‘So you think you’d like to be a model-maker?’ – Part 2

If you haven’t seen Part 1, scroll down just three previous posts to October 2020. In this first part I focused on some of the qualities or ‘mindsets’ which are important, in my view, not only for starting out as a model-maker but, crucially, for continuing happily with it. I also started to suggest first steps for a beginner to consider in terms of ‘professionalising’ their work and it’s this aspect I’m continuing with now.

Part of Georjane Winn’s degree show work presented at ‘New Blades’, the model-makers annual recruitment fair, 2017, organized by 4D modelshop

Let’s say .. you’re really keen, you’ve got some things to show, but not a great deal? The best thing you can do for yourself is spend as much time as you can doing more! Of course it’s likely you’ll be asking yourself what kind of ‘more’ you should be doing if you want to improve your chances, but I feel quite strongly that a lot of your self could be lost if you listen to the voice of ‘conformity’ too soon. So look at the things you’ve made at the very beginning, the things you’ve chosen to make, usually just for fun, perhaps still as a child unaware of any other reasons. It could be a mistake at this point if you depart too much from these beginnings. For a while at least, continue with what you enjoy doing most, what you feel your strengths are, what you can capitalize on already, regardless of what you might guess now or discover in the future about what people want or what you think they’ll remember most! Whatever this is, if imaginatively developed it could become one of your personal specialisms, perhaps the thing in your work that gets you remembered, or gets noticed because no-one else is doing it, or at least not in the same way!

Work from Marleigh Layne for her degree show selection presented at ‘New Blades’, the model-makers annual recruitment fair, 2019, organized by 4D modelshop.

Once you’ve strengthened your own ‘base’ as it were, then you can look more outside of it .. I mean, take a closer look at what’s actually going on. Once you’ve taken the time to understand and embrace where you’re coming from, I think it’s always best to ‘bite the bullet’ eventually, and get an idea of what others are doing; the standard ‘expected’; the type of training (for those who’ve opted for it); the jobs that model-making companies are doing .. even though you’ll see perhaps many aspects of model-making that you’re not so interested in. It’s all knowledge that can’t, or shouldn’t hurt, at this point. So for this you could, for example, find the New Blades section on the 4D modelshop website where you can access photos of the work of model-making graduates from the last few years. Here you’ll see projects such as film creatures; make-up prosthetics; practical effects settings; architecture; exhibition or educational models; product models; puppets for animation .. and so on. In addition you could find the props/model-making firms (or single model-makers) on Google, such as Artem or Asylum for example, and see what they’re doing, or get an idea of what film studios or production companies are up to? At the end of this part I’ve put my own selection of some of them well worth looking at.

Miniature farmhouse made by Artem to be destroyed during a storm sequence in the 2018 film ‘The Hurricane Heist’. See https://www.artem.com/portfolio/767 for more info and photos of the process.

So I’ve started to answer the questions ‘Who needs models?‘ or ‘Where are models called for?’ and here is some more detail ..

Architectural models take up a big proportion of the model-making sector as a whole, whether these are ‘sketch’ or early stage models needed during design development; final, finished models for public or client presentation; or similar presentations of building projects, sometimes whole cityscapes, as visual aids in urban planning for example. It’s rare though that freelance model-makers will get work during the design development stage; more likely that they’ll be called in once all that’s been finalized and something frighteningly tight and pristine is required. There are numerous model-making firms dedicated to nothing else, who employ numbers of makers working in ‘production line’ mode, often having a small team of in-house model-makers and engaging others from a ‘pool’ of freelancers as and when needed.

Above ‘sketch’ or design development model from Studio Mumbai Architecture, for ‘1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces’ V&A London 2010, link
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1242108/architectural-model-studio-mumbai-architecture/

London Quadrant Masterplan, for Allies and Morrison Architects
https://www.networkmodelmakers.com/ Network Modelmakers

Real, physical models are still used a lot in film and tv, now often in close combination with CGI (in ‘fusion’ as it’s often put), whether directly part of the final image or as part of the preparatory work. Don’t forget that included in ‘film and tv’ is commercial advertising, where models are likely to be used in exactly the same way, often employing the very same people and often providing a large part of their income. If we bundle product photography, whether for print or online, together with these the whole amounts to by far the largest ‘raison d’etre’ for model-making anywhere! The popularity of stop-motion animation fluctuates … it has always come and gone since the earliest beginnings of the medium .. but it’s still moving forward in various ways and, especially, talented UK makers are still doing well in it as far as I can tell.

Below still from short promotional film commissioned by Twinings from Parabella Animation Studio, 2015 http://www.parabellastudios.com/twinings

Publicity still from the stop-motion animation ‘Early Man’ 2018 (Nick Park/Aardman Animations). ‘Early Man’ may not have done as well as in the ‘haydays’ following on from Wallace and Gromit, but it can still be counted as a seriously engaging and entertaining film.

Museums hold an honorary place in this list because they’re often where the public becomes more conscious that they’re looking at models, where they can be appreciated for themselves if you like, and so likely where children first get inspired to want to do it. If it was ever really the case that models exhibited in museums were made by paid museum staff (most of the models I used to wonder at in the Science Museum were donated by private enthusiasts for whom time was not a commercial issue) it is certainly rarely the case now. There are the prop or model-making companies, who can be better equipped and more flexibly staffed, catering for those.

Above staff installing an exhibit for the Forest Floor exhibition, American Museum of Natural History, 1958 (photo Alex J Rota). From a past time, when large museums often had model or display making departments. Likewise, large performing arts institutions in the UK had ‘model rooms’, and would normally make all their sets and costumes in-house.

A breathtakingly crafted scale model of the Shand Mason steam fire engine in the Science Museum, London.

Performance designers, that is, those who design sets and costumes for theatre, dance, opera or other musical productions, are normally trained to make their own design models .. at least that’s the plan and it’s a vital part of their training! But it’s customary that those performance designers who become fortunate enough to get a lot of work, will need to employ freelancers to take on most if not all of the model-making, often including the technical drawings as part of the remit. It’s common for designers to employ younger, less experienced ones as assistants to do this, either reasonably paid or for the work-experience. Some young designers stay as model-makers, and a very few go on to make a living from this work. It’s rare however that freelance model-makers are brought in from outside the performance design sector, and it’s also highly unusual (I don’t know of any cases now) for a theatre, opera or dance company to do any in-house model-making. It’s part of the designer’s contract to supply the model, and usually the designer’s responsibility to find and pay the model-maker if needed.

Model-making by Catherine Morgan for designer Leslie Travers (above) ‘Elysium’ Norwegian National Opera and (below) for designer Rae Smith ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ US tour

Briefly returning to film and television .. in film production design there are similarities, such as model-making being a small part of a film/tv designer’s training, but really the relevant comparisons end there. Don’t forget that here I’m talking about the lengthy design process, different from the ‘practical effects’ models which will later make it into the film. Usually the only models made during this process are the so-called ‘white card’ ones which serve to give all involved a very basic spatial description of the set to be filmed on (see my ‘White card models’ for film/tv work in the Methods section here). Also, different to theatre companies, the film production company usually does have people in-house who get the job, amongst other things, of making these models. So if you’re interested, for example, in performance design model-making you’d need to contact designers, whereas for film you’d need to contact the production companies.

So far I’ve listed the circumstances where models are required within the more, if you like ‘recognized’ and long-standing disciplines or media. In these, models are ‘commissioned’, work is assigned, freelancers are engaged, contracts are made. But there’s a bigger, perhaps more vibrant, more bustling, worldwide ‘open to all’ internet marketplace. Here there’s no guarantee of success, and little recompense for failure, but many within the model-making ‘industry’ (which really only takes that form if you use the name) are managing to make a good living from it. It helps, perhaps, if you can offer something that’s within an established category, at least that means that there’s more chance of your work being looked for and found. For example, there are many fine makers supplying the demand for more exclusive or ‘bespoke’ dollhouse furniture or interior accessories; related to that, there are some who make models of people’s houses on commission; there are others who craft their own model trees or ‘doll’s garden’ features; or others whose work is geared to making figures or landscape elements for wargamers. If you feel you can come up with something that enough people will want, that is made sufficiently well and which you can price so that it’s worth it from both sides, then nobody’s stopping you! One aspect of this special world though is that you’ll need to let go of the word ‘model’ .. no-one much likes it here. You will be making ‘miniatures’, so you will be a ‘miniaturist’!

