Creature Design and Fabrication
What is creature design? -Creature design encompasses many aspects of what is percieved as Special Effects Make-Up. Creatures can be anything from an animal, to a fantastic beast or a harrowing monstrosity, depending on the purpose of the design. There are many ways to create these illusions and effects for stage and screen, and here at Facades FX, we do it all!
- Body Suits - worn by an actor or puppeteer, and animated via their physical movements.
- Animatronics - creatures designed as moving puppets who's action is controlled externally via radio controlled servo mechanisms, or cable controlled levers, or pneumatic air powered pressure packs and air rams.
- Mechanical Masks - an animatronic mask worn by an actor or puppeteer and animated by and external operator or team of operators, or via 'slave' mechanism built into the mask rig that the actor/puppeteer controls internally.
- Prosthetics -special effects make-up appliances sclupted, molded and cast in flexible agents (such as silicone, foam latex chemicals, or 'slip' rubber latex), they are adhered to the face of an actor for the purpose of changing their appearance and creating a three-demensional creature with full range of emotional expression and movement.
Bust Sculptures and Limited Edition Collector's Masks - In addition to the professional creative industries work Facades FX does, for over a decade Phil produced some of the finest collectable likeness potrait busts ever created. He is one of the top sculptors in the collector's mask/display bust community and his work is famous globally. For more about this aspect of his design work go here.
- Ventriloquist figures - Modern ventriloquists use a variety of types of puppets in their presentations, ranging from soft (cloth or foam, or flexible latex) puppets, and the traditional and familiar hard headed knee figure. The classic 'dummies' used by ventriloquists (the technical name for ventriloquial figure) vary in size anywhere from 12 inches tall to human life-size and larger, with the average height usually falling between 34 to 42 inches. Traditionally this type of puppet has been made from papier mache` or wood, however in modern times other materials are often employed including fiber glass enforced resins, urethanes, method of papier mache`, and some more modern hard resin compounds.
Here are some examples of figures made from method of papier mache`. "Charlene Peckerwood", was sculpted in clay, and a mold was made of the sculpture. The mold was then separated and the casting compound, in this case the traditional method of papier machet, was layered inside, once the clay sculpture was removed and discarded. Below on the right you can see the finished figure, ready for her puppeteer.
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