Olympic 2012 ceremonies

I have just started an intern-ship in the costume/fabrication department that are creating the pieces for the opening and closing ceremonies of both the Olympic and Paralympic games. This is all a very secret operation so I can't reveal what I have been working on, only that Danny Boyle is directing and be prepared for some amazing stuff! The studio's themselves are very picturesque and it is just fabulous working along side some truly talented makers, making dresses, prototypes props and all manor of bits and pieces all made that much more exciting by how secret squirrel we all have to be about it.
Keep you posted!

Animatronic Monkey

Below are photographs of the Golden Monkey model, I created this piece from my own design (please see design and  illustration folder). The Monkey had a fibre glass core and a foam latex skin giving it a life-like feel. The Monkey has a moving jaw as well as ears that twitch and changing expressions in the brow area (video to follow). I sculpted each individual gold tooth and hair replaced the fur as well as building a wooden stand on which the monkey sits.

Work-in-progress

Anyone read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials? Well the piece I am currently working on is a design for the Golden Monkey. Please see the design work and illustrations page to view the final design. The mouth and jaw is going to move through the use of animatronics.

Finished sculpt:

I have not fully sculpted the ears as I will add these separately later on in the process. The teeth are sculpted out of Fimo and baked in the oven, these will be removed during the mould making and cast separately in resin mixed with gold powders.

The eyes are for the time being just vacuum formed spheres, the final eyes are in the process of being made and painted. 

Jewel encrusted: 

As is indicated in the design, the monkey is to have a jewelled face, I had to push these into the sculpt so they will look inset into the foam latex when it is cast. 

Snow Goose

Just a small sculpt I am working on in order to improve my Chavant sculpting technique:

Metal head

Metal head is a sculpture I designed and created, it is constructed using angular pieces of tin and copper which I spot-welded together.

The Maggot

Vada Dame

Giant cocoon-esque piece which I designed made and puppeteered.

The vessel is constructed using a latex covering with a cone shaped structure inside made up of a series of hoops. During the short film the main character is born out of the cocoon which was being pupeteered by myself and my colleague to look as though it was squirming.