Tarbena Miniatures, 1:12 scale ‘William and Mary’ period ‘lowboy’
https://www.tarbena.co.uk/product-page/william-and-mary-lowboy

1:12 scale plums and blackberries made by Crafted By Echo. Just like 1:12 scale furniture, miniature food is a popular ‘category’. These specialists most often take advantage of the properties of polymer clays, particularly the translucent type, and other techniques such as ‘caning’. The degree of simulation achieved is often remarkable! Their work can usually be found on online selling hubs such as Etsy, but annual exhibitions such as Miniatura offer a more personable opportunity to see their work.
https://miniatura.co.uk/exhibitors/crafted-by-echo/

If on the other hand you’re reading this and are still young enough or committed enough to consider some form of degree training then this is probably what you should do, because the practice-based courses which have become established over the last few years in the UK are pretty good! It’s far less about getting a recognised ‘qualification’ .. a piece of paper or a line in your CV. It’s more about the vitality of the environment, and the opportunity to learn from the work of everyone around you. Just as importantly, the places offering 3-year BA degrees in Model-making or related disciplines will give you access to often excellent technical resources and the expertise of those who know how to use them, in other words .. in that environment at least, you’re never going it alone.

I mention this organized training partly as a reminder or a warning, to those who haven’t taken that route, of what they’re up against, at least in terms of the technical grounding. All the more reason then, for those who’ve followed a different path, to build from their personal origins and their own experiences along the way.

As for finding the companies to look at, you may be more competent than I am at pinpointing exactly what you want on the internet just by using Google search words .. or you could save time by going to sites like www.4rfv.co.uk which is a directory of companies in the ‘Broadcast, Film and Television Industry’ and looking at their list for ‘Props & Models’, which is further divided more specifically into ‘Model-Makers’ or ‘Puppet Makers’ and so on. Most of these companies work in other fields too, but if you’d prefer less of a film&tv bias this list of model-making companies is also worth looking at https://modelshop.co.uk/Static/companies

Here are a few of the company websites I’ve found to be most informative or inspiring, ranging from quite large businesses to small collectives or individuals. Some also offer clear guidance on applying for vacancies or sending CVs and portfolios, some have interesting ‘blog’ sections which include interviews with their employees or freelancers.

https://www.mackinnonandsaunders.com/ https://www.aardman.com/
https://www.aplusc.tv/ https://www.amalgam-models.co.uk/
http://www.parabellastudios.com/ https://www.artem.com/
https://www.networkmodelmakers.com/about https://asylumsfx.com/
https://www.scalemodelsweston.com/

While we’re on the useful links, here are some more general others ….

https://www.artsjobs.org.uk/artsjobshome/   listings made available through Arts Council England. It’s all free, and it’s worth subscribing to both ‘Arts Jobs’ and ‘Arts News’, at least for a start.

https://www.mandy.com/uk/crew-jobs  for Film and Tv listings

https://modelshop.co.uk/Static/Jobs  this is the only jobs-listing I know of where you can see actual, physical ‘model-making’ jobs (as opposed to 3D digital) even if the positions advertised are usually confined to the architectural or engineering areas. You can also pay a small amount per year to be included on 4D’s list of freelance model-makers here https://modelshop.co.uk/Static/Freelancers

https://www.screenskills.com/  useful information on the UK film & tv industry e.g descriptions of job titles; may have links to possible bursaries or apprenticeships

https://www.skwigly.co.uk/   online animation magazine

Finally, this is also worth remembering. At any time, any organization, small firm or individual .. anyone, in any business .. could suddenly decide that it would be a great idea to have a professional scale model of ‘whatever’, for whatever reason. So what do they do? If they’ve never considered this before it’s highly unlikely that they’ll know how to contact a ‘model-maker’. So their only option is to turn to Google and look up ‘model-maker’ or ‘scale model’ or ‘model making services’ .. whatever combination. I know this happens because over the years I’ve had so many enquiries from people needing models .. someone who wants their late grandfather’s much-loved ship model refurbished; a lady who would love to give her husband a bespoke model of their street to put in his model railway installation; a charity-run village museum just enquiring whether anyone fancies making a miniature gallows; an estate agent who’d like a different kind of window display … I must add in caution that none of these enquirers had any idea how much model-making work might cost and this often proved to be a decider against it, unless I’d been willing to work for less than minimum wage. But they all contacted me simply because my name, and the clear fact that I’m a maker, had come up on Google in association with ‘model-making’ or ‘scale model’. My name appears quite high up on most search pages because I’ve written a book and have a website, this one, which is frequently visited. It’s taken many years to establish that kind of presence, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that prominence on the first page of some searches isn’t always given to the oldest, most authoritative, or most sensible .. is it! The point I’m making is that internet presence really does work, and you may not necessarily have to wait years for it to do that. Just put some in place .. and continue to craft it!

A ‘jungle temple’ wall in Kapa foam

After so many years I’m finally coming close to the ‘look’ for this piece that I originally wanted. I made this wall piece mainly for fun around eight years ago, and I’d looked forward to painting it, but when I first attempted it I was disappointed. There wasn’t any of the thrill I’d expected, and it failed to look convincing.

My painting abilities, or more especially my understanding of how to achieve ‘natural’ pattern or weathering, have moved on a bit over the last years. When I originally tried to paint this I didn’t do anything that much different to now .. a darkish basecoat allowed to dry, then other colours dry-brushed (or dry-sponged ) on top with progressively lighter tones. What was fundamentally different though, and why I failed, was because I hadn’t yet acknowledged what I’m calling the ‘chocolate trap’ .. by which I mean, how too much of a good thing nullifies the effect! The first portion I tried was a delight , seen on its own, so I couldn’t stop myself doing the same on every bit! I couldn’t understand why, once I had lavished attention on every portion and took a step back, the expected excitement just wasn’t there.

I’ve had a few more years now in which to start seeing what natural patterning really looks like i.e. how often the pattern is challenged, or broken. Here I’m including as ’natural’ the effects of natural processes on the artificial. We expect a stone, a brick or a cobble to age and wear down in much the same way as its neighbour, when in reality there can be many unplanned differences. More importantly, as humans our minds are conditioned to separate the pattern from the chaos .. it’s something we’ve been particularly good at .. but it does mean we can become blind to disturbances in the pattern especially when it comes to aesthetics. So my being too regular was not entirely my fault! For some while now when I’ve been leading sessions on painting surfaces I’ve been encouraging people to deliberately interrupt, subvert or randomise small parts of their patterns. It’s really interesting how hard that’s been for people to bring themselves to do!

Another improvement to my painting method has been to at least try to record the colours used for future reference, even if I can’t account for how I’ve mixed them. Nowadays I can create a much more convincing ‘algal’ or mossy effect using an olive green as a basis. In fact I’ve found this to be the best basis colour for any type of greenery.

The only conscious reason I had for making this piece at the time was to illustrate the sort of things which could be done with these, above .. foam-impressing tools made from sliced portions of plastic cake decoration moulds. These flat, hard plastic moulds are not meant for pressing, rather they’re for filling, with mouldable icing or marzipan for example. It wouldn’t be possible to make much of an impression with them as they are, even in a soft foam such as Kapa-line. But cutting them into smaller sections and pressing them into narrow strips of foam just about worked because then the foam had somewhere to move.

Another method I used for the first time on this wall was making a specifically shaped strip of foam in order for it to be sliced into individual pieces, lined up at the top. Shaping the small pieces separately would have taken a huge amount of time, not to mention it being much harder to control the shape. See this method illustrated in more detail in my article Pressing decoration into foam, shaping and wire- brushing under Special surfacing methods in the Methods section.

