownotes on the blog: https://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 [email protected] 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
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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.
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Check out the website for more info and full show notes: https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/
Thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
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Competence and comfort are the results of the repetition of activity over a significant period of time. In an age of endless self-promotion, this podcast has always championed the work involved in quiet competence. Being competent at something is what people will pay money for, so it is worth considering as an ambition. But how do we keep ourselves on the right track? A great many working professionals have a very meagre following on social media precisely because their work is mostly protected and discrete because of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), and they are not looking for mass appeal from as many people as possible. Check out this episode written post on the podcast website - it's hefty - https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/ ---------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
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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 (https://www.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 [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.
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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.
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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
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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.
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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
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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
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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.
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Incidentally, it was Gorezone #9 which had the awesome Evil Dead 2 stuff I mentioned.
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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: https://instagram.com/carl_lyon_ https://instagram.com/rob_freitas_Check out the podcast website https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com
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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 https://www.gutenberg.org/.
Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] 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
- Se mer
