Taking a break: Hideous Demon - Angel Season 4

The blog break continues as I am still overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today I have for you the Hideous Demon from season 4 of Angel...

The Hideous Demon was just another example of when production didn't care and let us do our job we all created something much better and more interesting then if they had gotten involved. Our design lead had this idea for awhile and when the Hideous Demon came along he pushed to get his idea made. Since this was a "background" demon production was not as concerned and we moved forward without any feedback or changes to the original concept.

To be clear, I did not design this one or establish the paint scheme which appears on the stunt body with the removable head. My contribution was to paint the others makeups and went to set and babysat the stunt body... as well as other miscellaneous shop tasks and jobs that I had on any production (but those are sometimes not very interesting to share here). The sculpting, molding, casting, and other related work that goes into these creations was handled by a highly skilled team that I was fortunate enough to be a part of.

Enough talk, here are the Hideous Demons...

RAWR! Hideous... and a demon... RAWR!

Feel like I should have some great, funny, or insightful store about this guys, but I don't

The got made, went to set, and they were filmed...

Not a lot of drama on this particular monster.

The truly hideous aspect is that he has one contact in and one contact out... RAWR!

It is so creepy... no matter where you move it feels like it is still looking at you.

Oh look... there is another one... great...

Man, this one really irks me...

I wish someone would just hit this guy in the head with a machete.

Oh noes... my massive evil twin from 12 years ago is on the scene.

At least he is not blonde anymore.

Nice Jabba the Hutt impression.

Huh... well... this is awkward...

RAWR! It is the decapitation stunt body version of the Hideous demon.

I got to hang out with this thing all day when I was not inserting machetes into heads.

If I remember correctly, I was on set nice and early so I could dress this thing too.

Hey, remember a random post from 2010 about that glove I found?

Looks like it was from one of the Hideous Demons after all. Maybe.

Only one half of the chin spine thing was sculpted. Once molded we simply cast two up and glue them together to make one chin spine thing. AND that is how the professionals do it!

Had to show production how it was shaping up at some point during production so we pinned stuff to the face sculpt to show them how it would look.

The chin spine is actually a foam cast, it was already done and one was made and painted green to match the clay for photo purposes. The face dangly bits and the cowl (head and neck piece) were all from preexisting creations that were modified.

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Jaynestown Statue, there and back again - Firefly

Funny how things work out.

On Monday, I shared with you some images of the Jayne Cobb statue that I was in charge of constructing for the show, Firefly. Not only did that post BLOW UP on reddit (thanks for the traffic everybody!), but I was contacted by Mike Schotte, who it turns out, owns the remains of the Jayne Cobb statue!

Mike acquired the head from Adam Baldwin who played Jayne Cobb awhile back and ever since he has been looking high and low for information and details on the origins of the statue. He has talked to a lot of people over the years but somehow we never crossed paths till now... and I had all the information he was looking for. Yays, INTERNETS!

Mike was nice enough to share with me some more current images of the Jayne Cobb statue. Sadly, my hands are not in his collection. I had completely forgotten all about it, but thanks to these images I am reminded about the 'hero' statue head bust that we made as a gift to Adam Baldwin. You can see the details in the original statue that were lost when the statue was covered in mud on set.

Mike has a great twitter account dedicated to the head, @Jayne_Statue.

Jayne Cobb statue... now with 94% less body.

I wonder if I signed it if it would be worth more or less?

Probably... less........

Jayne Cobb statue bust made as a gift by us for Adam Baldwin.

The happy family now live with Mike Schotte.

We did not make the sign, pretty sure props took care of that.

...if my memory serves me.

All images courtesy Mike Schotte

That is all for another exciting week on the blog, see you back here on Monday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Taking a break: Gnarl - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7

Still taking a little break on the blog since I am a little overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today... today I have the Gnarl Demon...

