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!
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Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMIFRXLW8c
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!
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
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 @ stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message on https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/
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Stuart & Todd
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.
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:
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!
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 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!
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 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!
And he says "Figure out how to do that scene!"
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
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 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
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 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
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 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
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 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
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
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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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 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
In episode #74 we talk about running lots of foam latex and overcoming the things that can go wrong with foam latex. Despite silicone being the material most go to first, it is a very real material that needs to be kept in mind for certain projects.
We also chat about how 3D scanning and printing has had a tangible benefit on some jobs we had this year, and how using this technology has enabled things that would not have otherwise been possible.
Many thanks for listening!
-Stuart & Todd
Email the show on stuartandtodd@gmail.com
Leave us a voice message straight from our website.
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: https://www.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: https://www.instagram.com/rodmaxwell/
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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!
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.
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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: https://www.sightsize.com/
Also, Persistence Of Vision is mentioned:
https://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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network
Also seeing this example, an automatic realistic person generator:
https://www.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/
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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!
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.
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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!
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.
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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: https://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: https://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: https://youtu.be/KatTvV8dOrU
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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!