Shipping and sculpting

Shipped another Werewolf mask yesterday and then got another order for one the same day. This guy is popular. He was our least selling mask for years and now he’s the hottish. You guys have good taste in history and movies! Thank you!

I finally have the time to work on the Laser Blast sculpt. Making a figure of myself when I was 26 years old is a trip. I was so darn thin then and wrinkle free. Had a lot of hair too. Still I wouldn’t trade for where I am now. I treasure my experience and wisdom.

This isn’t easy or something I can do quickly with this super hard clay. It’s slow tweaking but at the rate I’m going I should finish it in a few days.

The film continues to progress well. It’s 6 am and I’m heading to the edit bay to do more shots.

Sunday…7-11-2021

I thought I’d post a picture of the latest lighter skinned and salt and pepper haired Henry Hull Werewolf of London. This was requested by the customer. I finished this Friday too late to go out in the mail. It will ship Monday.

Meanwhile work continues on the film. I have managed to completely edit the entire timeline. I only have a few more composites today to do and it’s ready for sound mix. It is hard work but so rewarding. There’s nothing like film making.

Being able to watch Robb Wolford and Steve Altman perform in character on the screen feels like a real conversation. They are both excellent actors and have brought a realism to this film that I so greatly appreciate.

Mask update 7-9-2021

I always post my progress on this site so customers can see their mask being made up. As far as I know I’m the only mask maker that does this and it’s fun and informative for the customer. Everything from the casting to the final paint and hair work is done by myself.

Today I’ll lay the hair on this mask. Yesterday was prep to paint, paint, teeth, eyes and glazing.

Work continues day and night on the post production of our film. It is going well and I should have a finished trailer out soon.

  • all preened and ready to paint.
  • teeth being poured up
  • fully painted
  • Teeth in and eyes and mouth glazed for a wet look.

Masks 7-8-2021

Filling orders here’s yet another Werewolf of London of Henry Hull. This mask was never popular when I made it back in 2008 but today it’s one of our biggest sellers. Thank you all that have ordered them!

Here’s the mask in the raw rubber straight from the mold before preening and painting. I just pulled this from the mold before leaving the studio last night.

And for those of you new this is a finished mask.

Also I nearly finished the new micro free flight J-3 Piper cub.

It’s needs panel lines for the cowl and elevator, ailerons, and rudder. This will a great indoor flyer and a calm day flyer outside.

A little break

I’ve been putting in so much time in post production that yesterday between pouring orders for mask I worked some more on this tiny free flight J-3 Piper Cub. I also did a bit more on the Laser blast gun. Mark did such a great job on this 3D print it looks just like the real thing.

I’m also getting ready for a first Flight my PA-20 Piper Pacer. This is a much bigger RC airplane all wood and fiberglass no foam here.

The latest 7-6-2021

I used this entire long 3 day weekend to work on the film. The work I’m doing now is usually the work of several people. CGI, 3D modeling, After effects compositing, and editing. I’m doing them all. Without a doubt I’m enjoying it but it is tiring at best. Long days and the machines rendering around the clock and the progress is somewhat slow. I need a bank of super fast computers and even then it takes time.

I assembled a rough first trailer on top of everything else and it’s exactly that, rough. Even now I’m re-rendering shots to remove the flaws and make corrections to color and blend that stands out to me.

Raul Arteaga is going to do a sound mix on the final version later this week. There will be a longer better trailer later on.

The entire time line is in place and much of the editing is done. I’m now cutting in the close ups and other angles we shot. I have a lot of coverage and it’s helped to make correct editorial choices. You can never have too much coverage.

The hardest part was getting the proper look for the Dreamtime effect or look part of the film where the two characters are in that strange dream like building environment. I didn’t want the footage to look crystal clear and in focus but rather dreamy and surreal. Through making the visuals over and over again I arrived at a look using light burst, and camera lens blur for the backgrounds and walking ghosts that I was happy with. Then I had to go back to each After Effects file for each composite and re-render them with the settings matched to that look for consistency.

I’m rendering these files out as Quick Time ProRes files. They take an original 2-3 gigs file shot in camera and up the size to nearly 29 gigs or more which is slowly pushing my hard drive space. Luckily I have a huge Raid that Paul Gentry built me and high speed external drives. I tried using H-264 mpeg 4 with some degrees of success but I found on the highly layered After Effects shots they didn’t hold up and produced a lot noise due to their high compression. They work fine for SNG weekly live action footage but not for effect shots.

Today we are back to the studio to fill some masks orders received over the weekend and to work on the Laser Blast figure!

We hope you all had a great 3 day weekend and enjoyed the holiday!