My boy, part 2

The boy as we delivered him to the film set

After the lovely reception of my album of this puppet I tried to edit it with more photos when I got home but I'm clearly a terrible luddite as I can't work out how.

However, I thought I'd post these anyway and answer some of the more common questions asked, as well as explain a little more about the progress...

He was a silicone skin over a fibreglass core.

The initial life cast

The young actor (Art Parkinson) lay on a workbench in his underpants and a team of three of us lifecast him in alginate (the blue stuff the dentist uses to take impressions of teeth). We did his whole body in one pass but did the arms and face separately (not pictured). The alginate is reenforced with plaster bandage (like they make plaster-casts from)

Then we melted down Plasteline (an oil based clay) and brushed it into the mould.

The rough positive

Once we had a 1 1/2" skin of clay we filled the remaining space with polyurethane foam and de-moulded him by tearing off the alginate (which gets destroyed in the process. You only get one go!)

This is the various bits cast out.

Fitting the head

The various bits are trimmed and assembled based on measurements we took from the actor.

In this instance we decided to mould the arms separately so they were fitted but not attached.

Walling up

The mould has to be in several pieces and we determine the dividing lines with "walls". Once I decided where these splits would go they are roughed out with timber.

Walling up pt.2

The timber is then coated in regular, water based clay and smoothed out. We add keys (the trapezoid shapes) to help align the different mould parts later.

Mould section 1

The exposed part of the life cast and the clay wall are coated in resin and glass matting to create the first part of the mould. The wall will then be stripped off the back and the next section will be made.

The final mould

The final mould of the body (not including the arms) was five sections. The front, the back of the head, torso and legs and a separate section for the feet (as they were so complex).

Here it is all bolted together.

Cat tax and promise of more FX-y stuff.

Here is my cat Pfeffer. She's upside down.

Several people have asked about my other work so I'll put up an album of that soon. I also got requests for FX advice. I'll do some tutorial posts if people want, comment or PM what you want to know and I'll try to get some done before halloween.

FP edit:
Second FP in two days (and ever, actually) you lot are lovely. No other news except some people have asked for a link to the first part, so here it is: http://imgur.com/a/eDfzr