This episode of the podcast, we catch up with some questions left on our answerphone, emails and comments. Clay issues, alcohol colours, and a nice message from sculpting master . Cheers to those been in touch, and leaving messages. You can get in touch by email at or . I mentioned working at the BBC Visual FX department, and I was reminded that I have a book about it - BBC Vfx: The History of the BBC Visual Effects Department 2010 by Mat Irvine (Author), Mike Tucker (Author) ISBN-10: 1845135563 ISBN-13: 978-1845135560 I mentioned 'enjoy the suck' and it was, of course, 'embrace the suck', and it's meaning is as follows: (military, slang) To consciously accept or appreciate something that is extremely unpleasant but unavoidable. Quite appropriate right now. Check our podcast website here:

The Shaun Of The Dead prosthetic team reunites and talk through the movie effects shots. I thought it would be fun to chat with Stuart Conran and Dan Frye, two FX buddies who I have known and worked with for many years on many projects. I rewatched the movie to refresh my memory and listed the effects in chronological order. Make sure to which accompanies this episode. This little nod of appreciation comes from that place which still makes me warm and fuzzy when I flick through old Fangoria and Gorezone magazines. You can easily get in touch with the show by or emailing us at the usual address, . Thanks for listening. -Stuart & Todd  

Blog Post link: Folio under your arm, at some point you may wish to appeal to those who could give you a job. It's nervewracking to be judged, but your folio is maybe pages of your heart and soul now made visible for others to assess and rate. The main way anyone gets work is simply by having a portfolio of good work and then show that to someone who pays for people like that to solve a problem they have. There isn't a single path or trick to game the system. You are not likely to be given a job you are wholly unsuited to - the work is too precious to those who are looking to hire, and there is a pretty robust system of hiring. Here we discuss some main points to help you get your head straight. Think through what you could mean to them rather than what they can do for you. Listen to the podcast for the full monty, but the key points are listed below! 1.        How much to charge. Know your worth        Know how much it costs you to stand still for a day and do nothing.     How much do people get paid? Check with trade union pay rates for your region to compare and see what is current. 2.        The film industry isn't looking to take you on and train you. It doesn't need another mouth to feed. The machine which is the film industry isn’t looking to take on someone, spend time training them only to have them up sticks and work for someone else. The ‘industry’ isn’t a single entity, so much a mass of small companies, individuals and private interests. For anyone to take a chance on someone unknown, share their contacts, processes and the inner circle is quite a thing to undertake. The risk is you could take that and use what you have learned to help a competitor, so it’s a peculiar situation to be in. 3.        Waiting to be picked.       Someone waiting to be picked V an independent self-starter.         Evidence of motivated and talent.     Show evidence of your desire to do the work. A chef doesn’t require a fully fitted kitchen before making their first omelette – make what you can when you can to the best of your ability. Doing so will give you practice and display your journey to an interested party. The people you are trying to work for are like that and they know their own.  If you want to do it for a living then you should be doing it whatever. 4.        Awareness of the state of the industry.         Do you know about the industry? About current artists names, credits and back story?    We have taught at many places where students didn’t know the masters or even watch films to have an awareness of what went before. This is something your potential employers will notice as they DO know and care about it. How good are those currently working and do you measure up?    What can you do to improve?            What do people pay for? ... People pay to have their problems solved. Whose problems do you solve? Do you know the industry well enough to know that and how you can fit in to it?        What can you provide and where do you fit in the workflow?         5.        Actual ability levels.         Are you an asset or a burden? Are you asking to help them or are you asking them to help you. Conisder their needs first, and how it will shape your approach.          Does your folio show examples of what problems the employer will need you to...

There are often a number of questions about prosthetic makeup that get asked often. We put together the top 5 that keep cropping up and do a deep dive into our responses. 1. How do I match an appliance to a person's skin tone? 2. How do I ensure a good edge on an appliance? 3. How can I create good work without spending a fortune on materials? 4. How do I get work? 5. Will computers take over the work of makeup artists? Check out the blog post with extensive notes (and a downloadable booklet) by .   Also, you can leave a voice message directly on our website through our 'Speak Pipe' feature. . -Stuart & Todd

Todd talks with his good friends and fellow artists, Jacquie & Brandon Ryan. This episode looks at how people teach, learn, and maybe don't learn. We all need a motivation to learn, and many of us will require different styles of learning such as visual, auditory, practical hands-on tasks or live demonstration to get started. One simple rule to remember is this: Sucking is learning. Making mistakes is when you learn. Learn how to make mistakes and pick yourself up. Nobody likes failing, but using that as fuel is worthwhile. As the military put it - 'Pain retains!'

