Welcome back! Today is part two of my look back at the werewolf I helped bring to life for the fifth season of Angel, episode 3, Unbound. If you missed it, you can catch up on PART ONE, which features my design work, a lot of photos from the completed werewolf on set, and some storyboards I did for the episode that may or may not have ever been looked at by anyone outside the shop.
Once again, before I go any further, I must remind everyone that this work is a collaboration of many skilled artists and technicians. Designing and making the werewolf was a massive undertaking for the shop, and everyone was working on it. I was one of many who brought this thing to life. I was present at all stages, but primarily, I was on the design team, 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.
In part two, I am sharing a look at the werewolf taking shape in the makeup effects shop I worked at. It was all hands on deck for this one. We needed a full body cast of the stunt actor, a fiberglass form of the actor to sculpt upon, separate forms for the head, face, arms, and ears, molds of everything, casts of everything, arm extension forms with wire-controlled fingers, a set of teeth with a tongue and palate, seaming on everything, paintwork on everything, hair work, and finish & detail. And it all had to be done in a week or two. It was a crazy, fun time, to say the least. Looking back, I try remembering the good times and hope they outweigh the other times. First, here is the completed werewolf on set about to leap from a second-story window.
I have some very blurry images of the werewolf going out the window, but sadly, they are too recognizable to share.
The stunt actor getting his full-body life cast. We work extremely hard and fast so that the actors are not in the mold any longer than necessary.
And like magic, there is a completed sculpture of a werewolf ready to be molded. Things were moving so quickly that it was hard to document everything at times. While I have a LOT of photos, I need to be careful what I share, be respectful of the dead, and pick images that share a distinct moment in the process.
I may have hated working with fiberglass the most. I only had to deal with it a couple of times, but it is nasty, dangerous stuff. When dealing with a sculpture of this size, there is no other option than fiberglass. There is a lot of planning that goes into a project like this. It goes all the way down to making sure the mold is properly reinforced and cut down correctly.
One of the two arms with the mold walls set up. Plaster would be used for these molds. Once this side was completed, the entire thing would be flipped over, the clay mold walls removed, and then the second half of the mold would be built by hand.
The body mold is shown here in the midst of getting filled with foam latex. I never learned what method was used to determine how much foam latex was needed to fill the various molds.
The opening of a foam latex mold is a unique experience. For me, the worst was the fiberglass molds. Plaster molds tended to absorb more of the funk than the fiberglass, or it at least seemed that way. When you cracked open a big mold like this, you would be hit with a sulfur egg blast, and the latex would be wet, slick, and nasty. It was so cool!
The sculpture for the face of the werewolf. The ears will be cut off and molded separately so that they can be cast in a slightly translucent material. Molds of the gums and empty palate are also made so that the teeth, tongue, and mouth interior can be sculpted and cast with appropriate materials.
A much younger and heavier me painting the werewolf suit. This was late at night, and there were only a couple left in the shop, but the work needed to be done, and we had to stay till it was. There is always another step after the one you are working on, and that next person is waiting on you.
The werewolf suit takes shape with paintwork.
A look at the arm extensions with the wire-controlled puppet fingers... or paws.
And the finished werewolf arms. They still need hair, but this should show you how they look. The color is off because of the quality of digital cameras twenty-plus years ago. It was very difficult to get good, consistent photos where the colors and lighting remained the same.
The werewolf's face in the early stages of paint work. There are times I look at these early stages of the work we did and wonder how we ever got it completed in time and how it ended up looking as good as it did. It is a magical transformation to watch a pile of latex bits get put on an actor, and suddenly, it is a monster.
Here again is 2003, me painting some werewolf paws.
Yes, I was blonde-ish for a time in my LA days.
And finally, after a great deal of time, work, and frustration, we have a completed werewolf suit ready for set. Knowing how we rolled, this was likely completed the night before this needed to be on set at 5AM - actually, it filmed on a lot of night shoots, so it could have been it was needed at 5PM the next day. A ton of people put a lot of hours into this so it would be ready for the show.
One more photo of the completed suit. It feels like a million years ago and a week or two ago. I can smell this picture for all the good and bad. I can feel being back there. I spent a lot of time over a few years in this space and did a lot of amazing things and had some horrible things happen to me. It is a mixed bag, but it is nice to share the work that the team did after all these years.
That is all for another week on the blog. See you back here next week! Until then...