The Gnarl Demon was a big deal... it was for a Joss Whedon episode and needed to have a lot of character and have a lot of screen time and all they had to work on the designs... was me. This was one of the first things I needed to design when I started on the show and I was out of my depth looking back. I made it through and the creature got design, created, and was a huge hit. Sometimes you can be in WAY over your head and still managed to make it through in one piece. ...more or less.

There was a lot of rabbit holes that we went down design wise with this creature before production kinda gave us a direction. At one point our instruction from Joss was, and I quote, "Give him a wicked sausage of a nose." Yeah... that is when my blood ran cold and I knew I was in the deep end of the pool. If I heard that now I would have a big laugh and get to work... then... it was panic time.

For full disclosure, I pretty much was only involved with the design of this demon. The rest of highly skilled artists at the shop too care of the sculpture, molding, casting, and paint for Gnarl. I most likely did little things along the way, but I fully claim (reluctantly) all the design stuff on this one and everybody else carried it over the finish line.

Enough talk, here is Gnarl...

RAWR! It's a monster! The EXTREMELY talented Camden Toy portrayed Gnarl. This was the very first time that I got to work with Camden, and thankfully not the last! He is a GREAT monster! ...and a master of the balloon animal.

UHG... the very first Gnarl design. Did not have a real direction yet. In house we were throwing around a protruding gum and teeth ... then we learned that he had a TON of dialogue and needed a wicked sausage of a nose.   ...wicked sausage.

 OUCH... this is just bad... bad bad bad... A bad design and a bad drawing... what was I thinking?! Oh yeah... I was told to elongate everything "for effect" ... but I don't think I did it right. Also, there is no way to have made anything practical that would or could look like this. The sculptures looked down their noses at me and sneered. One actually took this design and threw it on the ground telling me to, "Get that out of here." True story...

Getting warmer... feedback was coming in and things are getting "better".

Warmer still... Still not wicked or sausage enough, but we were moving in the right direction.

Also... let me just say, I am incredibly embarrassed with just how HUGE my signatures are in all of these. Looking back at it now, this looks very unprofessional on my part, very amateurish, and a bit insecure. ...oh wait.

Gnarl needed some crazy nails to slice up Willow and eat the tasty flesh bits. Maybe if I had concentrated on a good drawing of a hand and less of squiggly details these would have turned out better.

Okay... that actually is looking like a Gnarl demon... but even with a ton of reference and good direction I still ended up with a clunky drawing in many spots. Oh well... this WAS 12 years ago...

The shop gears up! Here is the Gnarl sculpture on the body cast of the actor. Nice looking sculpt.

A maquette of the proposed makeup as we nailed down the last details.

Gnarl in the makeup trailer before going to set. The body suit, cowl, and face piece were foam latex while the nose and chin were gelatin. They made for a nice look and some issues with heat, melting, and adhesive longevity.

Looks like Gnarl has had himself (itself?) a little snack! NOMS!

Want to sit on Gnarl's knee and tell him how your day went?

From head to toe, and fine demon was made... except for that ankle seam... ouch... Most likely was never seen on camera.

Gnarl had a busy busy day of filming and went through at least two noses.

Gnarl on set! RAWR! I'M BLURRY!

Need some nightmare fuel? They didn't know if Gnarl was going to get white or black contacts... the white ones won out... but the mix is nice too.

...and another.

Last, but not least... I found this one in all the Gnarl images... it is my evil twin from 12 years ago that was 75+ pounds heavier and blonde. He appears to be working on a crappy drawing... and completely ignoring that anatomy reference...

ADDED BONUS IMAGE!
After a good long look at the above image of my evil twin I could not help but remember some other crappy concepts that I did very early on in the design phase of Gnarl. You can see this drawings on top of my computer in the background. This image was not in my digital archives... but since they were ink drawing... as quick look in my flat files turned up these beauties... A quick scan later and I can now share them with you! WOW... those are bad! RAWR!

All work © Almost Human

 That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Taking a break: Jaynestown Statue - Firefly

Still taking a little break on the blog since I am a little overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today... today I have something SHINY for you...

