Today, I have a monster I worked on for season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This particular monster appeared in multiple episodes throughout the seventh season. I worked on each of its appearances, including the series finale, where the Scobby Gang fought an army of them. This one was a very big deal as it was the main physical threat to the world controlled by the First. And since it was a big deal, there were a lot of hands involved, and we received a lot of opinions.
Before I go any further, I must remind everyone that this work is a collaboration of many skilled artists and technicians. I was one of many who brought these monsters to life, but this time around, I was present at all stages, but my focus was on the design work, paint and finish, and set crew. After twenty-plus years, I cannot properly give credit to everyone else involved. Sorry, but people's names were the first to go after I left LA.
As I said, this one was a big deal to to the show, and the writers, producers, money people, more money people, Joss, and anyone else available were giving input for how this thing should look. If I remember correctly, going into this, no one had any ideas for what this thing should look like. But they were quick to tell us everything that it didn't look like - and that would have been all of our designs. Eventually, we got there, but not after a lot of work. Typically, early in the season, if there was a solitary Ubervamp or a close-up of a hero makeup, that would be Camden Toy. Camden was an amazing suit performer, actor, and friend. I treasure my memories of working with him. Eventually, the Ubervamps would be played by extras and stunt performers, but all the hero shots are Camden. My work on this one is all over the place, too. I did do some design work, sorta - I will explain below, a bit of shop work and a TON of painting. I painted so many of these masks and makeups. The on-set makeup artists got a little wacky sometimes, but that was to be expected. Here are shop images, set images, and more for the mighty Ubervamp.
This is the hero photo of Camden in the full makeup that the boss took on the first day of shooting. I cleaned up the photo and got it ready for promotion, and it ended up being used everywhere. Camden wore silicone makeup, but all the stunt performers and extras wore foam latex.
I said I did do some design work. And here it is!
While on the set of Angel, as an episode of Firefly was on the TV in the makeup trailer, I got a call from the boss to start designing the 'Uber Vampire' while I was working on the set that night. So, that is what I did. I found some paper, and I had some pencils and markers with me, and I got to work. Mind you, I received little to zero input on what I was supposed to be doing. I was told to start drawing, and that is what I did. I did these crude warm-up drawings while on set, working with some other monster. I was trying to figure out what an 'Uber Vampire' looked like, but it wasn't this.
And it wasn't this either.
I wish I had had more time... I would have liked to have had any time to work on these. I was given brief moments on set doing my job to come up with these. The funny thing is, if this was presented to me now, I wouldn't think anything about it; I would start drawing and would likely come up with something neat in quick work. But this was twenty-two years ago, and I didn't have the skills yet to pull that off, so we have these scribblings.
These two were never even finished.
I did as much as I could on set, and by the time I was back in the shop the next day, things had long since passed me by, with the shop's AD taking the lead. He had over a day's lead on me by now, and I had a couple of crude sketches. I fell back to support and processed and prepped his work as fast as he could make it.
If anyone is interested, I still have all of these drawings.
One thing I did design was the Ubervamp's contacts.
The final lenses didn't look like these at all (I think they just used stock lenses), but I designed something to completion, at least. I think these would have been fun, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
I did say that I was responsible for some painting.
These are the background makeups and masks for the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It felt like I was working on these day and night, and I was. There were a bunch of us seaming and patching the heads and hands, and then I would paint them.
And here is me from the distant past with the things I painted.
I miss that shirt.
Here is an early version of the Ubervamp. I do not recall the sculptor, but I think this version would have been great. It feels different and unique, but that is likely why they hated it.
Here are some more sculpt variations.
At the end of the day, they had loads of issues with the nose, and they freaked out about anything that wasn't a normal nose... on a vampire... and was UBER. Again, the sculptor is unknown.
Now for some more Camden love with set pics!
GRRRRR ROAR! I'm a monster!
Ubervamp has had a bad day, Ubervamp needs to lay down.
Lastly, here are some set pics with the Ubervamp army. A mix of masks and makeups, and on set, the masks always migrated up close to the camera for some reason. These were all painted the same, but as I said before, the makeup artists took a lot of liberties with these and went WAY off the style guide way too often. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. RAWR!
That's all for another exciting week on the blog. See you back here next week! Until then...
