Abyssal Horrors

I think we can all agree that the really deep, dark ocean depths are a scary place. We don't know what's down there -what we DO know is that we don't know. It's a perfect place to set a scary story, and many authors have. I'd been eying H G Wells´ short story "In the Abyss", where a scientist in a bathysphere encounters amphibious humanoids, indeed; he's shown their whole civilization on the sea floor. Eventually, I decided to cook up my own tale exploring Talassophobia, which as phobias go, seems to be a trendy one. A lot of people have it. It's basically the fear of the deep ocean, but could just as well say that it's about being averse to dark, unknown places. I decided to make the monsters of my story enlarged versions of real deep sea fish. All the fish I based my puppets on are quite small in real life. Making them bigger turned them into creepy monsters.

This fish is based on the "Humpback Blackdevil", or Melanocetus johnsonii Ghunter; an angler fish with a huge mouth full of nasty teeth. All my fish puppets were made the same way, so I'll use this one to describe the majority of the process. I turned to my trusty medium-grade Monster Clay for the sculpture. I only did the head in clay and cast a dental plaster mold over the sculpture.

Here's the latex casting I pulled from that mold. I added four layers of tinted latex to get a good, sturdy thickness. The "angling" protrusion on the nose is a thin, but stiff metal wire with a plastic drop shape super glued to the top of it. The plastic shape is a pearl found on a box of jewelry-making hobby supplies at a garage sale. The wire is wrapped in soft yarn and dabbed with tinted latex.

Most of the inside of the latex casting was lined with a mix of cotton and latex, which then dried into a leathery material. It's perfect for making a latex casting keep its intended shape. After that, Polymorph thermal plastic was melted and pressed into the head to make it really sturdy. The plastic also holds the "angling" tool in place. The piece of flat lolly stick was attached so the body armature could hold onto something.

And speaking of that, here it is. It's a 3 mm aluminum wire with one end bent into a hook, so it can grab the lolly stick. More Polymorph was used to secure it.

Thick yarn dabbed with latex was used to bulk up the aluminum wire. The coarse texture of the yarn was a perfect grab-on surface for when the next material was added.

Bits of soft polyurethane foam were cut out and glued down over the padded wire using contact cement.

I wanted a very subtle skin texture for this puppet, but I realized I had to have something. I made this small silicone mold by pressing down dental silicone clay over a car dashboard surface. Tinted latex was then sponged into the mold to create patches of latex skin.

The rubber skin bits were glued onto the foam padding with liquid latex. Tinted latex was then applied along the edges of each piece with a pointy dental tool to make all bits blend together.

The fins of this fish are quite strange-looking. They consist of rib-like structures with skin in between. To create these ribs, I dabbed bits of kitchen tissue paper with latex and rolled them into thin, pointy shapes.

Each rib was attached to the puppet using liquid latex as a bonding agent.

When the ribs were firmly attached, I pressed down a piece of Monster Clay over each fin section until the ribs went halfway down into the clay. Latex was then applied over and in between the ribs. When two layers of latex had dried, the clay was peeled off, and a pretty decent, semi-transparent fin was the result.

The long teeth were also made from tissue paper and latex. The eyes were made with scrapbooking pearls with flat backsides. The body of the puppet was dabbed with tinted latex using a sponge. I forgot to say that where the jaw joins the body I added a threaded 3 mm nut, so I could attach my animation flying rig.

The other fish puppets had smaller heads, so I lined up a bunch of them on a slab to cast them in one plaster mold. As you may be able to see, one fish has a detached jaw, which will be cast as a separate piece.

Dental plaster was again used, and brushed on to avoid air pockets during the casing process.

These sculptures had a fair few nooks and crannies, so to make sure the tinted latex got in everywhere, It was applied with Q-tips.

Here's the latex fish head with the loose jaw, now with it attached to the head with two 2 mm aluminum wires ceating a joint on each side. This particular puppet is based on the Viperfish (Chauliodus sloani).

Like with the anglerfish, this puppet has Polymorph lining the inside of the head, with a wooden dowel placed across the head as an attachment point for the aluminum wire going through the body.

I used thin polyurethane foam to pad the body over the 3 mm aluminum wire.

