Things are good, I’m still working on my first job and it’s going well, I have been sculpting in every spare minute between shifts at the Odeon whilst covering holiday there and at the beginning of this week I moved into the studio space I hired to complete the project. I have 3 weeks left and will post a full update once I’m done but in the meantime since I never mean to neglect this blog but am only doing stuff I can’t post about at the moment I thought I would incorporate something else into it.

I have tried twice in the last couple of years to set up a blog about special effects, like what is going on currently in that world, who is working on what, concept art, progress shots and that kind of thing and twice I have made about 3 posts and then left it by the wayside, so the logical thing to do is just to incorporate it here, without any particular commitment to make it a really regular thing, just posting about stuff I find that I think is exciting and when I can’t write about stuff I’m doing myself. So since that is my current situation and I’ve been to busy to find new stuff to write about I’m posting pics I posted before in one of the manifestations of my fx blog, because they’re awesome and largely unseen, I found these pics posted by a guy who made the Vinvocci make ups for millenium fx that appeared in Doctor Who, kind of a long time ago now, (Christmas I think)

Here’s one of the sculpts

And here’s what they looked like painted, the paint job is my favourite thing about them but to my memory did not come across well at all on screen, they just looked very bright green and none of the intricacies of the paintwork came through. So I’m glad the artist posted these although I don’t know his name since he posted them under some random username. I will do some investigating and see if I can find out.

The past 10 days or so has been, for lack of a better term, completely nuts.

Starting with Jonah Matranga at the Camden Barfly, he played an awesome set, and it was just the funnest night I have so far managed to have in this town. We met him briefly afterwards as always but got a photo this time.

New Blades came next which was our second exhibition, though only around half of the course could participate since the show includes students from the other model making courses like Bournemouth and space is limited. So on Wednesday we set up the show, it took all day to screw all the boards together, wire up the lights and arrange our work, although we did spend the best part of two hours lounging about in the canal side bar at lunch time. When I was done I had to get to Kentish Town to go pick up my business cards which were just ready in time.

Thursday morning I was back at the studios by 10 where I had to finish setting up since I didn’t have all the robots with me the day before and could only make up the boxes once I was there (they looked awesome this time btw, I even got round to putting cellophane in the windows!), but got it all sorted just in time to spend the next TWELVE HOURS standing around looking optimistic (Can you see the optimism on my face in the second pic? can you?).

It was pretty cool to see all the work from the other unis, on the Weds we all felt completely inadequate watching Bournemouth unload their work from MDF crates they had specially made (think arc of the covenant) while we were just tearing off scraps of bubble wrap and cardboard. All the work from the show can be seen Here, you should definitely go and look, it was a great show and everyone did amazing work. We did notice however that all the prizes (best in show etc) went to people whose work was in the same room as the free bar, and that room was busier by far all night

It was pretty arduous standing around for all that time, it was made easier in the afternoon when AJB arrived with Hugh though, they hung around for a while and kept me company until 6 when the official ‘industry’ part of the show began. My tutor Cath brought a guy from Asylum over to meet Ben who was next to me, I sorta watched their conversation and it seemed to be going really well and then Cath introduced him to me and he seemed a bit less interested, I’m not sure if I just messed up or what but I was hopeful about Asylum since I think they put out a lot of the type of work that I do but erm..nevermind I guess. The rest of the night went considerably better, I met a lot of industry professionals who were really complimentary about my work, I got a couple of cards too which is awesome. My previous work experience employer Karen came and it was brilliant to catch up with her. In an amazing piece of luck she was chatting to me when the guy who hires people for Tussauds studios was talking to Ben, they know each other so Karen was able to put in a good word for me there and then and I had a good chat with him. Ben also managed to get the man in charge at Artem to come over and I was able to talk to him about how much I liked mould making, he took my card. AJB came and met me at the end and we sat on a canal boat drinking Corona till it was time to go home.

I had to go back in the morning to help take it all apart which happened considerably quicker than putting it up despite everyone’s hangovers and general lethargy and then that was it, all over, no more uni. I headed home and had to get sorted to move house the next day.

We have been living in this weeny room for 1 year and 1 week, when we took the bed out it looked even smaller than it had done before. Our friend came down with a van and helped us heave all our stuff up the squillion stairs to our new place. It is super exciting to get this flat, finally our own private space and quite a big one by London standards too. I am fixated on the fact that I have a little hallway and am on the hunt for a hat stand and a bakelite phone to put there.

We had an excellent first night thanks to David and our proximity to the Kings Head and living in London generally has gotten a lot happier now we’re here. (See how happy, this is just KFC…at 1am).
We are doing it up a little and buying pretty things to make it our own so I’ll post some pics when it’s done. (since originally typing out this entry I managed to snag a black bakelite phone for £16 off ebay!)

