Clive Is Alive!

So much good stuff has been said about the alien baby we made for Dead Time (who we lovingly named Clive) that we thought we would do a post about how we made him. Full credit has to go to Effie (who also played Jo in the film) for doing nearly all the work on the build.

Whenever we try to do a new effect it always starts off looking rubbish but we have learned that the secret is to push on through that stage and just believe that when it is finished and in front of the camera it WILL look awesome and Clive is a great example of that.

First of we had a quick chat about what kind of creature we wanted and Woodie did us a design on paper that pretty much nailed it so we jumped straight in to the fun bit with very little planning.

The first step was justto get a basic body shape to build on to. We used old newspaper and held it in shape with parcel tape, making sure to leave hand sized spaces in the back of his head and his back to allow the puppeteers to operate him when finished.

We kept adding newspaper to smooth the shape out and attached a pair of heavy rubber gardening gloves to act as his flippers. The thumbs of the gloves are inside hi chest cavity which means the operator can get a good grip and really get him moving.

Once the basic shape was done we began covering him in a layer of more newspaper soaked in liquid latex. This covers bumps and wrinkles and dries tough, flexible and fairly waterproof which was important as we knew he would be getting covered in slime and blood for the shoot.

We also made a bladder from two sheets of dry latex stuck together and set this in to his chest with a tube attached through the back of his head so that we could make him breath.

With the latex skin dried we painted him with more latex coloured with acrylic paint. We put on a few layers, tweaking the colour and adding shading with each one.

With this done the final details where added. Webbing and ridges where built up of newspaper and latex, teeth and claws made from the prongs of plastic forks, a tongue from a latex soaked sponge and two marbles added as eyes.

After a final coat of acrylic paint he was done. A kinda nasty but kinda cute alien foetus made from stuff we had lying around the house.

On the shoot we had two people on the floor out of shot to operate him. One with their hands in his back making has flippers move and one with a hand in his head to do his mouth and to blow in to the pipe to make him breath.

We made up a big pan of really thick arrowroot blood and another of clear arrowroot slime and slopped it all over everything. Poor old Freddie, who had only come along to be camera operator, ended up on flipper duty and got totally covered in the stuff but was very professional and waited till we called cut before telling us exactly what he though of us and our stupid film :)

Check out the other photos for a full run down of the process.