Lovecraftian Horrors of Clay

I recently helped my filmmaking buddy Daniel Lenneer put together an animated Shoggoth for his non-epic version of H P Lovecraft's very epic "At the Mountains of Madness". You could say Danny's version is the ultimate example of the budget version of a mega-budget project. If you're going to make a condensed version of something too big to really pull off, this is probably the way to do it. From what I've seen, his "The Terror From the Abyss" is turning out to be a very entertaining short film, especially if you know your Lovecraft.

For those of you not that aquainted with Lovecraft's literary heritage, this is a quick sum-up of "At the Mountains of Madness": An expedition from Miskatonic University discovers the remains of an alien civilization in Antarctica and are eventually attacked by a sort of alien guarddog; a Shoggoth. Shoggoths are horrible masses of eyes, mouths and limbs, bred to fight for their masters, the Elder Things, but eventually rebelling against them. This is the dream project of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who has been trying to get it made for years. I hope he eventually does make it. He'd do the book great justice, I think.

On to my version of the Shoggoth. I thought it would be fun to do some really quick claymation to represent the monster, and since I'm such a lazy bugger I figured out a pretty easy way of pulling it off.


Instead of animating a huge mass of clay, trying to keep check of what's moving where in what direction (I'll leave that to Harryhausen), I simply animated separate blobs of clay, morphing into different eyes, mouths and tentacles. These were then pieced together into a writhing mass in After Effects.


Danny had already shot himself and his frequent partner in artistic crimes, Christopher, against a green screen in his basement. We added some smoke to represent churning snow. The Shoggoth comes out of a very dark cave..


..And then procedes to chase our heroes until it overcomes them and they turn into a Shoggoth snack. This is what the finished film will probably look like. There's been a fad in recent years of amateur-made silent film versions of Lovecraft tales. There are basically three reasons for this: Many of his stories were written in the silent film age (though not "At the Mountains of Madness"), as an amateur you don't have to worry about the sound, and it just seems to work very well for his stories.
You can view more images from Danny's project HERE.

The King Who Sought Immortality: Still kicking...

After having worked on this confounded project for almost two years now, all because of crappy bluescreen work, I've come to the decision to get the film finished and move on to the next project. Some scenes have turned out great, others not-so-great. But that's the way of amateur filmmaking. I'm not kidding myself into thinking anything else -I make amateur films. My aim is to have them be entertaining enough, and better than most of the slapped-together stuff you find on YouTube.


All through this project I keep finding that I'm one puppet short. I refuse to cut anything from the fight choreography performed by Dag (the king), and so after thinking I've actually finished his demon-slaying romp, yet another sword slash in thin air is revealed to be supposed to hit a monster. While working in stop-motion mode and studying the live-action footage frame by frame I forget about the purpose of some of the moves filmed almost two years ago.



And I still have quite a few planned puppets left to animate. A bunch of dragons, some scorpion men and som dog/crocodile hybrids. And a snake that sprouts golden wings. All the backgrounds are finished, though. And I've got all the music I need. I probably have more music than I need.











If nothing else, I've learned lots from this project and that knowledge will go into the next film, and on and on it goes...

Busy, busy, busy...

Long time no see...

I thought I ought to post something on my blog to, at least, show some vital life signs. The truth is I've been incredibly busy making stuff for other people than myself. The past six months have raced by! Mostly, I've actually been making masks and props for Star Trek fans. I'm a Trekkie myself, and not the least ashamed to admit it, and very interested in the craft behind the shows and movies.

So the truth is I HAVE been blogging about my work, just not here for a while. In order not to repost any info I'll just redirect you to my Trekspace Blog Archive. There you can read detailed accounts about making Klingon skulls, Gorn babies and other weird, but fun, projects.







Also, I've been making (and still am making) fake rats, decapitated heads and latex swords for Castle Kalmar in Sweden. They're having lots of activities for kids this summer and they're gearing up with props and stuff. It's a fun project and they pay me well, so I'm happy to be a part of it. There will be images of this work shortly.

And my film projects are coming along slowly.. slowly..

Beware the Blunderblat!

One of my ambitions with posting films on YouTube is that I would get in touch with likeminded people from all over the world and even get to collaborate with them. This means exchanging footage without ever having met, and still making a film together. My first attempt at this was "Concerning Brown Jenkin", which I filmed and RavenOfPoe from Australia narrated. But now it's time to try and take things one step further.


