Just recently acquired a new sculpture from the incredibly talented Jordu Schell.
I gotta admit, it’s one of the most detailed and lovingly crafted pieces I’ve seen for a long, long time. The attention to detail on the sculpt and painting is second to none !
Rarely have I ever had a piece that creeps me out as much as this character. To the point that I’ve going to have to display it in my studio and not my house, as the blank stare coming from Fred unnerves me.

Don’t believe me ? Take a look at these images I shot.

Schell Sculpture Studio offers the finest creature and character design available anywhere. The studio has been providing concept art in the industry for over ten years, and owner and head designer Jordu Schell has been in the film and television industry since 1987. His talent as a designer and sculptor is world renowned, and his credits include: “Avatar”, “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”, “300”, “Hellboy”, “Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem”, “Men in Black”, “The Mist”, “Batman Returns”, “Edward Scissorhands”, “Alien: Resurrection”, “The X-Files Movie”, “Predator II”, “Galaxy Quest”, “Evolution”, “Babylon 5-The Series” (on which he designed an emmy award-winning creature make-up and the first fully digital creature for a television series), and many more.

Leather branded company logo and a box to Aid & Assist in Vampyric Manifestations.

Just stumbled upon an amazing artist, Kris Kuksi from Missourim USA. Beautiful exquisite pieces of sculpture. Reminds me of how I felt when I first saw H.R.Giger’s work. Don’t believe me ? Take a look at these…

Ventriloquist Doll

So, now the eyes have their mechanics built in and the mouth is operational. Next step is to re-attach th back of the head and age. This is a project that I am working on for The Strange Case Company.

Stage 2 Mr Hyde, Hardened in Oven.

Stage 3 Mr Hyde, Mouth removed and teeth added.

Mr Hyde artifict, Stage 1

I decided to go as Kiefer Sutherland’s evil vampire from The Lost Boys.

I decided I’d have a go at making a gelatin appliance. Previously I’ve only ever done foamed latex and putty appliances. So, Gareth cast my face which gave me a positive to sculpt on top of. I changed the shape of my nose, added higher cheekbones and a very prominent brow. I then made a mold of that.

The gelatin came in a 1kg block and seemed to be quite sturdy stuff. I popped a cupful into the microwave until it was nice and runny. Poured into the mould and squished the two halfs together. Left for about an hour, I opened the mold and out came a pretty good appliance.

I was kind of disappointed that what should have been thin rubbery edges seemed to be quite fragile, almost like the gelatin had absorbed moisture and went a little mushy. Perhaps it’s not best suited to ultracal plaster molds ?

Anyway, it applied ok.. the edges were a little rough but the translucency of the gelatin worked well.

Here’s the results.

I helped a friend with his costume, he was going as skeletor so I thought it would be good to create a decent skeletor skull that he could wear perfectly on his face. It has a seperate jaw so that it would be able to move when he talked.

First off, I had to cast his face.

Which resulted in this positive cast from the mold.

On top of this I sculpted the skeletor face in plastilene, basing it partly on the animated version and partly on the live action movie.

I then used silicon putty to coat the sculpture in a nice thick layer as I would be casting the finished piece in hard polyurethane resin. Here’s the finished painted piece.

Need to get a better photo of it being worn, but here is the final piece.

Started the paint job, originally uploaded by Jamie Durrant.

The first pass at the paint job. I’m using pax paint, which is essentially a 50/50 mixture of prosaide and acrylic paint. If you need a wash that is less opaque, then use some water in the mixture.

I need to go back and add more detail and definition to the mask. Primarily using sponged to paint on layers of paint, with some more detailed work with a brush.

Ok, so I’ve pulled a couple of heads from the molds now. I’m going to be filling one with expanded foam so that it can be displayed. Here’s my first pulled one, with all the flash that will need to be removed. It took about 5 layers of latex to get a thickness of approx 4mm. Any thinner and it wouldn’t have been able to support it’s shape.