I remember wondering at the time how many other interesting shapes could be produced in this way .. slicing a shaped length into small portions. It reminded me of one of the most remarkable form-making ideas I’d ever seen. When I was living in Germany I saw some examples of simple animal figures carved in wood. There was nothing distinctive about the figures themselves .. just the way they were done, each as a small portion sliced from a lathe-turned ‘wheel’ shape. What was also really surprising was that this ingenious method was confined to a speck on the map, around a small town in south Germany called Seiffen. For many hundreds of years Seiffen had been a focus for wooden toy manufacture, and particularly for Christmas ornaments. The technique of lathe-turning a circular ‘mother’ form, known in German as Reifendrehen (translates as ‘tyre turning’) is thought to have started in Seiffen at the beginning of the 19th century and is still practiced there.

What was at first unclear to me was how the wood turner could possibly know how far to cut, just looking at the outside surface of the ‘tyre’ form, especially with a design as elaborate as the one below?

But a clue is provided in the following photo from the workshop of the museum in Seiffen. A wedge has been cut from the circular block while still on the lathe, and presumably at the beginning of working on it. I’m assuming that the design is drawn or pasted onto one of these interior faces as a guide, but which of course can only be checked once the lathe stops.

old ‘flaking’ paint effect

I don’t think I’ve written about this technique anywhere yet, partly because I haven’t tried it in an actual model .. but I feel that it’s promising! It’s the quickest, least involved way of simulating old flaking paint I’ve experimented with. Incidentally, I think that ‘flaking’ is a better way of describing what happens to paintwork than the ‘peeling’ which is more commonly used.

I’ve used the usual kind of tissue paper sold for crafts or gift wrapping. For both of the sample squares above I cut a piece somewhat larger than the cardboard base, crumpled it into a ball, then opened it out semi-flat again. I lightly spraymounted the card surface and patted the tissue paper down onto it, without flattening too heavily. I waited about a half-hour for the spraymount to become firmer, then took to the surface with the wire brush and/or scalpel blade.

Since the tissue is weightless any spraymount can be used, whether light and repositionable or otherwise. Any ‘spraymount’, that is, which sprays a fine mist .. and some just don’t unfortunately! The only one I can vouch for as reliable is 3M’s SprayMount (in the blue cans) .. also the most expensive. Anyway, after first trying out, the effects can be varied according to how much spraymount is used; the type of tissue paper; the material used as a base; how much or how little the tissue is pressed down; how heavily or lightly the surface is scratched. Also, different colours of tissue paper could be overlaid. My sample pieces are probably a bit flat and restrained, and much more could be done!

Here below for comparison are two examples of distressed paintwork I’ve selected from the truly life-changing, at the least life-enhancing, surfaces reference resource http://www.textures.com As much as I use it though, I still have issues with the lack of any information provided about the types of environments or locations of the photos. The service is still free to use, as long as you sign up, and that allows you a daily quota of a good number of medium resolution images. I found the first amongst a mix of many others like it under a search for ‘crackles’, and the second grouped under ‘PlasterWhiteWorn’.

While experimenting with the tissue paper method, I wanted to compare it with a technique I’ve been using for some time .. printing a basis image on matt coated photo paper; spraymounting this onto a stronger base; dampening with a water spray, and then ‘distressing’ the surface with wire brush and scalpel in much the same way. For the basis I used the ‘crackle’ pattern tile which had come with PaintShop Pro, tiling and scaling it as I thought appropriate, but then increasing the contrast because it was a bit pale ..

For the sample squares I used acrylics to add more colour interest, but also to mask the regularity of the tiled pattern.

‘Model-making Techniques Course’ live and online

I will be posting the second part of my previous post ‘So you think you’d like to be a model-maker?’ very soon. Apparently a number of people have found this useful so far, but the second part will be more so! In the meantime, and in between, I wanted to post the changes I’ve had to make in my Courses section, particularly the fact that I’m preparing my ‘Model-making Techniques Course’ to be delivered in real-time, online from January 2021 and thereafter probably once every month. In line with that shift, and also because I’m much better with Skype or Zoom than I was before, I also wanted to mention the Special ‘consultation’ sessions info I’ve attached to both the model-making and the mouldmaking/casting course pages. This is for the benefit of people who want to learn, but perhaps want something more specific, and don’t need to commit to a week-long course. It’s also for the benefit of people who have a particular technical problem which can’t be dealt with in ‘just a few’ words. I get so many technical enquiries, and I’m afraid it’s come to the point where it’s either this solution, or very regretfully deleting them.

So here’s my provisional account of the online course ..

Due to the continuing situation I’ve had to postpone all my studio courses until the future becomes more ‘foreseeable’. I’ve consulted what the other larger course providers in London (such as University of the Arts and City Lit) are guaranteeing in terms of safety and, the fact is, I can’t provide the same .. my studio room is not big enough for ‘1metre+’ distancing for example, whatever other precautions are taken. In short, it’s still too risky!

So I’m currently preparing a version of my ‘Model-making Techniques’ course to be delivered online. Yes, it’s a different experience from spending a week with others in a dedicated workspace, but I will be doing my best to make it feel as if you are!

For example it will all be real-time ..everything will be live, no recordings! The week will be the same 5-day block starting on the Monday at 10.00 am as it usually does, and each of the five days will end around 5.00 pm. It’s important to retain that kind of focus! The most important part is that I will be sending each confirmed participant a ‘Materials and Resources’ parcel containing almost all of the materials you’ll need for the week’s work (you’ll just have to get a few easy ones). You’ll need to have your own basic tools but I’ll be including in the parcel the special ones (such as specially made sanding tools) for you to keep, and they’ll be included in the price. The pack will also include all the worksheets and info handouts I’ve provided in the past. I’m very conscious of the fact that computer screens can become too cluttered if things like this are sent as files. My aim is to keep your visual connection with the group as clear as possible, especially at times when we can discuss things, and I will be consciously enabling those times throughout each of the days.

My teaching method will not have to change very much at all. We will be talking together, when I am introducing a subject or explaining an activity; at other times I will be demonstrating what to do using a ‘document camera’, which provides a very clear, well-lit and undistorted view (similar to the photo above). The third resource is screensharing photos of prepared examples and other visual references. The rest of the time .. the majority of it ..you will be working. I’ve still to explore how clearly or quickly I’ll be able to ‘look at’ what everybody’s doing all the time to offer feedback, but I’m sure this important aspect can be worked out for the best.

The course will cost less than the £330 it has been up to now .. I’m just not sure yet how much less!  I’m assuming I can make it less because I can take a few more people than the 6 I’ve been limited to in my studio .. but on the other hand a ‘crowd’ no longer feels a ‘group’, so I’m guessing not more than 10. If you have the kind of internet connection which has usually given you a clear image and sound when using things like Zoom or Skype, then I’m assuming there’s no problem from your side. If you have your own second camera so that you can switch from yourself to your cutting mat .. that’s brilliant! (you can get them starting around £15 but a good one I’ve tried is the ‘Wansview 1080P Webcam with microphone’ currently £25 from Amazon).. but having one may not be essential. I’m not sure yet.

If anyone has concerns about the ‘technical’ aspects, I think it’s essential to organize some form of ‘rehearsal’ meet-up where everyone is present online, a week or so before the course is due to start, just for about half an hour .. both for your reassurance and mine.

I’m working on a new course description to send out, detailing what we will be doing throughout the week and finalising the cost, and the technical requirements etc. If you have any questions in the meantime, or would like me to send you the description directly once I have it, you’re welcome to email davneat@aol.com

If you’re familiar with how the course was, i.e. if you’d asked me to send you the course description, here are the most significant changes I’ve had to make:

…. there will still be mouldmaking because I will be sending you the silicone rubber, but not casting because resin cannot be sent by regular post. I will however be talking about and demonstrating this clearly.

…. I’m still hoping there will be time for a proper demonstration of soldering, but I can’t judge yet how long things will generally take under the new circumstances. I’m hoping that some things could take less time, but I also have to allow for new levels of the ‘unforeseen’.

