He Took His Skin Off For Me - REVEALED!

Finally, I can show this to the world! Here's what we did last summer! My wonderful wonderful team Hermes Pittakos, Tom Smith, Dave Felstead, Myriam Tillson, Emily Christman, Ruth Parry, Emma-Alexandra Watts, Alan H, so proud of all of us. Thanks also to Dan Frye over at Millennium FX and to Nigel Booth for early mentoring. Also a huge thanks to Colin Arthur and his wonderful wife Sarah - couldn't have done it without you both! Check out this article on the film in Fangoria and take a peek at the official Facebook for latest news and updates from our director Ben Aston - can't wait for the premiere!

Nosferatu in Love Trailer!

Front still for Nosferatu in Love. Click here to view the trailer - airs Thursday 8th May 9pm!

9th May update: A lovely review in The Telegraph can be found here. With 4 out of 5 stars I'm so proud to have been part of this installment of the Sky Arts Playhouse season.

The Pig Child

Here is our little floppy baby, all painted with hair and ready to go. This one was to be used on-set as the 'stunt baby' in place of our mechanical child. Cast, seamed and painted by me, Emily helped to lay hair and punch in eyelashes.

Here is our animatronic baby; the mech has been beautifully crafted by Alan H and Emily Christman (eye mech by Innerbreed), the skin crafted by me. Here we see Alan H cradling baby and cables, with the skin prepped for painting and finishing.

 Here is the Pig Child, painted and finished by me.
 

I am currently running the prosthetic and props department for an exciting upcoming short. We've got some interesting things going on here! Not least the creation of an animatronic baby! Here are a few work in progress pics - hugely looking forward to our early May shoot!

 Pig child sculpt, lacquered and ready for fibreglassing!

Here is our fibreglass mould, expertly made by my skilled colleagues Emily Christman and Alan H, 

with the clay being laid in for the core

 

Freaky clay pig child pulled out of the fibreglass mould, with our fibreglass core just visible

 

 Mini placenta test!

 Final placenta and umbilical cord, crafted by Dave Felstead in gun silicone and latex

 

Here is our pregnancy belly, beautifully painted by Ella Noble, and below the fabrication of the baby bump, crafted by myself

 Baby bump with waterproof covering for shower scene - this shape is more like it!

Testing the skin over the stuffing - a couple of minor alterations needed and we're good to go! 

Hard Light

I was asked to design and build a 'robotic' central nervous system with working electronics for director Ross McElwain's upcoming student film Hard Light. Here is the unit design for the 'Hard Light' nervous system robot, a full size man in scale, with pulsing lights and a clear screen/visor for the head.

 

 Below are two visor shapes I carved into plaster for vac-forming over at Artem, who very kindly lent a hand (and their vac-former!)

LEV Collective/Papa Zeus

I have just finished working as the prosthetic designer for the upcoming Papa Zeus promo, in collaboration with LEV Collective - you can check out Papa Zeus' music here. The project was ambitious and the video promises to be exciting!

Finished silicone bust of our actor

Finished bust, with zip at the back

 On the left is the bust fresh out of the mould we made after taking our actor's life cast. On the right is the bust after a little bit of painting and hair punching. Looking good!

The zipper for application to our actor's back, along with the finished bust ready for packing and taking to set.

Seams Update - Kickstarter launched!

As the Seams Kickstarter launches, I thought it about time to update my blog! Here are a few sneaky pictures from behind the scenes of the mannequin build...

My wonderful colleagues Dave Felstead and Alan helping in creating the life-mould for foam casting. Thank you Amelie Cherie!

 Foam pieces fresh out of the mould and in need of a clean up!

 Fitting of the skin over the hand - the idea was to make it like a perfectly tailored glove

Finally, a very sneaky little peek at the final product! No revealing until the film is finished!

He Took His Skin Off For Me update

Update from the HTHSOFM facebook page:

"HERE IT IS! The first look at the incredible SFX work done for He Took His Skin Off For Me by Jen Cardno and her incredible team Hermes Pittakos, Tom Smith, Dave Felstead, Myriam Tillson, Emma Watts & Ruth Parry. Getting the look right for this particular dinner scene took over 8hrs to complete!! This incredible photo by Ben Hughes Photography is a little more INTENSE than the tone of the actual scene itself, but in all fairness, it's pretty trick NOT to take an intense picture of a skinless dude.." 

Nosferatu in Love

I've just finished working as the prosthetic designer for the character of Nosferatu in Peter Straughan's upcoming short 'Nosferatu in Love'. We created 50 handmade individually tailored plastic nails, 20 rubber nails, 5 sets of ears and Dave Felstead aided me with creating the character makeup. After spending an amazing week shooting in the Czech Republic, I now eagerly await the release of the film as part of Skyarts 'playhouse' season starting in April 2014.

Ear sculpt, finished and ready for moulding

Each nail was made with a butt-joint, so that it would break in a safe and controlled way 

Nail ends stuck on, ready for sanding and trimming

Thumbnails being marked, trimmed and sanded

50 individual nails tailored to the actor's fingers, masked off and ready to be primed and painted

Seams

Drawn prop design for the macabre tailor's mannequin in Christina Pergomet's upcoming short film, 'Seams'. We are going into full production this weekend with our life cast on Saturday - can't wait! She's going to be lovely!

Girl Power

Here's the mould (looking a little worse for wear!) for the prosthetic penis I made for a character in Benjamin Bee's upcoming short film 'Girl Power' written by Kefi Chadwick. The penis looked lovely, and very realistic, but we shall have to await the release of Girl Power before we can see it in action!

The Thing Under The Tree

Some stills from the wonderful 2013 RCA Grad film 'The Thing Under The Tree' by the talented animator and modelmaker Lily Fang. Check out more of her superb work here. I helped out with set-building and props making on her film (see the lovely stills above for a showcase of what I made!). The film is now a finalist in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2013 - congratulations Lily!

On Loop

This is Colin - two frames from additional animation drawn/painted for Christine Hooper's RCA grad film 'On Loop'. The film is great, and is a semi-finalist for the Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2013. Info on film here, the first screening of the film will be at LIAF in October - exciting!!

Ürth Mütha

Puppets/armatures made for Sam Steer's Random Acts/C4 commission, Urth Mutha. This is the little girl, Lokuna. You can see the first rushes of the film here. It is looking to be an amazing piece of work! Animated by Sam Steer and Lily Fang, sound design by Serafina Steer.

Tired of Swimming

This is a tiny knife and fork I made for Anna Eijsbouts' 2012 RCA grad film 'Tired of Swimming'. They were carved in wax, and then cast in silver. More of Anna's work can be found here

He took his skin off for me

Image © Ben Hughes www.TwevlePictures.Blogspot.com www.BenHughesPhotography.com

Coordination and supervision of a small team. Our brief was to design and fabricate a skinless man prosthetic costume for Ben Aston's short film 'He took his skin off for me'.  The prosthetics had to look clinical and beautiful, rather than grotesque or frightening. Myself, Tom Smith and Hermes Pittakos created just the hand and forearm, provided by Cigna Spine, for a makeup test shoot on May 24th. The footage is currently being edited. I am so proud of all of us!

Jenny

This is some of the work I have done for artist Jennifer Kidd (www.jenniferkidd.co.uk)

 Ball and socket armature, in need of a couple of repairs but it is a thing of beauty!