I first met Neill with a folio tucked under my arm for my interview I had managed to arrange at Ealing Studios in 1995. My first job with him was making oversized Casio watches, which were fibreglassed out of silicone moulds to make G-Shock watch display units. --------------------------------- Check out our new website: --------------------------------- One thing I have always noticed about Neill is that he has a seemingly fearless approach to problem-solving. He will go directly to the source and grab whatever is the root of the issue in order to overcome it. This seems to me to be the single best approach to fixing things which go wrong and thus continue on to better results. It is so easy for us to protect ourselves from the pain of that difficulty that it needs constant motivation and reminding to break through that in-built resistance. The film industry is couched in problem-solving, each situation unique and usually high pressured. It is an attractive career and it rewards those involved with decent pay and pride, at the cost of many long hours and the weight of responsibility. When things are done well by competent practitioners, it often looks like not much has been done at all - as if the ease with which something has been accomplished has been the result of something requiring little skill. The truth is, people who are highly skilled make it look easy, and it is interesting to discuss this with people who are successful and well connected to their efforts which made them so. It does nobody any service to imply that great success is easy, yet there is no shortage of 'get rich quick' schemes online, dangling the carrot of instant fame at the touch of a recording button. Truth is, people pay for what they value and solving problems is a valuable commodity. The job of all of us I think is to figure out whose problems you can solve, and how to be of service whilst building a body of work you can be proud of. In this episode, Neill & Stuart dig into the behind the scenes stuff about what is hard and how to address the weaknesses. We also come up with three very practical ways to get started, which don't involve massive expense or commitment: Sculpt self-portraits with clay, spending just 30 mins a day and reuse the clay to practice sculpting. Mirror, lamp and you. Do this for 30 days. Take a photo each day of what you did in the time, and rip the clay up and reuse it the next day. Repeat. Sculpt a face or creature face onto a board. Make a plaster mould of this and make a latex face mask. Avoid expensive silicone in the first instance, just stick to the basic materials. Highlight and shadow makeups. The cornerstone of everything, modifying forms with just highlight and shadow using a few brushes and a makeup palette such as the 12 colour 'Supracolour' B Palette from Kryolan. Neill also talks about his interest in psychology and how it can best affect how we see to sculpt. We do so many things automatically without actively noticing, so learning to do new things makes you meet those difficulties. That is the blockage when you start learning new things. There is no immediate reward, no endorphin rush of doing something you are competent at. When starting out, most people are awful, few people are 'natural born sculptors'. It takes repetition and powering through the crap stuff, like purging the spout of a half-used tube of glue, getting the crust out of the way so the fresh stuff can get out. I'm a better sculptor because of how I break things down into simpler forms. Complexity is just repeated layers of simplicity. Sculpting is difficult because you have a low-resolution version of things - you can't have a high-resolution version of all things in the world, it is too much information to retain and recall so we become adept at glossing over most things most of the time. When called to reproduce and generate something which is believable, it helps to have a clear idea of...

At IMATS London 2019, I sat and had a great chat with Rick from Bolton University. For those that may not be aware, a breif Rick bio: "Richard is a senior lecturer and Programme Leader of the Special Effects for Film and TV degree at the University of Bolton. He’s been teaching at the university for several years and specialises in character work, in both the prosthetic make-up effects and model-making fields. " In the episode, we talk about the massive effect 3D printing and technology is having on what was previously a traditional skills area. What is cool is that new blood is coming in, taking on board the new tech and learning old skills for the first time in equal measure, making something new and quite special as a result. He is an interesting chap and has, I think you will agree, a very good voice for radio! Give us a listen and let us know what you think. Incidentally, all the lecturers at Bolton have been doing great work there for years, making a real impact on the quality of work and competence the students leave with. The lecturers and support crew in all the courses at Bolton have been so generous and supportive, they really do deserve a shout out. We recently collaborated with various mentors to support their recent Island of Dr Moreau project which was filmed this past week. More on this exciting collaboration with Matt Winston from the incredible Stan Winston Character School of Character Arts . In it, we discuss various things, and I mention a He-Man and a Skeletor suit made for a Money Supermarket commercial built by . Check out the cool behind the scenes video of David Monzingo, Brian Best and Myself wrangling suits for the commercial shoot in London . I was lucky enough to help out just for a day - David and the Legacy FX team handled the build and full shoot days - it was a blast!   Todd and I chatted about safer mould materials, which is great for anyone with limited workshop access, open spaces and extraction. This led to an interesting discussion about comparing plaster and resin use in the UK and USA for mould making. The materials we mentioned were acrylic polymers to be used with Gypsum, and sound similar in regards to mixing and properties: We also discuss the workspaces used by students in makeup schools and colleges, measuring accuracy in CAD and ZBrush and the amazing work of Landon Meier. If you haven't seen his stuff, it really is incredible and you can do a lot worse for entertainment than check out his stuff here: This article is also entertaining: His Instagram: His YouTube: Correction - In the podcast at 19:03 it was Monsterpalooza 2018 we did the Bela Lugosi application - not IMATS as I said. D'oh! Have a splendid week! We shall return soon. Kind regards --- Stuart & Todd.