So between the uni exhibition & New Blades, I had been ringing round a few companies to ask if they were hiring and all the responses I got were that they were winding down and due to be quiet for a couple of months, though i sent my CVs and folios to them and got nice responses back which made me feel pretty positive and like I was being taken seriously.
But I responded to an ad i noticed on the internet asking for an effect for a small indie film, it turned out to be paid work and a very exiting project. I found out the day after new blades that I had the job. I don’t want to say too much about it just yet but will write all about it when I can.
If that wasn’t enough I got a call on Monday from Artem inviting me to interview to see if I could be added to their database of people they call on when staffing projects. And on Tuesday I got a text from Karen advising me to get in touch with the Tussauds guy and implying I might get an interview if I ask for one. Eep! I emailed him the same day and am keeping my fingers crossed I get a response, though I guess the fact that I am busy now for 2 months may change whether or not I’m worth contacting right now. I went to my interview yesterday and I think it went well, it was awesome to be shown around and I was invited to get in touch and send pictures when I finish my current job. I am left wondering if they had work there and then that I have missed out on but I guess I can’t dwell on that, I’m very lucky to have the job I’ve got at the moment even if I can’t quit the cinema over it and I got the impression that there will still be opportunities in a couple of months.

To end an incredible few days me & AJB went to see the Get Up Kids in Camden but not before we went out for an end-of-degree-and-nutjob-week dinner, we ordered ‘Nacho chicken Burgers’ or something expecting to get a chicken burger with nachos and all the stuff to dip them in on the side, no way could you fit all those things inside 2 bits of bread. How wrong we were…the burgers were 8 inches tall, rammed with tastiness (including Nachos, sour cream and guacamole) and may possibly be the best food I ever ate. We are also a little bit enamoured by the restaurant itself, someone put it together with love and hung dozens of beautiful rock posters on the walls.

The show was awesome, rammed but we stood up front for the first 5 or 6 songs. We met up with some friends there and had an ace night in general, we even managed to purchase our first poster for our currently bare walled flat.

But just incase I hadn’t babbled on about enough crazy awesome things here, I found this pic of AJB discussing his sketchbook with Mr.Dave Gibbons after a figure drawing seminar he gave in St.Albans Library a few weeks ago. If you look closely you can see AJB’s 20ish year old copy of Watchmen that Mr.Gibbons signed for him, and yes, I’m only saying that because it’s one of the zillion things that makes AJB cooler than you.

Two weeks passed between the hand in day and last night’s degree show, I still had to work for the entire time, either at the cinema or at home making a second set of robots, fixing up stuff, getting graphics printed and taking the minotaur photos. I still didn’t get everything I wanted to done but was glad I put the time in when it came to the show.

I didn’t really get to see the rest of the shows due to having to loiter around my work but we were apparently the busiest show by a long shot. In the frame in the photo on the left is Sam’s Clown who rattles against his bars when you push a button. In the other photo is James with his animatronic dragon.

Industry people seemed a little thin on the ground especially in comparison to tutors, students and parents but I was pleased to find I had work that anyone wanted to talk to me about and people actually stopped to look over the pictures or poke at the silicone. I don’t think I got rid of many business cards, certainly not to anyone who is likely to get in touch but not to worry, it was still quite fun and a good pay off for all that work.

Again, I don’t know how this took this long, I worked every available hour and it just wouldn’t get finished. I really loved the carving and sculpting parts of this project but unfortunately there was TONNES of sanding required to get it to completion and a frustrating and disheartening painting process. In the end, I’m happy with the shapes of the robots, I think they look as much like my original sketches as they could do. But I’m disappointed with the finish. I painted the first (blue set) with enamels that I’d never used before and will never use again. The second (purple) set I used car paints which were a big improvement but my masking wasn’t good enough and the result looks messy. In retrospect I should have picked designs that could be hand painted in acrylics and did not need so much precision. I might repaint them, but I’m a bit sick of it for now.

Everything was carved in foam or sculpted in chavant and then moulded in silicone and cast in polyurethane resin.
The big one was carved in high density foam and moulded and cast in fibreglass.

I gave my illustrator images of the bots to my friend Simon and he created the amazing packaging and poster designs which made the whole project look a lot better than it really should. Thank you Mr. Myers

I honestly don’t know how none of this got finished till the last minute but that’s the way it panned out. Still it’s well and truly done now and I have awesome pictures to prove it.

In bits and pieces over the past few months, in between robot construction, I have made a fibreglass skull cap to support the horns, stitched and moulded the leather pauldrons, made a big plastic ‘stone’ to stitch into the belt, and made a latex bald cap in order to finish the costume and get ready for the application and subsequent photo session.

