work continued

Hello again.
last time i ended with the money tree. here are a few pics from it.
 this was the biggest stop-motion production that the university had seen that involved two sets roughly 1 meter square each. the forest was fairly straight forward but time consuming, but it was the house set that tom (co-director) and i really had fun. we put as many references in as we could. these included a pinup darth vader poster, apollo G poster that has the rocket from "A Grand Day Out" (I still want to make this into a real poster) and pacman pizza boxes. we spent some time putting a lot of detail into the props, even though it would never be seen. an example of this were the bills that littered the floor that i wrote on computer and then shrank to scale.

for full detail of the production have a look at this:
http://tommygrainger.blogspot.com/




this is a steampunk robot that i made in my first year of uni. unfortunately it completely failed as a puppet as you can probably tell but it was my first attempt. i did not mind that much as we never filmed due to time limits. despite its failings it is still one of my favorite creations and has been displayed at Stoke Your Fires Animation Festival. it is made of Styrofoam and bits from the pound shop. whilst i was building this i was also building another puppet and a large transport vehicle (pictured below) as well as help build an exterior pub set at roughly 1/6th scale.

this next item was really my first prosthetic and i made it for my friends birthday. it is my twoface costume. i made it by using a mannequin head as a base. i then sculpted on my likeness so that when i sculpted the prosthetic it would hold some of my features.

i then made a mould out of plaster. then i pasted in some latex that, when dry, i painted. i also added a faint eyebrow using my own leg hair. for the suit i just cut two suits in half and stuck them together (i also sanded one of the sides as some more detail). i also dyed my hair which was a lot harder to do than i thought it would be. i have to say though that pretty much everyone put quite a lot of effort into their costumes. i have no idea how we found time. and only the party boy himself (who went as judge dredd) immersed himself completely into his character, going to the extent of going up to a couple of policemen and proclaiming "I AM THE LAW" at the top of his voice (that is still my ringtone to this day.
i wore this costume again to win 1st prize in a costume competition.

thats all for now, thank you for looking at my blog
alex

My First Post

well this is my first post and i will begin by saying that i am a model maker and sculptor. i mainly make maquettes (small statues) but i can make pretty much anything my wallet will allow.

this is piper from blue sky's "Robots", i made this as part of my course at staffordshire university. we were all given a robot to do and i have to be honest, she would not have been my first choice as anyone out there who has tried to paint something yellow will tell you, it's hell. however, she is one of my favorite sculpts as i made it as movie accurate as possible (i even made the engine separately so it would "hover" within her body like it does in the movie).







the second part of the requirements was to make a building from the film, for this we were partnered up. luckily i was partnered up with someone as stickler for detail as i am (tom grainger) and we were given one of the main buildings, the "Gunk's Greasy Spoon". the picture really doesn't do anything for it but it isn't just a box with a tube stuck on. it even has an interior as we finished early and i was looking for other things to do. i also made the two pigeons and rubbish bin.





















this was a commission that i did for a family member after he cut his head open in greece and then had his head x-rayed. as can be seen in the photo on the left i used super sculpey, sculpey firm and green stuff.


finally these two i did for myself. the first is barrel from "nightmare before christmas", i made him because he is one of my favorites but you cant get a decent figure of him. the second is clayface which is copied off of a picture that i found on the internet whilst searching for help on arkham asylum.

i will also show you this http://vimeo.com/24213370 that i worked on as my final project at uni along with may jowdh, tom grainger and jon colenso. i made the badgers and helped with the sets and props. i also had to make a man puppet's body from scratch in half a day as the main puppet snapped during filming and we did not have a back up.

i will be posting more of my previous work later on and hopefully some new commissions.

thank you for looking at my blog
alex