Battles With Bits of Rubber – Details, episodes & analysis

This time around we discuss the technical aspects of 3D modelling and printing for practical work, especially in creating detailed prosthetics and animatronic components using software like CAD and ZBrush. 

We delve into teaching and learning new techniques, particularly  the significance of hands-on experience in moulding and sculpting. 

Then we look at taking on jobs without proper qualifications, highlighting the potential dangers and importance of safety in prosthetic and special effects work. 

With Sasquatch suits, severed heads and blood gags on stage, come and join us on episode #94 of Battles with Bits of Rubber!
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Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMIFRXLW8c

In this second and final part of our trip to Falmouth Uni, Neill Gorton joins us as we discuss making mistakes and learning the hard way in the workshop. 

We also discuss how to approach workshops and folio critiques and why latex and plaster are such great materials when starting and budgets are tight. 

Latex and plaster are a big theme in this episode. Be sure to check out the blog post with the show notes and the latest free workbook download, which is all about making latex pieces and plaster moulds from the UMAE 2024 makeups Stuart recently did. 

This is a hefty episode, and the workbook is 26 pages full of step-by-step processes and techniques!

If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell people about it? Send them a link and help the show grow!

In this episode, we talk with materials maestro Pete Tindall about all things making related, along with a dose of rantage.

I moan a bit about ZBrush (although I love it) and the fact that despite the terrifying interface and the huge number of tools available in ZBrush, freedom comes from accepting that you likely need only a handful of them.

Early on in ZBrush, you are can indeed happily ignore most of it with confidence.

Pete is an adept materials man, knowing and using a broad range of materials. We first met on Batman Begins (2005) where Pete worked in the Bat-suit workshop and miniatures for the monorail sequence.

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We also start the podcast as usual with a little FX chit-chat and this time we talk about creating the illusion of hard things in soft tissue such as horns protruding from foreheads, teeth showing from exposed gums and foreign bodies sticking out of the skin (knives or arrows for example).

In the reality of filming, the scene may need to be repeated and used in intense action, so things that are really hard or sharp in real life could break off or cause real injury.

As a result, often it is made up of either soft or semi-rigid material which looks solid but is safer. Sometimes the thing may be designed to break away, be replaceable if multiple takes are needed, be incredibly lightweight or even detachable so it can be removed when not needed.

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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.

 you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!

Stuart & Todd

Check the shownotes on the blog: https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/

This second part of our chat with Ian and Cliff takes a look back at the company they had together, Creature Concepts - or as Ian puts it ‘How not to run a business'.

Ian and Cliff mentioned Blood On The Satan’s Claw (1971) and I watched it on their recommendation.  It whetted my appetite, and I had to rewatch some of my favourites, The Creeping Flesh, Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter and of course The Curse Of Frankenstein.

It also reminds me of the joys of direct-applied makeups. Things like burns, or wound interiors for example have many random details which can be created in different materials. Sculpting in plastiline is the usual method for creating the forms in appliances, but some things are better created - or at least started - using other techniques. 

Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.

If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!

-Stuart & Todd

This episode was recorded at Cliff's studio, with all four of us present and correct.

Ian and Cliff have worked together and separately in the industry for a long time - Ian's credits include Little Shop Of Horrors, Alien 3, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, Fury and Dr Who.

Cliff racks up an impressive listing on IMDb with Hellraiser (1987), Lair of the White Worm, Black Hawk Down, World War Z and 28 Days Later.

It was a hefty chat that we split into two parts as it was so long, but also they divided into two clear conversations which lent themselves to being broken in two. We had a great time recording and producing this one and we hope you get a kick out of it too. It's not often Todd and I get to be in the same room when we record so getting to do this was a dream.

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Check out the website for more info and full show notes: https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/

Thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.

If you you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!

-Stuart & Todd

Competence and comfort are the results of the repetition of activity over a significant period of time.   In an age of endless self-promotion, this podcast has always championed the work involved in quiet competence. Being competent at something is what people will pay money for, so it is worth considering as an ambition.    But how do we keep ourselves on the right track?   A great many working professionals have a very meagre following on social media precisely because their work is mostly protected and discrete because of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), and they are not looking for mass appeal from as many people as possible.   Check out this episode written post on the podcast website - it's hefty - https://battleswithbitsofrubber.com/ ---------------------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.   If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!   -Stuart & Todd

