What is Your Work Worth?

This summer I made quite a lot of stuff for Castle Kalmar, which is a stately 16th century fortress (begun in the 12th century). It's one of the big tourist attractions in the south of Sweden and all sorts of arrangements for kids are going on there. This summer they needed some new stuff, which they wanted me to produce for them. Here's some of the stuff I did:


They needed about ten fake rats to be handled by storytellers dressed up as "forgotten prisoners" in the castle's dungeons. As always, they were first sculpted in clay.


They were then cast in latex, filled with soft polyurethane foam and had jointed feet and black button eyes added. The tail was also made in latex. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of them with fur added, but they were actually quite effective when used. A costume-making lady at the castle did the fur-adding job.




I did eight fake bats in the same way, though I added the fur myself. The toes worked as small grappling hooks, so the bats could be hanged around the castle.


They also needed a bunch of fake herrings that could lie in a wooden barrel all summer without going smelly. The fake herrings were foam-filled latex fish.



I also made a latex character mask for one of the storytellers telling ghost tales about the castle.




The nicest thing I did was probably an oversized version of "Five in a Row", using only three pieces per player. Kids could challenge the black knight of the castle to a game of wits. The knight used the black pieces and the kids the smaller white ones. The game pieces were cast in plastic and reinforced with metal bars inside.

Apart from the aforementioned stuff I also made three decapitated heads, with hair, and a bunch of rubber swords. At the beginning of my dealings with the castle, I was only supposed to do the rats and the swords, but as summer went along the crew at the castle came up with more and more stuff. However, I soon realized they didn't have that much money to spend. The things I made for them eventually wound up costing $700, which is not much to begin with. I don't have a registered company, which means that when I do work for, say, a stage show I get paid by buying stuff for the amount I've quoted for doing the job. The stage people take care of the bills and everybody's happy. This time the castle wanted to pay me and needed a proper company to go through. I contacted a billing company to take care of the business. It's run by a friend's friend and they charge 6% of the payment for their services. But after all the taxes and fees that you have to pay in Sweden for running a company were finally paid, I only ended up with $240. This has deterred me forever from doing more of the same work. This is what it's like having your own business in Sweden, ladies and gents. I've never been very interested in politics, but the more work I get, the more I see how much a part of business-making politics is. For a few decades the Social Democratic Labour Party has been in power in Sweden, and they simply don't like small businesses. They rather have workers lined up inside factories and weighed the solitary business-owners down with loads of costly taxes. The last four years the Swedish government has consisted of a coalition of four centre-right, liberal conservative political parties, which have done whatever they can to lighten up things for the small-time business-maker. And things have brightened up a bit. It's actually election day today in Sweden, and I hope they get another four years. Maybe I'll get enough guts to start my own official business eventually.

The Blunderblat Lands on YouTube

You might remember this project, which I blogged about sometime late in 2009; A short film based on Colin West's nonsense poem "The Blunderblat". I thought it would be an easy one to pull off, and completed quickly. But Amanda, the girl who first agreed to appear in the film, dropped out and then it turned out to be nigh impossible to find a replacement. Amanda was supposed to appear as two characters (shot against a green screen), so I actually needed two replacements.



I eventually found them in a local fantasy role-playing club, that I frequently collaborate with. Sarah and Olivia turned out to be just perfect, having no acting training, but going on instict. People like that are invariably the best ones for amateur film productions. We shot the whole thing in a room prepped for chroma key shooting, with the floor and one wall covered by green screen cloth.



I think the result turned out very well. I recently bought an HDV camera, to improve picture quality, especially when shooting against a green screen. However, I can't edit the footage in HD (yet), so the clips are transferred into standard DV, while retaining HD frame size. This allows me to do a bit more image trickery than I've been able to do before.


The background was a very simple silhuette of a city skyline at night. My idea was to evoke old children's TV shows in style, and I think I accomplished that.



As usual, animation was timed with the live-action, so the puppet and the people could interact. The Blunderblat monster puppet was animated against my small blue screen and then composited into the live action/background footage.


A bit more trickery than usual was sometimes needed. In order for Olivia to be carried off by the Blunderblat, she had to balance on a cloth covered stool with legs kicking.



Her footage was then linked to the animated Blunderblat in After Effects. A simple trick really, but it looks pretty good.



Just as I had finished all of the animation, one of my cats smacked the Blunderblat puppet to the floor, where one of its wings snapped.



The culprit himself. I think this is the third puppet he's messed up.


It's a pity this film took so long to finish, simply because I couldn't find any actors. I can't believe how difficult it was to find a pair of girls wanting to appear in this film. At last I met Sarah and Olivia, who are used to dressing up and acting out. They happily agreed to participate, and did a good job of it too. And we had fun doing it. It's likely they'll appear in something else I'll do eventually.

Since this film has a 16:9 format, Blogspot doesn't post it correctly. So I'll have to ask you to go directly to YouTube to watch the finished film: "The Blunderblat".

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)