One of my favorite children's authors of today is Englishman Colin West. I'm especially a fan of his nonsense rhymes and I had been wanting to do a little film based on his poem "The Blunderblat" for a long time. I finally contacted him and asked for permission to make the video and post it on YouTube. Colin gracefully agreed and disclosed that he (like most people, it seems) was a YouTuber as well.



I asked one of my YouTube friends Amanda, aka VanillaPomme, if she'd like to do the live-action part of the film if I provided the animation for the monstrous Blunderblat. Amanda thought this was a great idea and I mailed her my storyboards for the project. She's a crazy (in the best sense of the word) 13-year old with big acting abilities and ambitions, and perfect for what I intend to put together. So, the idea is that Amanda will play two parts in the story (something's she's vary apt at doing), film all the footage needed, mostly in front of a green screen, and upload it somewhere where I can get it. I'll animate the Blunderblat puppet in front of my blue screen and edit mine and her footage together. The finished film will be posted by us both (and by Colin, if he'd like to) on YouTube. There will probably be some technical issues with the US NTSC footage and my European PAL footage, but I know that they can be resolved. I'm really looking forward to putting this together.

Now; something about the Blunderblat puppet.



There's really nothing new about this puppet -it's made the way I make almost all of my puppets. But it does have insect wings cast in semi-transparent plastic, which is a first for me. More about those later. Basically all the parts of this puppet started as clay sculptures. The Blunderblat is very insect-like. An illustration by Colin West and the line "I watched it rise into the skies Like some colossal locust" seems to indicate this. So I made it as a sort of cross between a grasshopper and some kind of crustacean.


All the parts for the body were cast in latex from plaster molds. All the joints were made with braided aluminum wire and held together with the thermo plastic Friendly Plastic.


The tail and body latex skins were filled with hard, but light, expanding polyfoam. The excess material was cut and sanded down.



Aluminum wire joints to animate the mouth, eyes and mandibles were added to the latex head skin using Friendly Plastic as bonding "bone" material.



I did sculpt and cast parts in latex for the legs, but eventually they just turned out to be too bulky. So I re-did the legs by simply building them up in Friendly Plastic over the wire armature. It took a bit longer to do it this way, but the legs turned out much better.



Now for the wings. This is how I did them, but there are probably better and simpler ways to achieve the same results. I just couldn't figure them out. I started by drawing one wing on a piece of paper, and then traced the drawing onto clay by simply pressing the pencil hard on the paper. I then turned the drawing over and did another inprint in the clay to make a mirror version of the wing. This is how the tracings looked after a bit of clean-up.



I then did a plaster cast of the clay imprint and a silicone mold of the plaster cast. This finally yielded a mold to cast the plastic wings in.



I did two castings of each wing in SmoothCast 325. This plastic is a slightly milky transparent and quite perfect if you want something that'll look transparent, but really isn't. I couldn't make the wings totally transparent, as I was using a blue screen behind them. The wing castings were then pieced together using more plastic to make two wings.



Here's a wing after piecing two halves together and cleaning them up. I didn't mind the little imperfections along the edges of the wing, as that would be natural for a giant insect monster (I suppose). As you can see I've drilled a little hole at the base of the wing...



This is for attaching a bit of aluminum wire with Friendly Plastic. The plastic goes through the hole and really attaches itself to the wing, making the bond between wire joint and wing much stronger.



The Blunderblat has been pieced together and is ready for its paint job. The eyes are plastic beads and the teeth and neck skin are latex. The mandible claws are Friendly Plastic.



The Blunderblat was painted (as I always do) with PAX paint (a mixture of ProsAide glue and acrylic paints). The base is a dark brown with a mix of grey and gold drybrushed on top of it.



The eyes, teeth, mouth and some highlights were airbrushed with acrylic airbrush paints. They usually stick very well to the PAX mixture.



Along the back a pattern in yellow and bright purple was airbrushed on. It was inspired by markings on certain insects.



The wings also got a dash of paint to give them a bit more depth.



