Starship Troopers 3: Marauder 2007

In 2007 I had the great privilege of working on the ultra ambitious, low budget third installment in the Starship Troopers series with the legendary Robert Skotak as Visual Effects Supervisor.
Amongst other bits of fabrication my main contribution was this thing:

Cable operated armatures clad in semi translucent fiberglass shells and urethane rubber joints.

The Skotaks went on to do some great miniature effects for this film back at their studio 4Ward Productions in LA once the main shoot was wrapped in Cape Town.
Have a look at their gallery.

Trailer for Starship Troopers 3: Marauder 

Jacob Zuma Christmas tree ornaments 2006

10 000bc 2006

Roland Emmerich's 10,000BC is a much derided film but afforded me a great opportunity to combine my career in film making design and fabrication with my love of paleo art.

Shot over many months in South Africa, Namibia and New Zealand, it was a gargantuan undertaking for everyone involved!


One of my first tasks on this film was to participate in the design and fabrication of some primitive stone age tools and jewelry:

Next I was tasked to realize Production Designer Jean-Vincent Puzo's    
 

vision of a shaman's hut made from the carcass of a giant mammoth bull.

 I developed a small tabletop maquette at 12th scale to plan the build:

With the model approved I prepared for the sculptural element of the full set build by borrowing bones of both an African and Indian elephant from the Iziko Natural History Museum

Here are some of the vertebra in progress. Carved from a urethane foam and coated in plaster.

This set was originally intended to be assembled and filmed in the Drakensberg of Southern Africa, a last minute decision was made to relocate to Wanaka in New Zealand!

 For the last leg of the filming we returned to Africa to shoot at Spitszkoppe in Namibia. Same location where some of the footage for the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001 Space Odyssey was shot.

I made some Sabre tooth skulls as set dressing.

The Triangle 2005

A highlight for me of working on the SciFi Channel series The Triangle, was working with Sam Neill. In the show he gets to open a body bag revealing this beauty:

One of Columbus's sailors is worse for wear after time traveling to modern day. He was made from bathroom silicone tinted with oil paints and layered over a cast skeleton.

Trailer for The Triangle:

https://youtu.be/dhdsblHwH1o 

 

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines 2005

A silly little film, spawned an ongoing series on TNT :Librarians.

I made a number of odd things on this show, lots of artifacts including The Ark of the Covenant. With more than a passing resemblance to a similar prop designed by Ralph McQuarrie for Raiders of The Lost Ark.

Also sculpted this boat munching hippo:

Trailer:

https://youtu.be/ansvc2Muxr0

A Venus flytrap swallowed a chicken

I cannot remember why.

The Fall 2004

One of my favorite films I worked on, was also one of my first. 
Tarsem Sing's The Fall is a visual marvel. My involvement was only in the dummy horse used in this shot:

Trailer for The Fall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwsYyRc9j4g

Film school miniatures 2002-2004

 I have always been drawn to little miniature environments. I have early memories of building castles in pottery class instead of the expected cups and bowls.
Whilst at City Varsity in Cape Town, I made these rudimentary models as tests for application in miniature effects. It would be a few years later that I got to do real miniatures for commercials and eventually films.

This little tower was made at 35th scale.

 You may notice my thinly veiled attempts at a stylistic similarity to elements in The Lord of The Rings films.
This was the very beginning of a near decade long campaign to get my work noticed by Weta Workshop who were working on these films at the time.

Blog Introduction!

So here I am, at last getting onto the blog wagon. I have a pretty extensive archive of images from work in the film industry, museum displays, public sculpture, collectables and occasionally my personal artwork.

I will approach this chronologically. Starting with film school in Cape Town, South Africa back in 2001 to 2003.

This blog will feature some behind the scenes, in progress pictures and finished works in concept design, filming miniatures, film props, sculpture and paleo art right up to my most recent work in New Zealand as Miniatures Art Director on Thunderbirds Are Go! and Blade Runner 2049.

Along the way I will share as much as possible, some of my best work and some of my utter worst.

Enjoy!