Atlantis- The production

The construction of the designs featured below began in early February 2013, it really did take up every minute of my time- hence why I haven't posted until now when its all finished!

I started by constructing and dyeing the costumes, a bodysuit for the female character- The Priestess and a Greek style tabard for the male- The Priesthood.

 A big part of my design influence was the beauty of mushrooms, because of this I decided to include foam latex embellishments:

Moulding different mushroom types.

Examples of some of the finished foam latex mushrooms once they had been painted:

The spiral/shell headpiece:

Firstly I had to sculpt the headpiece - half life size to save time and materials

I then took a pattern of the shape, transferred it into flat and enlarged it.

I cut the pattern pieces out of Plastezote and glued them back into their 3d form using Evo-stick and a heat gun. The final process was to cover the piece to match the costumes.

The Jellyfish!

The base for the jellyfish is an acrylic dome on which I applied layers of Platgel Silicone to make it a realistic jellyfish texture. 

I imbedded oil paints in between the layers of silicone to make it look more natural. 

It was necessary to create a custom-made skull cap to fit the model exactly, I attached this too the piece using silicone sealant. 

The final touches were the tentacles for which I gathered strips of organza and attached El wire so that they lit up.

Barnacle Prosthetics:

I sculpted the pieces out of chavant with lots of detail.

I moulded the sculpts in platgel silicone and cast in the same using deadener. 

After 24 runs I was satisfied I had enough for the models face, I painted these in oil colour.

Solon the crab:

I dissected a real crab into 12 pieces so that it could be moulded.

Clay-walling and creating a silicone mould.

Casting in fibreglass and then sanding

After casting the parts in fibreglass I then sculpted the mushroom cluster for the crabs back.

The caps and the stalks needed to be moulded separately in silicone. I cast the caps in foam latex and the stalks in liquid latex.

Piecing the fibreglass limbs together and priming them.

Crab after painting and finishing.

Atlantis Character Designs

For my third year project I have decided to focus on the story of Atlantis, the following images are the designs that I intend to fully realise as part of my final major project.

Priestess Barisibura

This is a special effects costume, this character will wear a full lycra body suit as well as a prosthetic on the face and the mushroom shaped headpiece is to be constructed of Plastazote.

The Priesthood

Above is the concept for the jellyfish character, I intend to use silicone to construct the headpiece to give it a translucent jellyfish quality, i will also be using electro luminescent wire on the tentacles to make the jelly light up

Solon

This is a robotic piece representing one of the characters from the text. I intend to sculpt the piece then cast the main frame in fibreglass and the mushrooms in foam latex.

A night at the Chinese Opera

I have recently been volunteering for the London Youth Opera, creating props and puppets for a production called 'A night at the Chinese Opera' by Judith Weir.

I constructed the kite photographed above and also created the moulds for the two puppets shown in the images below:

Olympic ceremonies 2012

So now that the excitement of the London 2012 Ceremonies are over I can finally reveal the photo's of the pieces that I worked on:

Head pieces for the Annie Lennox section in the closing ceremonies:

Above, the headpiece i designed and made being used in the closing ceremonies.

Below the gramaohone inspired headpiece that was also used in the show although a photograph of it being used in the actual ceremonies is not in existence. 

For the opening ceremonies I also worked on punk costumes and head-pieces featured below:

Me modelling a make-up design for the closing ceremonies...

Metropolis

Here are images of the last instalment of my second year at LCF. I have been working on a group collaboration on a hypothetical remake of the 1930's film Metropolis, within which I designed and produced the helmet featured below whilst Helena Tegeder did an excellent job on making the costume to complete the character of Joh Frederson.

Full Costume

Android Helmet

Using the head cast of Jonathan (photographed in previous post) I have now sculpted the futuristic Metropolis helmet with finishing touches to be added after I have moulded the sculpt and got the positive fibreglass piece out.

Head Cast

Full head cast of my model who I am using for my current Project- A hypothetical remake of the 1927 film Metropolis. I am designing and making a helmet for Joh Frederson, the ruler of Metropolis.

The head cast came out very well with the exception of some very small air bubbles.