I wanted a smooth surface for the body and dabbed the latex on the texture-less backside of a plaster mold to create a piece of skin covering one side of the puppet's body.

The Viperfish has a hexagonal scaly texture along its body. I didn't go for that but used a texture from another deep sea fish, looking like slabs overlapping each other. I sculpted this texture flat on a piece of clay.

I used cheap hobby plaster to create a simple mold over the sculpture. Tinted latex was applied to the mold with a sponge and a Q-tip.

Liquid latex was used as a glue to attach the texture piece to the rest of the puppet.

Both this fish and some of the other creatures have thin, semi-transparent fins. I created these by "etching" the patterns of the fins on a piece of smooth clay using a pointy sculpting tool. Latex was painted into these shapes with a Q-tip.

Before removing the latex fins I powdered the pieces with talcum powder, to make them dull and safe to remove. Had I not done this, the shiny latex bits would've stuck to each other.

The finished puppet has a "beard" made from cotton dipped in latex. The teeth were made the same way. The body is painted with tinted latex and touched up with acrylic airbrush colors. More scrapbooking pearls were glued to the body to simulate the look of organic lights, common in deep sea fish. The eyes were clear acrylic domes with photoshopped images glued to the flat backside using transparent glue. Again, this puppet has a flying rig attachment point just behind its jaw.

This odd-looking fellow is an Inflated Whiptail (Macrouroides inflaticeps), a member of the very diverse rattail family. The real fish has a shorter body, but I decided to make it longer for the sake of the animation. The 3 mm aluminum body armature wire has been attached to the head and padded with soft polyurethane foam.

The threaded bolt here marks the attachment point for the flying rig. The bolt is there to allow me to cover the puppet with latex skin without cover up the attachment point hole. 

This puppet has the same thin latex fins that I put on my Viperfish. The shiny blue eyes are drops of UV resin put on metallic candy wrappings. 

Here's one of the most bizarre deep sea fish; the Pelican eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides). It's basically a giant head, or mouth, with a very slinky body attached to it.

I cast the whole head as one single piece of latex from a single plaster mold. Again, a single aluminum wire makes out the body, padded with a wrapping of foam.

The eyes are just painted onto the flat areas on the sculpted head representing the eye areas. I then added drops of UV resin to create a transparent lens.

So, what about our intrepid explorer, then? Well, he's me stuck inside a 2D digitally rendered illustration of a retro style diving bell.

I found a whole bunch of rendered CG images on Depostphotos.com. Originally I'd planned to build a model diving bell from a plastic lamp globe. But when I found these CG images I thought they were already so perfect I really didn't have to build that model.

To place me inside the diving bell I just filmed me in front of my puppet green screen tage. I was so lazy I couldn't even be bothered putting up my regular green screen, but it worked out perfectly in the end. In Photoshop I cut out the front-facing window in the CD diving bell images, stuck me behind that layer in After Effects, and then stuck yet another layer behind me, showing the inside of an old submarine, with pipes, levers and stuff.

If the final giant fish swallowing the diving bell seems familiar it's because it's my "Dagon" monster puppet, or rather a photographic representation of it, 2D animated in After Effects. I actually don't have that puppet anymore, I sold it to a collector in California a couple of years ago.

I really enjoy making these shorter, atmospheric films, especially with a little bit of silliness added. The music was composed my my friend Marco Zanelli. It's not our first, nor our last collaboration. Fortunately for me, a big enough number of my YouTube audience seems to be suffering from Talassophobia to have been both creeped out and entertained by this little film.

 

Strange Waters

I had the notion to do a Lovecraftian weird tale in the style of a diary or log book and considered writing my own text instead of finding one readily available. This is what I came up with. I think it's filled with enough cliches to feel comfortably familiar. I decided to dispense with any actors, just showing a lonely ship on an ocean that was getting weirder and weirder.

One inspiration for this project was, of course, the horror-filled nautical tales of William Hope Hodgson, but also the rambunctious songs of Swedish singer-songwriter Evert Taube (seen in his element in the photo above). Some of his songs are very long and tell of nautical adventures, some of which he himself took part in. These songs go into great detail, naming the ship, describing the cargo and the destination, and painting colorful pictures of the crew.