…. the ‘painting’ part will depend on what paints etc you have yourself. I will demonstrate different techniques, and you could choose to try them ‘then-and-there’ or later in your own time. I will give more guidance on this, including a ‘shopping list’ if you’d like it.

…. for ‘scenics’ i.e. plants, trees etc. I will just be outlining the possibilities, showing examples and demonstrating

But some things will actually be better!

I thought of this from the beginning, way back in January. Here was the chance to combine the best of good YouTube .. I have to emphasize ‘good’ .. with the opportunity to interact, to ask questions. I’ve always been conscious of the problems of teaching model-making even to a small group, when perhaps not everyone is able to see the examples really close-up at the right moments. Added to this, there’s the serious option of everyone receiving a full recording afterwards, perhaps of the entire week! I have to check on the technicalities of this, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible?

Then you have to consider the money you will be saving, as well as the time saved from not having to travel each day. Accommodation in London is expensive and there’s always the risk you might end up somewhere you’re not comfortable with. Although it’s an ‘experience’, staying somewhere else always consumes a lot of extra time and money, just to ensure you’re eating the things you want to, for example.

I always encourage people to make their own records of what they’re doing, mainly to take process photos recording successive stages. This aspect will be easier and less intrusive under the ‘new’ conditions. You’ll be able to rehearse and control your own lighting, backgrounds and where you photograph from, for example.

I have albums of step-by-step photos but, as useful as they are, it’s often a hassle to show them properly in a workshop situation, even if there’s a large monitor standing by. By switching instantly to a ‘screensharing’ mode I can flip through them without any time wasted. If anyone has prior experience of this during an online meeting .. don’t worry, I will not be using PowerPoint!

I’ll add to this list when I discover more!

‘So you think you’d like to be a model-maker?’ – Part 1

Above Work by Philippa Spring, as part of her degree show presented at ‘New Blades’, the model-makers annual recruitment fair, 2018, organized by 4D modelshop

I receive regular emails asking whether I have any advice on ‘becoming’ a model-maker. From people asking me, for example, whether I have any good first steps to suggest in terms of developing skills; what sort of work is usually available; what evidence should be shown, or what skills and qualities would I consider to be most important in terms of a person getting work, holding on to the work, and getting more; how the jobs are found, or where does one have to put oneself to be ‘found out about’ .. most often these kind of questions. So I thought it was about time that I tried to consolidate what advice I’m able to offer here. In many cases these questions come from people who perhaps didn’t consider it a career from the outset but have come back to it as a possibility, because their own involvement with it has always felt more rewarding than other things they’ve done. They’re wondering whether they might have what it takes to be a professional ‘maker’, they’re also wondering what the ‘profession’ looks like, and whether it has what it takes to support them.

Above One of the forestry dioramas at the Fisher Museum, Massachusetts, made in the 1930s by Theodore Pitman and Samuel Guernsey

So firstly, what does it take to get the most out of being a model-maker? What I mean here is, what does it take not only to do the job properly, not even to do it exceptionally well, but in order to keep enjoying it, to remain motivated, to keep being inspired, even in the fallow times when there may be little going on? I think this is a much more important question to answer than ‘How do I start?’. It’s a cliché in this business, yes, but the first is patience. Physical patience when manipulating materials is the one most often meant, including the calmness of the fingers, but there are other forms of patience. Model-making is on the whole a very time-consuming job, quite often loaded with very repetitive tasks, so it can help a lot if you’re the kind of person who can as it were ‘feed’ on those times for therapeutic purposes, someone who can even look forward to them. I know I do, and I welcome those stretches when I can ease the tension with something purely ‘mechanical’ without having to think that much. There are other instances of a different kind of patience needed when dealing with things other than materials .. for example while waiting for the right information, or dealing with the lack of it; while explaining how certain things take a long time and can’t be hurried if they are to be done properly, and showing the same patience with yourself if it’s just ‘one of those days’ when nothing is going right!

Next on the list is ingenuity, and there’s much more of that involved than people imagine I’m sure. I’d say it’s a ‘must’ that you’re the kind of person who really enjoys solving the trickiest of problems, who almost has to have them, otherwise every job will be a nightmare. It’s fair to assume that every single job you undertake will include a number of things, some of them like Alice’s ‘impossible things’, which you’ve never done or even thought of before. It’s also best to assume you’ll most often be alone in coming up with solutions, rather than imagining there’ll always be someone more knowledgeable around to ask. Even if you are working in some kind of team, to a certain extent each will have responsibility for tackling their own challenges. Ingenuity takes over where mere creativity is left whimpering.. there’s creativity in all of us, but ingenuity in not so many!

Above Exhibited model from Wes Anderson’s 2018 film ‘Isle of Dogs’, photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Knowledge of materials is something that won’t come ‘just like that’ but is built up over years, so it’s good to start actively collecting that knowledge from the outset. Being able to choose wisely from a number of material options for a task can make a world of difference, especially if there are time or money constraints. On the other hand, there are  some materials which can, once the time is taken to really get to know them, be used effectively for almost anything. For a person who values such knowledge and enjoys collecting it, an otherwise mundane trip to the supermarket, to Poundland or to a DIY warehouse can be like a day at the seaside.

The next is more difficult to mark with a tidy word or short encapsulating phrase but it involves the thrill of, a passion for, or at least an abiding interest in the art of simulation. One of the most important aspects of models, given their usually small size, is the fact that you’ve got to be very clever about which elements of the ‘visual truth’ you select to give a convincing result .. you can’t include them all. You have to capture the essence of ‘why and how’ something looks the way it does. As a model-maker you’re doing no less than a designer does .. artfully selecting. But artful simulation is not just a case of selecting the essential elements and reproducing them faithfully, more often it involves blending them in some way, and blurring or simplifying others to the point of mere suggestion. This works better for the model because the small-scale surface can’t hold too much detail, if it does it will look too ‘micro’, it could be disturbing. You can experience this if you’ve ever managed to make an incredibly fine and minute print copy .. it jars, the contrast is too harsh at small scale, it needs to be softened. It takes a lot to learn how to simulate artfully, some have ‘the eye’ while others could struggle .. and, yes, it is basically just about learning to ‘see’ things properly, being able to separate the backgrounds and nuances from the more obvious elements.

Above Scale model furniture by Ang Rui-Wei, part of her degree show work presented at ‘New Blades’, the model-makers annual recruitment fair, 2018, organized by 4D modelshop

A good byword for the next important thing to have is foresight. This is about anticipating, it’s about being good at visualising, and it’s about being able to plan properly. It can partly depend on what sort of model-making you’re doing but on the whole model-making doesn’t involve so much ‘free-style’ sculpting with a soft material .. if anything it’s much more about cutting out parts and assembling them. For that you need to have a clear plan, a clear ‘mind’s eye’ as to which element is made first, which can then be attached to it and where .. and so on. Foresight is important for the whole process, important all the time, but actually the best example of when this special ‘sight’ is especially needed comes from slightly outside the practical work .. i.e. if you have to predict beforehand how much it’s all going to cost!  Really, in order to do that with any worth to it you don’t just need a very organised mind, you need a highly imaginative one! You practically need to see yourself, doing the whole thing, a bit like a film in fast motion .. reminding yourself of what you know, and discovering what you don’t yet. Whenever I think of tasks such as this I’m reminded of the claims made by Nikola Tesla that he could construct machines in his mind’s-eye, then imagine himself switching them on .. to see if they worked!

Above 1:200 scale residential development model made by Scale Models Weston, Essex

Let’s say that you’ve done enough already so far to know that you really like making models; you’re proud of what you’ve done and you’ve received very flattering comments from those around you .. but you’re wondering how, or what, to develop to increase your chances of ‘earning’ from it, and you’re thinking about how you should present your work so it already looks more ‘professional’ and accessible to others ?