In order to animate the beast flying around with as little trouble as possible I attached a thick aluminum wire rod to the puppet. The rod was covered in soft string and painted blue, and stuck to the side of the puppet that isn't going to face the camera as planned. If I were to change that set-up I'll just flip the image in the editing and that should work out fine. I prefer to use a support rod to hanging the puppet from strings attached to an aerial brace, which can be a bit of a mess. You also have to stop the puppet from swinging every time you've touched it. When the puppet is attached to a rod it stays put. Sometimes you have to remove the rod in post prod editing, but it's worth the trouble.

Well, that's all for now, boys and girls. Hopefully the Blunderblat will make its YouTube debut before Christmas and you'll find out exactly what a Blunderblat does, why Amanda is cloning herself and how our collaboration worked out.

Latex Masks and Plastic Skulls

I just posted a short film clip on YouTube about one of my biggest pastimes; making latex monster masks. I thought I'd post it here as well. One of the masks featured is the Dagon mask I blogged about earlier this year. Also, I included a gallery of some of my LARP work.

Some of my best friends are very much into Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP), meaning they dress up as orcs, elves, warriors, clerics and various ancient and fantasy-inspired characters. They help me out making stuff for my films (clothes, leather- and metal work, etc) and I return the favor by making masks and various slippery slithery things for them. Recently I did a plastic orc skull for my friend Liz, who often makes clothes for my puppets and people appearing in my videos. As usual, I first did the skull as a sculpture in Chavant clay and built up a mold in Dragon Skin silicone over it. The actual skull was cast in the mold with SmoothCast 325 and painted with bone white car spray paints and acrylic airbrush colors.

I wanted a (what is now) retro orc look, inspired by the big-jawed orcs made popular in the late 1980's and during the 1990's by British Games Workshop. This design is frequently referred to as the "Warhammer" orc. The orc designs from Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films have pretty much taken over, which means that the modern orc is quite human-like and thus easy to recreate for the LARPers. The older orc was green, muscular and a bit cartoonish. I kind of like them better and I'm trying to re-introduce them (along with a friend) into the Swedish LARP arena by subtly changing the look of my masks and props. Someday we'll explode onto the LARP scene with a fully fledged retro orc suit! (this is the stuff you ponder when you don't have a proper life to worry about)

Tiger Shark Ready to Swim

I finally pulled my thumbs out of my arse (a Swedish expression) and finished my contribution to Shelley Noble's "Halfland" project -the Tiger Shark. I just have to find out how she'd like the puppet supported during the animation. Right now it's attached to a bendable rod of braided aluminum wire, but that wire must in its turn be attached to some kind of foot or stand. I'll await instructions from Shelley.

The puppet in itself is a big experiment for me. It's made only out of silicone, with some cotton padding. It's also painted with tinted silicone. Only the teeth (latex rubber) and the claws (plastic) are not silicone. The puppet turned out way too toy-like for my taste, but that may suit the overall style of Shelley's project, so if she's happy I'm happy.

Save Prince Plutonium!: Go green!

I was lamenting a couple of posts back about how badly my BLUE screen compositing experience turned out. While filming "Save Prince Plutonium!" this summer I used a GREEN screen instead and the results have been like night and day. I've been able to key my diminutive actors into new backgrounds without any heartache. Just take a look:



I hardly have to do any adjustments in the Keylight keying software to get everything the way I want it. Apart from this I've had tremendous difficulty actually getting the footage into my PC. I shot all of the live-action scenes using a HDV cam borrowed from a boarding school, where I help out teaching art on occasion. Problem was all of the footage was saved on a memory card and I needed the necessary software installed on my PC in order to have the camera "talk" to the computer. The CD with the software had been mislaid by the very slack drama teacher of the school and I've spend the past two months trying to figure out ways of saving my precious footage. This past weekend, with the help of a friend working with cameras and different softwares, I managed to transport the film clips from card to PC. I also found and bought a software that will transfer HD footage into standard DV footage, `cause I really don't need it in HD. In fact, I can't edit HD on my PC at present. But my plan had always been to utilise the higher resolution of HD even when transferred to DV, and this software allowed me to do that. So I'm happy again!

So now there'll be a few months of piecing together of footage, backgrounds, pyrotechnical effects, model work and stop-mo animation. I haven't started on building puppets yet, since I have a bunch of older stuff to finish first. But I'm already happy with how this is turning out. The kids did such a good job acting in the film, I'm really happy to know now that the chroma key effects and all the other stuff will turn out very well, and they'll have a film they'd be proud to show their friends.