  What does digital sculpting have to do with battling with bits of rubber?   Speaking in one of the VFX classrooms, a huge space with rows of monitors and Wacom Cintiqs, we gathered as a group to discuss training to work in film and TV.   We looked particularly at the pipeline and workflow of VFX and how that has changed over the years with regards to practical work and why confidence matters and how it can be generated.   One aspect of confidence is to know how and when to exercise what is your responsibility when you may feel like it is someone else's job. What can you do practically to accumulate confidence and where does that come from? What are the stepping stones?     Many makeup schools do not know how or teach how practical effects may work with VFX. There isn't an extensive history yet of that combination, so fewer resources and gurus to call upon. If you want to make a nose or a wig, there already exists a long history of practitioners and techniques one can call upon to get that information. Some places are teaching this such as Bolton, Falmouth & the University of Wolverhampton (https://www.instagram.com/digital_prosthetics/?hl=en).   Now if you want to take a head scan, clean it up and correct it, make cores so you can print out sections to be remoulded or sculpted on, there are ways it can be done but it is new enough that there isn't a standardised method easily accessed by everyone.   It's a new thing so there isn't an extensive range of ways to do it or a plethora of experienced practitioners willing to share what may be for them hard-won knowledge or a new process they may have pioneered themselves recently.    VFX and practical were once very separate disciplines but the increased use of digital processes in the practical world (photography, scanning, machining, 3D printing and sculpting in ZBrush) are very much part of the VFX world and crossover is more common. A shared language will assist in departments blending their expertise rather than dividing them.    The VFX may be less willing to share their processes compared with practical, but this may be in part because pipelines and workflows are so unique that one may not align with another even though they are both under the umbrella term of VFX.    Larger commercial pipelines are often customised, so they will approach a process in a specific way that may not be the same way as another company doing the same kind of work. These make incredible efficiencies within that unit of work, and changing pipelines isn't always compatible.    The lowering cost of scanners will mean increased availability of information and tutorials. They will become commonplace and so being able to work with them will become important.     We imagine that in no time ZBrush will be even more ingrained in the educational workflow of fx programs teaching both practical and digital fx.  It will be the standard, no longer any differentiation as two disciplines; it will all be part of fx training and execution. ------------------------- Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.

Our conversation recently with Jake Garber at The Prosthetics Event in Coventry was, we think, a very important chat worth listening to for anyone who is trying, or thinking about trying to get a foot in the door into the (oftentimes) wonderful and exciting world of movie and television makeup.

Even for peeps already working in the industry, Jake’s extensive level of expertise and experience in a special and makeup effects career has seen him in many roles from straight beauty makeup and workshop lab work, as well as supervising workshops and sets, key makeup artist as well as being a personal artist to talent such as Samuel L. Jackson.

His TV credits include over 100 episodes of The Walking Dead, The Orville and Westworld. Movies include Avengers: Endgame, Hateful Eight, Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, and Kill Bill 1&2. That broad range of experience was wonderfully displayed at the Prosthetics Event to a packed education room.

We asked him about his work and how he broke into the industry, and then focussed on the specific skills and areas of attention someone looking to get into the field should be aware of. It was a fantastic discussion, and Jake dropped gold nuggets everywhere with his revealing and incredibly useful talk.

It’s important to learn to create small in the beginning; a realistic nose has no fanfare, no pazzazz, but if you know, you know. It’s not about calling attention to the work, it’s being able to fool the viewer into believing it’s real by not calling attention to it.

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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on the website.

If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!

-Stuart & Todd

Figurative sculptor Amelia Rowcroft lives in the lovely Sussex town of Lewes on the South East Coast of England, which dates back to 961AD.

She was kind enough to invite us into her studio in a building that once housed a brewery in the 1600s, and that’s where we recorded this episode of BWBoR.

Amelia has been sculpting practically, working in clay for over 20 years, creating primarily fine art portraits and figurative sculptures, though she has also worked within the film industry, and for the world’s leading wax figure museums including Madame Tussaud’s, and we talked about it all.

She studied at Central St Martins, and the Florence Academy in Florence, Italy, and interestingly enough, was also a student at Wimbledon School of Art where Stuart attended, though a few years behind him.

As fate would have it, another of our upcoming podcast guest artists, ZBrush Master Madeleine Scott Spencer, also studied at the Florence Academy and remembers Amelia, but we’ll save that for later.

We chatted for a good hour and a half and covered a variety of sculpture-related topics, such as why isn’t there a Museum of Crap Renaissance Sculpture so we can see the failures of the Masters – because there had to be some - and creating a likeness sculpture vs. creating a caricature of a subject. We also chatted about sculpting digitally vs. pushing actual clay around.

Amelia was kind enough – incredibly generous is more like it – to allow us to explore her online sculpture course, and it is jaw-dropping in content and ‘lightbulb’ moments.

We urge you to at least look at the sample video lessons on Amelia’s website www.sculptingmasterclass.com/collections. We suspect you’ll want to enrol to take advantage of the instruction offered by this incredible sculptor.

Whether you sculpt practically or digitally, this information is invaluable and transferable between mediums.

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Many thanks as always for your time checking the stuff out. You can email us direct at [email protected] or leave us a voice message directly on our site.

If you enjoy this podcast and got something out of it, would you do us a solid and tell just one more person about us? Send them a link and help us grow!

-Stuart & Todd

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Paul Savage is a returning guest on the show. We caught up with him at the Prosthetics Event in Coventry. Merging medical knowledge with movie makeup, he aims to bring more realism to training scenarios.  Raising the bar in simulation can help to save actual lives.

It is quite often that makeup students will work with a local emergency service and offer up their skills to make up casualties for training first responders and combat medics.

As makeup artists, we often let the dramatic effect take the reins, however, it is easy to inadvertently misdirect a clinical field assessment with incorrectly applied makeup that has been applied for dramatic effect rather than clinical accuracy.

It is important to use primary references of genuine trauma rather than copying trauma makeup that isn't necessarily accurate. By copying even good makeup, we can also reproduce their errors unintentionally.

We talk about the merits of using the right material, the right amount of blood and setting the scene. Even though it is a simulation, seasoned first responders will take their cues from what they see rather than what they have been told. So it better look right!

Regarding the mastectomy makeup mentioned in the episode, it was for the ITV Drama 'The Walk' (2005). The makeup designer was Caroline Noble and made for Millennium FX. It was applied on location by Rob Trenton.

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