Creature FX are under the spotlight in issue 6, with the work of industry leaders Dave and Lou Elsey, and Spectral Motion, alongside extreme ageing makeup, and disguise makeup on some very famous faces. Also: lessons in latex, SFX contact lenses, ovens, photographing your work, and the many uses for a certain Kryolan product!
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COVER: The Cowardly Lion prosthetic makeup and hair work on actor David Alan Grier by Dave and Lou Elsey (The Wiz Live! TV special, NBC – performed live from Grumman Studios New York)
Page 8. ADVENTURES IN THE CREATURE TRADE: Dave Elsey and Lou Elsey’s incredible, enduring success as collaborators in screen prosthetics, including creatures such as Farscape‘s Scarran War Minister Ahkna, Scorpious, and Moordil the multi-armed alien, Tion Medon and Orn Free Taa from Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, The Cowardly Lion and Tin Man from The Wiz Live!, and character ageing makeup on Sir Ian McKellen for Mr Holmes
Page 34. ANIMATRONICS RENAISSANCE: Part two of our discussion with Spectral Motion’s Mike Elizalde and Mark Setrakian about their work at the forefront of animatronics on characters such as Doug Jones’ Abe Sapien, Ron Pearlman’s Hellboy, and Brian Steele’s Mr Wink in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo del Toro, the Minotour and Great Wize Wizard in Your Highness, the skinmites for Pacific Rim, and an animatronic figure of rapper Drake for a Sprite commercial
Page 52. THE 101 YEAR OLD MAN: Love Larson and Eva Von Bahr talk about creating the old age makeups for the further misadventures of a centenarian, sometimes referred to as ‘the Swedish Forest Gump‘, as well as look-alike makeups including Andy Warhol, Richard Nixon, Leonid Brezhnev, Henry Kissinger, David Bowie and Iggy Pop
Page 72 (78 on contents page). FX CRIBS: Blue Whale Studios has worked on productions like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, The Secret life of Walter Mitty, and Transformers 3. Co-owners Jonah Levy and Matthew Silva lift the lid on the company’s new Atlanta premises, now running in tandem with their Orlando workshop
Page 88. DECONSTRUCTING DISGUISE MAKEUP: Neill Gorton examines the considerations, skills and psychology behind successfully concealing identity, showing examples such as Dick Smith’s Genghis Khan makeup on Anthony Quinn for Marco the Magnificent, Greg Cannom and Ve Neill’s Mrs Doubtfire makeup on Robin Williams, Rick Baker’s makeups on Eddie Murphy for The Nutty Professor, Greg Cannom’s Mason Verger makeup on Gary Oldman for Hannibal, Steve Prouty’s Bad Grandpa makeup on Johnny Knoxvile, Spectral Motion’s transformations of Brandon T Jackson and Martin Lawrence for Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son, Allen Weisinger’s Tootsie makeup on Dustin Hoffman, and many of his own makeups in collaboration with Vanessa White on actors and presenters such as And and Dec, Catherine Tate, Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, and Melinda Messenger
Page 6. WORDS OF WISDOM: Thomas Surprenant, Emmy Award-winning makeup FX artist sets the scene for this issue
Page 27. JARGON BUSTER: Laura Barnes clears up the confusing terminology surrounding taking and storing good quality images of your work; find out the difference between JPEGS and JPGS, PPI and DPI, and get to grips with the purpose of pixels
Page 45. A LESSON IN LATEX, or FUN WITH FOAM: The second of a two-part tutorial from Stuart Bray and Todd Debreceni, combining experience from both sides of the Atlantic on working with foam latex, covering prepping moulds, running foam latex, filling moulds, heat-curing foam, and removing appliances from their moulds, featuring a look at successful foam appliances such as the nose created for Steve Martin by Michael Westmore in Roxanne
Page 63. PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Long-standing UK prosthetics designer and teacher Stuart Conran (Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block, Mutant Chronicles, Alexander, The Woman in Black) give us his top ten uses for Kryolan Fixing Spray
Page 78 (72 on contents page). SPECIAL FX CONTACT LENSES: Industry-leading contact lens manufacturers Cantor & Nissel provide specilaist lenses for many productions, including for characters such as the Night King in Game of Thrones. Here they give us an essential education in the issues surrounding special FX contact lenses
Page 83. WHAT’S COOKIN’? California-based artist Vincent Damyanovich’s expert opinion on choosing and using ovens for FX work
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