Building up your own ‘portfolio of evidence’ recording what you can do, what you can show people clearly, is the most important next step. The quality of your photos is fundamental here, along with very clear .. but short! .. title information, cluttered with very little other text. Here I should clarify that I’m talking about a sendable PDF (or if I’m wrong, whatever document type is guaranteed to be secure from alteration and effortlessly opened by all). Your CV should be a separate document, by the way, just consisting of ‘facts’ in text and I don’t think the two .. image portfolio and CV .. should ever be mixed. Don’t even think about writing a third, containing a prose ‘statement’ of what you’re about; who you admire, or what your favourite films are!

A PDF comes first, because these days it’s getting more and more unlikely that you’ll ever have to carry around an always-surprisingly-heavy, leather-imitation case filled with glossy pockets and arranged ‘photographs’. We can all be grateful for this and not least because compiling a digital document is so much easier and cheaper. I’d said that the photos must be good! .. but this doesn’t mean, especially nowadays, that only an experienced photographer could do them. Now smartphones can take sufficiently detailed, white-balanced and light-enhanced photos, and it’s these things that matter more than being able to play with special lighting or depth-of-field, unless your model has special requirements. What’s more important is that you take the time beforehand to rehearse viewpoints or compositions, really thinking about what the most informative shots might be. It helps a lot, and takes the pressure off your photo-shoot, if you have a photo-processing programme such as Photoshop or PaintShop Pro with which you can crop, ‘clean’ or brighten the image, or enliven the colours or contrasts if needed. Photos cannot capture the richness and spatial dynamism that our binocular vision gives us, so some ‘enhancements’ are needed to replace that. You need to be careful not to go overboard with any of these though because the effect needs to remain ‘natural’, especially the colour. If you do any of this, it’s best to set the display brightness of your screen to an average, like 50% perhaps, to better judge what others might see on their screens.

Above 1:43 scale model showing the construction of the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860’s, made in 1993 by Valhalla Models (London Transport Museum Collection)

In Part 2 I will be continuing with advice on what to develop if you’re a beginner, including some practical options if you’re stuck for ideas. Then I’ll be answering the question  Who needs models? .. not like it might sound, but rather ‘where models are wanted’, i.e. the disciplines in which models are commonly called for. This is followed by a selection of the most useful companies to look at who are working within those areas.

Making a 1:6 scale ‘working’ fireplace

The cosy library set featured in the previous post included a fully ‘working’ fireplace. Any ‘flames’ needed were to be added in post-production using CGI so I didn’t have to worry about those. But my brief was to make the physical prop work .. that is ‘light up’ .. to an extent, at least incorporating a suggestion of glowing embers. At the time of making it was not yet clear whether the ‘coals and logs’ part would be seen in different states i.e. from fully stocked to nearly spent, so my thinking was that this part needed to be made as a separate and interchangeable shell .. a translucent one .. independent from the source of light. In any case, I didn’t want to mess with integrated electrics since they’re almost always a bit cursed, in my experience. So I decided to make the fireplace setup open at the back so that it could be lit from behind as simply as possible. Below is the only photo I managed at the time of the fire lit up, a quick test in daylight before the surfaces were fully painted and accessorized ..

I designed the ‘coals and logs’ unit to sit within an ornamented grate which hid its edges and also masked spillage from the light source behind. This meant that it would be easy and quick to substitute different stages of the fire modelled on the same base-shape.

I chose to make the base shape in Kapa-line foam, probably because this was easiest .. but Super Sculpey doesn’t readily stick to much, especially foam, and to have any control over the modelling a firm base layer is essential. So I started by massaging small portions of Sculpey to become almost paste-like and working them into the surface. Once this was covered the resistant, wax-like qualities of Sculpey could be fully exploited .. I much prefer to model by pushing/impressing, kneading and displacing, hardly ever cutting or scooping out, and a whole variety of weird impression tools will often do much of the job for me. I had a bag of strange, impossibly hard and oversized ‘croutons’ I’d found in a Chinese supermarket and I didn’t have to do much with these to create an interesting textural starting point. When it came to the ‘logs’ or chunks of coal I used a custom impression tool I’d made for tree-bark .. Sculpey modelled and baked over an old scalpel handle .. using it in a partly random way, just to create some spontaneous interest.

But the whole looked dull, deliberate and lifeless, until I attacked the surface with brushes! The most successful was the black plastic one, like a large and sinister toothbrush, which accompanies wire brushes usually in packs of three .. I’d never found a good use for these plastic ones before, and none other since really! Once the Sculpey work was finished I made a standard mould from it comprising a silicone ‘skin’ part supported by a plaster jacket. This is common practice, even though it takes a little longer to complete than just pouring a block of silicone, because it cuts the amount of silicone rubber used to easily under a quarter.

I had two options for casting the hollow, translucent shell .. using either clear epoxy or polyester resin. But epoxy resin can only be made thixotropic (converted from a liquid to a spreadable gel or paste) by adding a filler powder such as fumed silica. Dependant on the amount of powder needed, the epoxy resin could lose much of its transparency, whereas clear polyester resin can be thickened using a specially thickened  gelcoat  additive which is almost as clear. I needed to mix the clear polyester, gelcoat and shared catalyst together first before tipping the mixture into the mould. I had to wait about 15mins before the mix firmed up enough to be ‘shaped’ into a relatively even shell, using a chopstick as a spatula, but the window closed fairly quickly after that.

I’ve said ‘clear polyester’ but in actual fact it was the ‘general purpose’ or GP polyester resin from Tiranti, not the ‘Clear Casting’. I’ve always used Tiranti polyesters (whether general purpose, ‘multi purpose’, ‘clear casting’, gelcoat or thixotropic paste) partly because I’ve never had any major problems with any of them. They’ve also lasted far longer than any others I’ve bought .. for example, I used the same can of GP polyester on-and-off for over five years! Tiranti’s GP cures a warm grey/beige which can be seen from the following photos, but this was fine for my purpose, and the cloudiness (compared to Clear Casting) was also something which I’d hoped would diffuse the light for a better effect.

I removed the cured polyester shell from the mould the next day, and designed/made the ‘stool grate’ (that’s the proper term) around it using Palight foamed PVC. The photo below shows this primed in Humbrol matt black enamel (not yet given its metallic gilding), set up against the fireback and the hole cut to let the light through. There were restrictions to the depth that the fireplace unit could be, and I could have solved this with much more blackening or shading around the stool grate .. a shame, but there was no time left. What did work nicely were the strips of vinyl wallpaper I used to suggest the fireback stonework, washed and sponged with acrylic. 

To give the rich ember colour when lit, I had thought of coating the underside of the polyester shell with red/orange/yellow glass paints (i.e. Marabu GlasART or Pebeo Vitrail) which I know work very well. But it the end I felt it would be more adaptable if the colour came from the light source, or through gels fixed behind the cut hole. Since I’d spent some time on the modelling (especially on getting the texture interesting) the painting was fairly simple .. an overall skim in black first with a large ragged brush, followed by less of a skim in mid-grey and then even less in light grey. Again I used Humbrol enamel for this, just to be sure the paintwork stayed on the polyester surface if the piece was going to be handled.

I used a thicker Palight for the fire surround and mantel shelf below, and the small ‘designs’ were cut/carved using the thinnest .. 1mm. Palight of whichever thickness can be carved and sanded with surprising ease .. it’s a lot like carving a soft wood, but without having to cope with grain direction, and the exposed ‘grain’ hardly looks any different to the rest. Here in the UK it’s available in white up to 10mm thickness from Bay Plastics at http://www.plasticstockist.co.uk  though from 2mm onwards it’s actually ‘Palfoam’, which is an even softer variant.

For creating a controllable ‘speckle’ with a slight sheen to it I base-coated first in a lighter tone then mixed darker acrylic with some acrylic retarder gel, to stipple it over. This allows a decent amount of working time in which to even out the effect and it makes the paint into more of a glaze. Most of the tube acrylic paint companies offer their own brand, though one will work with another, however the ‘gel’ type has become less common. Now it’s usually a thickish, glycerine-like liquid but it should work in the same way.

