#98 - Chris Clarke
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Crafting Believability: The Art of Animatronics with Chris Clarke In this episode of 'Battles with Bits of Rubber,' Chris discusses his journey and experiences in the world of animatronics. He recounts various projects, including building the horse animatronic for 'Warhorse' and the massive head for 'Wicked.' Chris emphasises the importance of blending practical effects with digital methods, recounting his creative process, challenges, and innovations. He highlights how simple, logical solutions often work best and shares his early passion for special effects, driven by a desire to...
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#97 - Richard Martin
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Richard Martin is a multi-skilled and astute operator. He combines creative flair with a very sound approach to business, problem-solving and meeting deadlines. Often, as creative people, we love to dig deep into the joyful processes of making stuff, but often we lack the capacity to insist on sufficient time, money and space to allow that to happen. Richard talks about that in this episode, and we are so happy with the conversation we had. Fresh from his stint on the successful TV drama series The Day Of The Jackal with Eddie Redmayne, this was a joy to record, and we both...
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#96 - Brian Best
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Mastering Digital and Practical Prosthetics with Brian Best In this episode of 'Battles with Bits of Rubber,' we delve into the intricate world of prosthetics mould-making with the talented Brian Best. Join us as we explore Brian's transition from traditional mould-making to mastering ZBrush, discussing the nuances and challenges faced along the way. We cover many topics, including the practicalities of clay and silicone, the difficulties of working with different materials, and the invaluable lessons learned through years of hands-on experience. From...
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#95 - The Prosthetics Event 2024 Debrief
Battles With Bits of Rubber
This episode discusses our experience following the Prosthetics Event 2024 in Coventry. We mention our highlights, including networking, speaking to hundreds of people with our presentations, and a series of insightful discussions, which we hope you will find very helpful if you are a rubber monster freak like us. We chatted with , known for his exceptional bald cap techniques. He shared his methods and discussed common challenges in creating realistic bald caps. We also discuss the advances in digital workflows in prosthetics moulding with , who shares his innovative...
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#94 - Practical Pixels & Imprudent Imposters
Battles With Bits of Rubber
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...
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#93 - Falmouth Part 2
Battles With Bits of Rubber
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 , 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...
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#92 - Falmouth Uni Part 1
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Our trip down to Falmouth Uni preceded The Prosthetics Event 2023. It was a great trip, and so nice to see the work being done by students there and talk shop. As always, we have a rough idea about what we want to talk about, but it's always led by the feeling in the room at the time, questions that come up and current events within the group . We spoke for so long in a packed room using a single recorder, so the sound is a little different from our usual close microphone stuff. It went on for nearly three hours, and fell into two distinct sections - the first half we present here. The...
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#91 - Digital Tools In The Workshop
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Makeup artists typically like makeup. It is a tactile medium, and they enjoy products, how they feel and smell and respond to brushes and pressure. Making prosthetics similarly has its tactile qualities, and it is hard to separate these sensations from the very nature of the joy in the work. It is little wonder then that this same group of people may not have developed an extensive love of digital versions of the same work. Doing a digital makeup effect in Photoshop requires the makeup artist's mindset but somehow it is not the same thing, and I think...
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#90 - Joel Harlow
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Joel Harlow is an academy award-winning artist who started out in animation before he moved on to makeup. Gradually building multi-faceted skills, confidence and workloads, he has evolved and expanded into the makeup effects heavyweight we know today with a hefty rollcall of credits. Check out his company, . It is always fascinating to go through the IMDb of an artist and see their credits creeping up the hierarchy over time. Evidence of trust earned as supervisors see a way to pass the responsibility on, and nothing breeds more work than showing up on time and doing more than the client...
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#89 - Maddie Scott-Spencer
Battles With Bits of Rubber
Maddie is a talented concept artist and teacher known mostly for her ZBrush work. Coming from a practical background, her skills come from familiar ground - Fangoria, a love of monsters and sculpting for fun! She has taught classes for Gnomon since 2006 - we recommend the ‘’ video course. Todd and I both cite this as the breakthrough moment for both of us, making what previously had been indecipherable to us accessible and understandable. The way she comes across reminded us of Dick Smith, with a generous nature coupled with a thorough understanding of the subject. Maddie...
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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 stuartandtodd@gmail.com or leave us a voice message directly on our site.
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-Stuart & Todd