You remember that one time that I mentioned I worked on Firefly? Well here are some images to back that up! One of the biggest things that I worked on for the series was the statue of Jayne. I was "in charge" of putting this together, but I had a couple of great guys working with me on this and we all worked really hard on fabricating it. The head was from a life cast of the actor that was then modified by one of the sculptors... and the hands you ask? Why those lovely meat hooks on the statue or my hands. We needed some fists for the statue and mine were the right size.

For the record, I thought I had WAY more images of my work on FF, in addition to some process steps (like me when I was getting my hands cast)... and for the life of me I can not find them. I will have to look through my non-digital photo archives to see what I can find. If I find anything else I will be sure to share. Enough talk, here is a statue I worked on back in 2002...

Since the statue was mostly a bunch of pieces cobbled together and then coated in resin is was not a pretty site when completed. A coat of paint was needed to tie it all together and make it presentable for review by production. If you look at the base... that is was the whole thing kinda looked like.

We started with a generic body form that was the appropriate size and then started adding the additional parts... feet, hands, head, etc.

Once it was altogether we dressed the entire thing with clothes provided by wardrobe.

The statue is held up by metal rods in the legs that run trough the shoes and into the base. This caused ALL SORTS of problems on the day of filming when the statue had to be broken off and knocked down... OOPS! There were lots of outtakes of failed attempts. Eventually the metal was cut and the thing went right over. I *THINK* some of the those failed attempts were edited together with the successful break in the episode.

While mostly made out of resin and two part rigid foam it was a bit of a pain to move around.

While the plan all along was to make it look like the statue was made of foam it was decided in house to give it a nice paint job before going off to set...

SO...  one of the temp painters spent a bunch of time painting the Jayne statue up all nice and pretty with detail and texture...

So that is could go to set and be covered with mud by props and set teams. Now you know what the statue really looked like!

For this episode I also designed the burn makeup for the Stitch Hessian character. I went and looked at the design... it was SO bad that I am not ready to share it yet. ALSO... again, I can not find all the images I thought I had including some pics of the final makeup on the actor and some process images. Not sure where they are, but if I ever find them I will be sure to share them here on the blog.

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Taking a break: Portal Tentacles - Angel Season 4

As mentioned on Monday I am taking a little break on the blog since I am a little overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today I have for you the Portal Tentacles from Angel season 4.

For this monster of the week I was the lead on the design, (if I remember correctly) did some of the shop tech, went to set with it to help out, and did some of the puppeteering. All the other aspects of production... sculpting, painting, casting, and rigging were all handled by the other skilled artists at Almost Human back in 2002.

Enough talk, here is the Portal Tentacles...

Angel season 4, episode 5... most likely NOT remembered for the digital tentacles coming out of portal. Must be a really angry Grell back there... OH, did I say that out loud?

My crappy crappy crappy design.

I finally get to design tentacles professionally and this is all I come up with... SO SAD.

Things to know:

1 - I was made to add the photo of the actress by my boss... because REASONS.

2 - My signature was HUGE when I opened this file and just now shrunk it out of embarisment.

3 - LENS FLARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thing to know... a VERY HEAVILY Photoshopped version of my design actually appears briefly in the episode as an book interior illustration of the tentacles. Looks better here...

While most of the tentacles ended up digital... we did make several practical tentacles... some have armature wire and could be posed, one was a cable puppet, and one was designed to be cut in half.

Digital tentacles attack! RAWR! The close ups and where the actors are directly interacting with the tentacles are our work.

Ever wonder what it would be like to work on TV and movies with monsters? It is a whole lot of this... A WHOLE LOT of sitting and waiting.

And the most horrifying image I came across when digging these images out... oh look, it is a younger version of me that happens to be blonde and at least 75 pound heavier... maybe more. That tentacle hanging off there is now helping... and I am not even going to start on that hat and goggles... RAWR!

That is all for another exciting week on the blog, see you hopefully back here on Monday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com