Thanks again to Astrid Baerndal for the only photo I have of the fireplace installation properly assembled, under natural light with no atmosphere unfortunately, in the hurry to ship the whole model off. The large fish were modelled in Super Sculpey over Styrofoam base-shapes; hollow-cast in polyurethane resin; basecoated in Humbrol matt black enamel, then ‘dusted’ with Treasure Silver Wax Gilt finish like much of the rest. More about the making of the fish can be found about a third of the way down my general article Modelling and shaping, one of the group Making realistic models which is first on the menu in the Methods section.

Casting prop books and making ‘specials’

Continuing with the subject of prop-making for stop-motion animation, back in 2011 I had to make a small library full of books for one particular film. I made both the sets and props, including furniture, and the heads of the puppets for this one. The setting was broadly based on Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill so the books had to look ‘antique’ but with a little more freedom in the choice of colours. Most of the books on the shelves needed only simple surface treatment, and could be faked because they weren’t going to be taken out or touched, so for the most part it was sufficient to create ‘blocks’ of convincing frontage with some suggestions of depth at the sides and tops. But there also needed to be many piles of loose books on the floor and on tables, plus a proportion of loose books in the shelves, and a few of these actually needed to be opened! Below is a close-up of part of the shelf-book frontage with singles interspersed. Many thanks to Astrid Baerndal http://www.baerndal.eu for this and countless other excellent photos in the past!

Since all of the books .. whether faked blocks, simple or more involved singles .. were made in polyurethane resin, the painting method was basically the same. The castings have to be left for a few days to fully cure; then they need to be lightly scrubbed in warmish water and detergent; then primed using a plastic primer such as Simoniz or Rust-Oleum; after which they can be painted with regular acrylic using whatever preferred methods. I used a mixture of my usual acrylics .. DecoArt ‘Crafter’s’ or ‘Americana’ also Rosco Supersaturated and in addition Vallejo Model Color for fine details and transparent glazing. Given the prominent ribbing and other textures the ‘worn’ look was easily achieved with a combination of careful sanding with a sponge-backed sanding pad and some dry-brushing. The film-makers agreed that any attempt even to suggest writing on the books would have been too overwhelming in effect .. quite apart from the effort, since there were many hundreds of them!

Above is the original watercolour by John Carter showing the library at Strawberry Hill, published by Walpole in 1784. Below is a photo I took of part of the 1:6 scale set in progress, under natural light without the full decoration, just to rehearse how the first try-outs of the shelf books were going to look. In addition to the blocks of 4-5 books at a time I included a number of individual books which could lean against them and impart, I’d hoped, a less regimental, more informal and certainly less tightly packed look than most of the other ‘old library’ references I’d seen. The other reason was that there would be scenes where some of the books fell from the shelves and started flying around the room!

To look more closely at the ‘singles’ first .. my plan for the more detailed individual books was to prototype a collection of different covers and ‘spines’ in various matching sizes, and assemble these around a Kapa-line foam core. This was because the books had to be as light as possible and it was also because I had a good technique for scraping the foam with rough sandpaper to look just like blocks of old paper. I had some sample swatches of embossed paper from the firm E.Becker and these, together with some vinyl wallpaper patterns, were just the thing for creating some variety in the book cover surfaces. I cut and sanded shapes in 2mm Palight foamed-PVC and spraymounted the patterned paper on. I sanded/impressed the ribbed spine parts in Kapa-line foam.

I think I must have run out of my usual Lukasil 429 silicone rubber to make all of the moulds so for the spines I used some leftover paste-form silicone which involved completing the mould block with a plaster ‘jacket’. The casts above are made from Tomps Fast Cast Polyurethane. Below is a collection of individual books ready for painting.

Above is a selection of the individually finished books showing the range of sizes and different treatments. There are touches of gold, which I preferred to be very sparing with. Thanks again to Astrid Baerndal http://www.baerndal.eu for the beautiful photo!

The bulk of the shelf books needed also needed to be as light as possible. Because of the size of the model and the number of shelves to be filled I think I’d calculated that it would involve about 5 metres worth of miniature frontage!. For these ‘blocks’ I shaped individual fronts (only about 2cm deep) varying the heights and thicknesses, stuck them together and made moulds from them. These Kapa-line prototypes below are already simply painted because I wanted to test whether the detailing would be sufficient when dry-brushed to look worn.

Shown above is one of the block moulds together with, this time, the painted resin cast. What is visible at the bottom of this is actually the top .. I’d realised I would have to detail at least the first centimetre or so at the top because this might be seen. Below shows the making of these complete blocks in progress, involving a short line of ‘frontage’ with a ‘complete’ book attached either side. This was necessary because the full depth would be seen when the loose individual books in between fell or flew out.

The parts of these book-blocks were cast in a resin/Fillite mixture (Fillite is a very light, grey ash filler commonly used in resin casting, especially where reduced weight is needed). As a further reduction to the weight I inserted blocks of Kapa-line foam while casting.

I’d made the range of individual, more detailed books first so I could make moulds of some of these to cast the larger end-books for the blocks, because for these it didn’t matter that one side would be blank.

As I’ve said, there were a few special books that either needed to be opened and read in the course of the action or others which would flap like birds around the room. Luckily for me, I didn’t need to introduce tight hinges to animate this ‘flapping’, so I choice to make the practical books using cut portions of cheap notebooks, choosing only those in which the pages were firmly glued to a cloth spine which I could also attach to the cast covers. I could seal most of these pages shut, leaving a few free at the place of opening. These I covered with copies of minutely scaled-down text on especially thin cream coloured paper.

I had a particular challenge coming up with a method of achieving the elaborate, raised cobweb design on the main book above. I wanted it to be as fine and sharp as possible so this ruled out drawing it on with a relief medium, even one of the relatively fine relief outliners used in glass painting. In any case, this might not have survived much handling! Luckily I had been thinking for a while about possible methods of ‘working in negative’ .. that is, casting into voids or depressions made to achieve certain effects instead of working ‘positive’ .. so I made use of the ease with which Palight foamed-PVC can be finely incised (a little like lino-cutting) as a mould for casting this very detailed form.

 

Small props for stop-motion animation

Back in 2011 I was making settings and props for stop-motion animation, and one particular scene I’d been asked to work on involved the eating of an apple down to its core. The film called for a kind of poetic realism .. I mean that its world was ‘ours’ to an extent, the puppets were recognisably human though stylised, furniture and props needed to be fairly accurate and believable, even though the action was often dreamlike. This was one of those moments in dream when reality is tugged a little more into focus, so although a loose approximation of an apple getting smaller in bite-shaped chunks could have sufficed I wanted to make the moment properly convincing.

So I modelled the whole apple first in Super Sculpey .. in two sizes because one would be needed for close-ups and the smaller for scene shots. I made silicone moulds from these, and then enough casts for about ten successive bites of the apple. My intention was to carve away each bite in the sequence, so I cast in thin Fast Cast polyurethane resin mixed with a third of Fillite (a light ash filler) which would make the material nicely carvable especially if using a Dremel.

I guess I knew from the beginning, or at least pretty soon after, that I would have to manually copy the ‘bites’ on each successive one down the sequence, but I didn’t want to make more than one mould for each apple size. I made the stalks individually out of white styrene rod, slightly carved and sanded (and the ends ‘crunched’ with something heavy). I used Vallejo acrylics to build up a nice glowing red in layers, and kept the surface detailing to a minimum since each stage would have to be exactly copied.

I made a very simple mould for both using my usual Lukasil 429 (from specialplasters.co.uk, a silicone rubber I’ve been using for years which has always been easy and reliable). For small and basic shapes such as these it was enough to tack them with a little more Sculpey to a baseboard, build a containment wall around them and pour silicone as a one-piece block around them. Once cured the silicone needs only to be lightly split with a scalpel to take the prototypes out and make the casts. This is what I often call a split-block mould. This is the easiest form of 3D casting, each cast needing just a little bit of clean-up work around the pouring hole.

Advice on making props etc. for stop-motion animation

This was an example of a special prop serving a visual sequence which had been properly thought through. In this case the way the prop would be used was very clear. This is not always so, partly because room has to be left for on-site decisions during animation and partly because it’s rarely possible to think of everything anyway, especially if props are commissioned at an early stage, long before animation begins.

