Battles With Bits Of Rubber

Crafting Believability: The Art of Animatronics with Chris Clarke In this episode of 'Battles with Bits of Rubber,' Chris discusses his journey and experiences in the world of animatronics. He recounts various projects, including building the horse animatronic for 'Warhorse' and the massive head for 'Wicked.'  Chris emphasises the importance of blending practical effects with digital methods, recounting his creative process, challenges, and innovations. He highlights how simple, logical solutions often work best and shares his early passion for special effects, driven by a desire to solve technical problems.  Chris also touches on the broader industry trends, including the ongoing relevance of animatronics despite the rise of CGI. The conversation provides insights into the creative and practical aspects of animatronics, underscoring the necessity of believable results over mere realism. ------ Check out full episode notes, pictures and links here: https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/98chrisclarke

Richard Martin is a multi-skilled and astute operator. He combines creative flair with a very sound approach to business, problem-solving and meeting deadlines.  Often, as creative people, we love to dig deep into the joyful processes of making stuff, but often we lack the capacity to insist on sufficient time, money and space to allow that to happen. Richard talks about that in this episode, and we are so happy with the conversation we had.   Fresh from his stint on the successful TV drama series The Day Of The Jackal with Eddie Redmayne, this was a joy to record, and we both met with Richard and recorded this episode in his workshop in the Midlands in November 2024. Richard did not start from an effects background, coming to the field later in life from a sales background, which has helped him approach the business of effects from a, well..., business frame of mind. In this episode, he presents a refreshing perspective on how we should support our talent. We cover various topics, such as:  Discussing Floc

Mastering Digital and Practical Prosthetics with Brian Best   In this episode of 'Battles with Bits of Rubber,' we delve into the intricate world of prosthetics mould-making with the talented Brian Best.    Join us as we explore Brian's transition from traditional mould-making to mastering ZBrush, discussing the nuances and challenges faced along the way. We cover many topics, including the practicalities of clay and silicone, the difficulties of working with different materials, and the invaluable lessons learned through years of hands-on experience.    From reminiscing about early projects like 'The Avengers' (the 1998 Ralph Feinnes/Uma Thurman number, nothing to do with the Marvel universe!) to modern digital techniques, this episode is packed with insights for both beginners and seasoned professionals in the world of prosthetics.    Whether it's the importance of keeping meticulous notes, understanding the nuances of different software, or the cultural differences in mould-making across the At

This episode discusses our experience following the Prosthetics Event 2024 in Coventry. We mention our highlights, including networking, speaking to hundreds of people with our presentations, and a series of insightful discussions, which we hope you will find very helpful if you are a rubber monster freak like us.  We chatted with Adrian Rigby, known for his exceptional bald cap techniques. He shared his methods and discussed common challenges in creating realistic bald caps.  We also discuss the advances in digital workflows in prosthetics moulding with Sangeet Prabhaker, who shares his innovative methods, including reverse engineering life casts and 3D printing to make lightweight, efficient moulds and very realistic appliances.  The conversation touches on the importance of adapting to new technologies and continually innovating in the field. While technology has evolved, the basic principles of mould-making remain vital, so you should download the free notes we made for it.  We try to capture the essence

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) 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!

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 @brokenshark

  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/

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/ --- Stuart & Todd  

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.

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 acco

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 cl

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

"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 af

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 re

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 stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site. If you enjoy

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: https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/ Thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at stuartandtodd@gmail.co

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 stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site.   If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, wo

  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 informat

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