Getting the prosthetic on to AJB was quite a mission since it has to slot over the horn ‘pegs’ and the ears. I found it really difficult to get it stuck down round the eyes and under the bottom lip. I think I might try and take a class in prosthetic application since I’m sure there is more to it than the slap dash effort I made, once glued in place I painted over the edges with some dark brown grease paint, slotted on the horns and put on the cape, belt and Pauldrons.

The light in the flat is pretty awful so I was prepared with a clip lamp and high wattage bulb which I had to hold in my left hand while standing on a chair and taking photos with my right. I had also invested in a faster lens for my camera which really paid off in some of the shots. Sadly most of the longer shots are a little blurry since I was further away with my lamp but all the same, I’m still super happy with the whole thing.

I didn’t mean to abandon this blog for quite so long but that’s how busy I’ve been. Anyway the final deadline passed on the 14th, On the 7th we had to vacate the studio in order that the show could be built so we have somewhere to present our work. This year has been all kinds of awesome so I figured I should have a studio retrospective here and post all the pics I have taken and some I stole off other peoples facebook.

Pete and Helena’s puppet head sculpt.

Sean and Kobe test out their projects.

Paul, James, Ellie & puppets.

Oh sanding.  Ben and Alex cleaning up the seams on Cthulu and Andy Strauss

Mike hair punching his aye aye next to a giant flamingo.

I’m fairly sure that what’s going on here is people looking up star wars related you tube clips on Deans laptop but I liked this pic for the hoodies really.

Christy sculpting her giant awesome head. Ellie photographing her puppets.

Alex applying her prosthetic to Ben, Dean posing with his District 9 gun.

Christy, murdered.

Last day, about 4.10pm on May 14th after we all put our work out for the show.

If I never get to work in another fx studio again, this time was good enough

In the space of two days I saw this fox relaxing in my neighbour’s garden and then these frogs canoodling in the UH car park. Why does spring seem so much more prominent this year? Is it because I live in london and everything beautiful and natural shines a little brighter now by contrast?

Some changes have gone on regarding the robot project, but good ones, more details next time, but I’ve had the last 3 days at home to write my essay. It’s about robots and as a result I have recently watched downloads of Metropolis and Forbidden Planet. Metropolis had a live orchestra playing the soundtrack and consequently you can hear little coughs throughout the entire film.
At 7.50 this evening I was at around 5000 of 6000 words, I had this conversation:
AJB : oh so it’s like a skeleton, just needs fleshing out some?
Me : I would say it’s more like a burn victim, just needs a few skin grafts
I have to note that here, I rarely think this quickly.
I made the word count now, It just needs editing and the refs and bibliography and stuff sorting out, but it took a whole lot of procrastinating to get here. Here’s some of the awesome stuff I found on my internet escapes from my insufficient word count.

I couldn’t believe I had never heard of Captain EO before, am I the only one? AJB knew about it….

Besides sculpting a robot, here is what I’ve been up to lately…

In spare hours I have punched all the leather from the minotaur project and then taken it to work to stitch. I’m gonna find a moment in the studio this week to make the stone so I can finally get the belt finished.

Also at work I have been sketching, mostly studies of people in the Odeon Magazine, in biro on scraps of old time sheets.
Work has also allowed me to read ‘The End of Mr.Y’ and start Harry Potter 5 (which I picked up in the charity shop for £1..yay!) in the last couple of weekends.

I bulked out the feet of the robot and that seems to have turned the corner for the project. I’m happier about it now and feeling excited about things again. It’s still lop sided which is causing me a headache and I think someone stole some of my clay which sucked but now I have new clay and am hoping to make significant progress this week.

My Blue foam nightmare is over. I have moved downstairs to the sculpture studio where I found this randomly lying about >>>

I was very disappointed to find that it just seems to be a leg and a ribcage, other wise I would be wearing it in those pictures.

The robot is coming on a bit, I got a layer of clay on, no point in showing the pics since it looks just the same as it did in the last ones but covered in clay. I tried to order more Chavant today but mouldlife say they have a 3 week wait on it due to snow in New York delaying their order. I really hope this does not signify a national shortage, that would be very uncool right now. I will go by Tirantis on Saturday to see if they have some.

I am still not having a great time on this project, I think I am too impatient to sculpt something this big. I feel sick when I think about it and I think about it a lot.

In happier news we are trying to raise £4000 for our degree show(s) and as a part of that a bake sale was had and these amazing sesame street cakes were made by someone on the course. (unfortunately I wasn’t there, I was in Cov so I stole this pic off Alex’s facebook)