In this situation it’s always good practice to allow for possible changes, and include these contingencies straight away at the making stage as long as they don’t lengthen the making time too much. One very good move, where there’s a choice, is to pick materials which are relatively easy to alter. Foamed PVC for example is very easy to cut and can be re-glued instantly using superglue. Another prudent habit is to keep parts which ‘may’ have to move separate until the last. As an example, even if something like a school-desk isn’t likely to be opened (according to the script .. and there should always be a script!)  it may be wise to keep the desk-top separate, and give the underside and the desk interior the same colour treatment as the rest just in case. On the other hand I would never go to the trouble of making working hinges for this kind of ‘what if’ because it’s often easier to animate a movable part like that just with a concoction of Blu Tack and bent wire.

If you’re asked to make props or furniture for someone else’s stop-motion animation you can only work as efficiently as the information you’re given .. or, more truthfully .. the information you’ve had the sense to ask for! I’ve never worked on anything where I didn’t have to tease out important facts by asking a lot of searching questions. You will of course want the principle design directives first .. the scale or dimensions, and the full visual appearance of each article. Then, just as importantly, you will need to know details of how each is used if at all, or whether they are just background dressing. These are the main questions, but there are many others that one may not think to ask at first, so here are just some of them.

If a prop is going to be used in the action, do we see the puppet holding it? If so, how easily can the puppet do this? For example, does the prop need to be specially light? Do holes need to be drilled in the prop to attach fixing wires, or if something like Blu Tack or ‘sticky wax’ needs to be used is the paintwork suitably resistant? In the case of pieces of furniture, do they need to be secured to the baseboard (partly to keep their position, but especially if sat in or leant against)? If so, legs usually need to be fitted with strong wires or bolts at the bottom.

Has the question of ‘relative size’ been properly considered when deciding upon the scale of a prop? To put it simply, just like dolls or cartoon characters puppets often have larger heads and hands in relation to their bodies and their overall height. If, for example, a retro style desk telephone is needed and this is scaled faithfully according to overall puppet height, it may look reasonable enough in the background but if ‘used’ the speaker/receiver part may look ridiculously small against the puppet’s hand or ear! The solution might have to be that two differently scaled versions are made, or just one slightly larger speaker/receiver part.

If you’re proud of your own work, if you’ve taken good photos and want to publicize what you can do, will anyone object if you do this before the film itself has become public? It’s important as a courtesy to reach an agreement, even if it’s not something dealt with in your contract .. or even if there isn’t a contract! You should consider the fact that an independent stop-motion film may be many years in the making and this is a long time, either to not be able to promote your own work or to feel a bit secretive or guilty when you do. Often this can be resolved, as I’ve done in this article, just by not mentioning the film by name.

 

 

 

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School ‘Generate’ at the Truman Brewery

It’s the last chance today to see Generate, the exhibition of work from the graduating MA Theatre Design, Scenic Art and Costume students from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School .. until 3pm today at the Truman Brewery (Unit 11, Dray Walk, off 91 Brick Lane, E1 6QL London)

I wish I’d been able to go earlier than last night, to impress on anyone interested  .. not only in theatre, or theatre design, but simply the skilful and passionate expression of visual ideas .. how worthwhile it was to see it! This little show was like a ‘survival capsule’ .. a gem preserving the brightest blueprints of the best .. or a restorative potion, meant to remind us of what’s good and true! What I’m saying is that there was real magic there, lots of it .. alongside the well-expressed ideas, the craftsmanship and fine-artistry.

I was so fortunate around this time last year to spend a week with the MA Theatre Designers .. Alana Ashley, Roisin Martindale, Oscar Selfridge and Robin James Davis .. going through some basics of model-making with them. I can’t believe it’s just a year, when I now see .. 99% credit to them .. such confident exploration, such visual enthusiasm, such careful attention to every telling detail, such unbelievable workmanship. Credit must be given here in a ‘pandimensional’ scale .. that is, 99% to them, and another 101% to Angela .. Angela Davies Head of Design at BOVTS .. for always being there to guide them through it.

Each successive year I see this excellence from BOVTS .. and each year I’m rejuvenated by experiencing the best in British theatre art!

 

An architectural play-model: Part 2

 

This follows on from An architectural model: Part 1 posted on January 12 where I outlined the purposes of the model, expanded a little on the use of foamed PVC for the build, and detailed my methods for achieving a convincing polished concrete effect. In this second part I am looking at the rest i.e. the ‘generalized’ treatment of the brick walls; my methods for staining the woodwork features; and lucky solutions re the baseboard and veneer cladding.

 

Staining the woodwork

The natural wood chosen by the architect for this project is oak. In Part 1 I explained that I was hoping to emphasize the model’s own sculptural presence, and it occurred to me at one point that a way of doing that would be to give the model its own material integrity, a ‘truth to materials’ in other words .. i.e. by using real oak, even real glass, and even real brick! But in practical terms this hardly ever accords with the functional remit, important in this case, of keeping to scale! So I couldn’t explore that direction at this time. On the question of real wood, there are only a few woods suited to fine-scale model work and fewer available in thin strips or sheets. Oak, because of its hardness and strong patterning, definitely isn’t one of them. So I’ve taken obeche and stained it to represent oak. I could also have chosen limewood ( ‘basswood’ in model shops ), which is even more precise to cut, but I wanted to take advantage of the slight patterning which shows up when obeche is stained. The woodwork features in the architect’s design were mostly related to the window structures so the following group of photos serves to show both (the windows will be dealt with in Part 3).

For this staining task I have used one of my favourite methods (suitable for both large or small work), which is to use a clear wax/oil based wood finish as a carrier, with a controlled amount of spirit-based stain mixed in ( it can’t be anything water-based ). I’ve found this much more successful than just using either a straight stain or a staining varnish partly because the wax/oil medium (along with anything added to it) penetrates the wood fibres more evenly, but also because it gives sufficient drying time to modify i.e. to rub away, or even out any excess. Spirit-based stains on their own can make woods like obeche or basswood too dark, unless they’re heavily thinned with white spirit. But then it’s difficult to control what appears once the wood dries out. I made tests using wax/oil varnish with different amounts of Colron ‘Medium Oak’ and there was little difference between the wet and dried results.

It was particularly important for me to make test samples here, because to reflect the distinctive tongue-and-groove cladding of the original I had to composit separately cut and sanded strips of obeche, otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough tonal difference between the strips. I was concerned though that staining might emphasize those lines in-between too much, but these turned out fine. On the left above I’ve just tried the wax/oil carrier on its own, and for the other two I added small amounts of Colron ‘Medium Oak’ Wood Dye. For those other two I also experimented with adding a little more colour variation using alcohol markers. I did this before the wax/oil was dry, though I think this could be done at any later stage. It shouldn’t be done before the wax/oil goes on though! .. I tried this with the same markers at the top of the middle sample piece. They came out much darker on the bare wood, whereas on the wax/oil the effect and strength is much easier to control.

The markers I used were from Spectrum Noir available as a pack of six ‘browns’. I’ve found that these generally have a much richer ink than Winsor & Newton Promarkers, as well as lasting longer and being cheaper in the first place!

The wax/oil medium I’ve used is from Osmo .. the photo above includes the tins I still have after more than 20 years and the wax/oil still works perfectly! I used Osmo products quite a lot when I was living in Germany, they were always available at Bauhaus (equivalent to our B&Q here). I used them not only to protect or colour wood, but also to seal or paint any similarly absorbent surface .. even plaster!  In fact, it was a surprise but the Osmo treatment gave the cast plaster forms I was producing at the time the smoothest, best looking and most durable surface I could hope for! But Osmo ‘Wood Wax Finish’ (as it’s marketed in the UK) is intended for wood and comes either as clear, various whites, as a variety of wood stains, or in a small selection of basic colours.