I found a few images online showing model ships built for museums, picked one image, and then spent a couple of evenings removing the background in Photoshop. I probably could've made things easier for me, and only included the absolutely necessary details for a ship shown in the distance, but I wanted to be sure that nothing was missing. I added an animated flag waving in the wind atop one of the masts in a couple of shots, as well as engine steam.

The sea in all the shots is stock footage clips, either showing real oceans or CG versions of water. The sky is represented by photos of normal skies, which are then supplanted by stock footage of time-lapse skies, as well as shots of ink and glitter being pumped into a water tank. 

When the ship eventually crosses into a different dimension it's escorted by strange creatures floating in the ethereal sea of space. I only made one puppet and animated it moving about. This beastie was built from scratch, and by that, I mean not sculpting anything in clay, but only relying on building up the shapes using materials like latex, cotton, and EVA foam. It’s a fairly quick procedure and very cost-effective. I’m starting with making the eyes, and I wanted big watery eyes for this creature. Instead of resorting to buying glass or acrylic taxidermy eyes, I’m making these using acrylic domes bought in a Scrapbooking shop, and Photoshopped eyes printed out on ordinary printing paper. I’m using transparent scrapbooking plastic to glue down the dome over the eye art, creating a lens effect that looks kind of neat. 

For smaller eyes, because this monster will have a bunch of them, I’m adding drops of UV resin over the art and then blasting the plastic with a small UV light. I can then simply cut out each eye from the paper with small, sharp scissors. 

The body of this puppet is this leftover plastic casting made from a silicone mold created over an old perfume bottle. This was what I had handy, but I could’ve used an old pill jar or a bit of scrap wood. I made holes in the plastic and attached screws to create points where aluminum wires for tentacles will be placed. If I just attached the wires with glue or thermoplastic to the body, they might come loose, but when they’re hooked up to the screws they’ll stay put. 

This little wooden ball will become the head and this single 3 mm aluminum wire will be the neck. To attach the wire to the ball I’m using a few drops of super glue, and then I’m spreading some baking soda over the glue, thus creating a new solid material which helps bond the wire to the wood very effectively. I’m also making a hole on the side of the model to attach a t-nut. This nut will work as an attachment point to my flying rig. This nut is also held in place with the super glue/baking soda combo. To attach the aluminum armature wires to the screws I’m using melted thermoplastic. I melt portions of it with a heat gun and being careful I can then handle the material with my fingers, taking care to move the plastic blob around a bit, so I won't get burned. This creature has three tails or three tentacles growing out from its behind, and I’m making them out of 1,5 mm aluminum wires, covered with soft string and then dabbed with latex. You’ve most likely seen this procedure before. It’s one of my golden oldies. 

I wanted something like a strange beak growing out of the monster’s head and for this, I’m using dense EVA foam. Ordinarily, I would’ve made this as a sculpture in clay, then making a plaster mold around it, and then cast a latex duplicate into the mold. But building it up like this saves time, as well as allowing happy accidents to happen. 

To add texture as well as to cover up parts of the puppet I'm applying cotton dabbed with tinted latex. Using pointy tools I can create wrinkles and other textures in the material. This method works well for rigid parts of the puppet that won't have to stretch or bend.

Most of the puppet is then covered with patches of wrinkly latex skin cast from skin molds. This skin is very flexible and will work well for the bendy areas on the puppet.

To create extra details I'm adding drops of latex on top of the skin, creating small bumps.

Cotton and latex are also used to build up folds of skin around the eyes, which have been applied using contact cement.

Finally, the whole puppet is painted a dark red using tinted latex and a sponge. When that layer has dried (with the help of a heat gun) I dry-brush on a grey/blue color to offset the deep red, which will still be seen adding shadows to wrinkles and folds.

The finished puppet was animated and held aloft on my flying rig jointed arm. You only see the creature from one side, but I finished both sides with equal effort.

I read the narration myself, as I usually do. I don't consider myself especially gifted at that, but hiring people to do the voice work is getting increasingly expensive. 

This film was a fun little experiment. I might do similar projects in the future if I can come up with narratives that fit this form of storytelling.