In this episode, I got to chat with Matthew Mungle & visit his jail cell! Matthew and his company, WM Creations have been responsible for makeup effects on scores of shows and racked up a lot of awards and nominations in the process - for a deep dive into that, check out Matthews IMDb profile. The actual real-life holding cell in the studio, now decked out with suitably spooky decorations and effects! So much fun. Todd and I also wax lyrical about the joys of epoxy and plaster, silicones we like for flat moulds and release agents for Pros-Aide transfers. We both like a firmer silicone as there is naturally some pressure that goes on when pressing a scraper over the back of the mould - so a soft silicone mould will compress too much and underfill if you are not careful! One of the sculpting areas in Matthews studio. Matthew talked at length about the process of taking a script, breaking it down and assigning it into a series of tasks - details which you don't often hear people talk about. He always wanted to do his own thing, and so he learned how to please a crew and producers before being a freelancer - getting the priorities right: Learning how to delegate and let things go whilst still controlling quality. How a job gets from words on a page to a series of jobs, and then pieces of rubber on a set. How a TV show is like a train that leaves the station that doesn't stop until it gets to the end of the line. Deciding what will be practical or visual fx. Will an effect be suitable for the target audience to keep director, producer and network happy. Discussing the effect with the appropriate crew like DOP and what to prep for. We are also on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube ... basically, wherever you get podcasts! Subscribe to make sure you don't miss the latest episodes! The video tutorial I mentioned on Freeform Sculpt and Freeform Air is here. (It was a squirrel - not a duck as I mentioned). WM Creations have a range of FX materials such as Soft Sealer, Old Age Stipple and Alcohol Colours, and are available from good retailers such as BITY in the US and The Makeup Armoury in the UK. There are endless rows of lifecasts all over the studio - talk about reference material! Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider letting everyone know - tell a friend, share this episode on the socials and leave a comment or review on iTunes if you feel moved to do so! You can email us directly at [email protected] Till next time -Stuart & Todd Click to visit the Blog Post Episode to go with this episode.

In this episode, Neill Morrill joins me in the workshop as we hit up Todd in Colorado and chat about our collaborated efforts on the makeup we did for The Prosthetics Event 2019. Neil is originally from the UK but moved to Toronto in the early 2000s and has worked on a number of high profile shows over the years such as 300, The Strain, Suicide Squad, Hereditary, It, Shazam! and the What We Do In The Shadows series. It was an absolute joy working with Neil on our homage to Rick Bakers' 'Reverend Brown' makeup on Arsenio Hall from 1988 classic Coming To America. Neil had the idea when chatting to our makeup sponsor Sian Richards when bouncing ideas around. The upcoming sequel recently finished shooting, and so Neil picked that as a good contender as a challenge for us to do - separated as we are by 3, 500 miles of Atlantic ocean. British Rapper and DJ Normski agreed to be our victim, and so we set about hatching the plan. Obviously distance like that adds tricky elements to a physical process such as sculpting and moulding pieces, so we worked out a share of labour which was as follows. Some video was shot and we will edit together the whole thing as a complete tutorial in more detail, so check the blog post for an abridged version of the first part of the process: http://www.learnmakeupeffects.com/48-neil-morrill/ ‎ Thanks for checking in! -Stuart & Todd Email the show direct at [email protected]

In this episode, Todd and Stu talk about our week making moulds with epoxy, dropping sculpts and moulage effects for first responder training. Earlier in 2019, Stu got to sit and chat with some fine folks at IMATS London and a chat with makeup designer Kate Benton kicks off the first of these finally edited up after a crazy industry year. This is the sculpt I was detailing and then dropped. Doh! As you may know, this podcast is a side hustle for us which has been on the backburner for a while as the industry rocked the makeup case hard. Now as things ease up, the Prosthetics Event is almost upon us and a season of podcast editing is happening and winding down for the end of the year. Deep joy! Find out more about Kate on her website: http://www.katebenton.com/ The Heidi Klum Halloween makeups we mentioned can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp390WQaXY Check out the amazing artistry of Mike Marino and Prosthetic Rennaisance (Proren) here: https://www.prorenfx.com/ and on Insta @prorenfx We sure appreciate your ears and attention. If you would like to help support us, then please share this episode with someone who you think would get something out of it. Get in touch at [email protected] to ask fx related questions and to suggest your ideas for a future episode. OK, back to the workshop for us. Speak soon. -Stuart & Todd