On plaster as on wood, the first coat is likely to dry to a matt finish and a second coat is needed for a ‘satin’ sheen. Like any oil-based treatment the basic Osmo clear transparent will slightly darken any wood (though this is often not so noticeable with very light woods), and it also imparts a slightly yellow tinge (see further along for more on this). In the UK Osmo products have remained specialist, not stocked by any of the big DIY marts, so the best place to look for them is here

https://www.osmouk.com/retail/product.cfm?product=317

 

Generalizing brickwork

In this case there was every excuse to stylize, or rather generalize the brickwork exterior: it wasn’t an important visual part of the model’s function; I wanted to avoid slavish or fussy detail; and I wanted it to appear playful. There was also the fact that I’d really only had the architect’s plans as a guide in making the model, with just a few on-site photos available, so it was also a case of playing it safe. I wanted to emphasize the ‘warm and friendly’ in brick .. the ‘toy’ version of it, as I’d said, or as I imagined it might look mass-produced. I wanted to get a sense of textural richness and unifying pattern too, but time-wise to be able to get it relatively quickly! Embossing horizontal lines in 1mm foamed-Pvc was the quickest way I could think of to suggest the basic ingredient of a brickwork surface, and I’d done some texture tests with Rust-Oleum texture-spray for a previous project. The two effects just seemed to combine perfectly for what I wanted.

I used an embossing tool to score the lines in 1mm Palight. These are basically like scribing tools but with a rounded point instead of sharp ( in the UK, Poundland has them in their nail art section ). I had to try a few different orange or rust-red sprays to get an idea of the right direction for the base colour ( using red primers or leftover Montana cans ) before I could settle on the best .. MTN 94 Phoenix Orange. I left the sprayed pieces to fix more than day before going lightly over with Rust-Oleum ‘Pebble’ Stone Textured Finish. These Rust-Oleum sprays spit out tiny gobs and streaks in two colours at once and the effect is often better when subtle, but also I didn’t want to hide the base colour too much.

 

The baseboard

For the baseboard .. which is to be honest usually more hassle than enjoyment .. I was especially lucky that the smallest size of IKEA table-top suited the model perfectly! I’d strongly recommend these table-tops because they’re relatively light but suitably solid, in a variety of rectangular formats and a number of immaculate finishes including satin white, dark blue and beige. They also work out cheaper than ordering good quality MDF or plywood cut to size, plus if you pick up from store you can see what you’re getting. Incidentally, I like the idea of models having a certain size relationship with the human figure, just as pieces of furniture do. I feel that the small table-top format traditionally 4ft x 2ft average, now 1200 x 600, has a similar dimensional presence to a small person.

As I’d explained in Part 1 of this write-up, the ‘building blocks’ of the model were designed to be removable and I wanted to give them clear ‘footprints’ to lock into. This meant a raised surround with the shapes cut into it, not just a sprayed design on the floor. I was thinking here of the tactile experience of making objects connect, of feeling the joining more, rather than just sliding parts around. I cut the surround shape out of 2mm Palfoam (I’d waited to do this until I’d got all the room structures made, to make sure of a good fit). Instead of making each room as a box with the floor included I made them as open boxes to fit around floor shapes which became part of the base. I thought this was more interesting, as it gave the opportunity of revealing a more convincing ‘ground level plan’ underneath.

We’d gone through a few ideas for possible treatments of the surround, including a blotchy watercolourist abstract suggesting tree and shrub shapes seen from above. But from later building site photos it was unclear to me how many trees and shrubs would actually be remaining, and in any case I was running out of time .. so after thinking about a variety of quick surfacing options which would never have survived, I chose oak veneer because it was sympathetic and felt appropriate.

For the least possible hassle I wanted a veneer which was self-adhesive, also the best choice when cladding Palfoam. I’ve used these before and I’d recommend getting them from The Wood Veneer Hub because I think the prices compare well and delivery has always been quick. With veneers there aren’t usually many size options, for the 60cm width I required I had to get 2 metres, total cost around £45. The best way of organizing the sticking in this case was first trimming the veneer to a little over the length; laying it glue-side-up on a flat work surface; peeling off the backing paper; then carefully and slowly lowering the Palfoam surround shape onto it starting from one end. The thorough directions that came with the product recommended using what they call a ‘veneer scraper’ in other words a hard plastic smoothing blade with which to press down on the veneer strongly while sticking. I didn’t have one of these but I cut a rectangle in Palight, sanding the edge a little to prevent it from scratching. The adhesive is very strong but I think it pays to be thorough i.e. just smoothing it down with the hand or a cloth wouldn’t be enough.

Once this was done I could turn it over, place on a large cutting mat and trim the edges with a scalpel. Oak is a hard wood but the veneer is extra thin, so this wasn’t difficult. I’d made sure that I’d kept the backing paper so that I could put some back on the interior leftovers. Since I had trimmed the veneer from its underside, the final task was to smooth down all topside edges (120 grit sandpaper) because otherwise they would catch.

Wood veneer comes unfinished, that is, the wood surface may look beautiful and feel smooth but it will need protection from dust and dirt. Medium-tone woods like oak will quickly show darker finger-marks. So I knew that I would have to seal the wood surface but I really didn’t want it to go any darker. In the end I went a little the other way .. in the photo below I’ve laid a piece of untreated veneer over the final effect for comparison.

It’s vital to make test samples before using any type of wood treatment because sometimes the results are most unexpected! Here below for example, the first two tests on the left were Rustoleum Clear Sealer a matt water-based sealer I’ve used in the past on lighter woods such as ash or sycamore. On those it worked perfectly, the sealing coat was practically invisible with no change in colour or tone, but for some reason on the oak it couldn’t have been more different! As a second test, I diluted the sealer 1:1 with water, and this was different but still surprising. For the third on the right I tried Rustoleum Furniture Lacquer a matt spirit-based finish which is normally intended as a protective coating for chalk paint. This result was much more as I’d expected.

 

In the end I went for the Osmo Wood Wax Finish, mixing the clear version I had (No. 3101) with some transparent white (No. 3111). Below from the left is the straight clear, then the transparent white and lastly a 1:1 mix of the two which was the final choice. With any mix like this which contains some pigment it’s important to use a soft flat brush and to keep working the liquid into and over the surface to avoid any pigment pooling.

In the course of working on this base layer I successfully solved a problem which had troubled me for a long time. How can you place a large cut-out shape (such as the one above) into exactly the position you want it (with a nice 1cm margin all round in this case), making any slight adjustments that might be necessary, but then stick it down without moving it from that exact position? Of course I’d thought about pencilled corner guides, even little corner blocks, to fix the position for later when the glue-covered surface is impatiently waiting! That’s the whole problem .. anyone who’s tried to manoeuvre a large, bendy, sticky sheet into exactly the right position before any of it starts sticking anywhere it shouldn’t will know the problem!

I solved the problem, thanks partly to double-sided carpet tape. This is a good one .. ‘Rhino’ Double Sided Carpet Tape, from Ultratape .. I’ve used it for years and it’s often sold very cheaply for some reason. I knew that this kind of smooth, thin carpet tape would be fine for securing smooth Palfoam to a smooth, manufactured surface (in this case painted MDF). It just doesn’t usually hold that long on porous, dusty or uneven surfaces.

I hoped that I could take full advantage of the fact that the tape could be fully applied, as shown below, and then stripped of its non-stick covering, but in stages. Take note of the little square of tape that I’ve put in the bottom right corner.

Once the taping was done I turned the sheet over, positioned it on the baseboard exactly as I wanted it, but then put whatever weights I had near the far three corners leaving that corner with the square of tape free. I could then carefully bend that corner up a little just to get at the tape covering and pull it out with tweezers. Then I could press this corner firmly down. Now it’s stuck at one corner and all the other corners are still fine. Then it was a case of carefully repositioning weights so that enough of the sheet could be flexed to get at the end corners of tape lines, to pull out the covering strips .. progressing in this fashion roughly diagonally from where I started. Incidentally I had to use this photo taken to remind myself where I’d put the pieces of tape because they’re not all easy to see once the sticking starts.

In the final part to come I will be looking at the various options for making the windows in the model.