HELLRAISER. CHATTERER.

Another one from the years 2014 - 2018. Having done two previous Hellraiser characters, I was thinking of gradually doing the rest of the Cenobites. So here we have the Chatterer. The photos below are of the clay sculpture. Once I'd made the mould of this piece, I never got around to doing a resin casting of it. 

I never did sculpt any of the other Cenobites.

HELLRAISER. PINHEAD.

This is another one from 2014 - 2018. After making The Engineer, I decided to sculpt Pinhead. I never did get around to painting one and sticking the nails into it. I really should do soon as I still have a couple of blank castings of this. 

These photos are of a blank resin casting from the mould. The edges haven't been trimmed, so they look a little rough. Again, this is the same size as the Engineer, 15.5 inches by 13.5 inches.

ZOMBIE FILM. 1999.

I'm jumping forward quite a bit here. In 1997 my mother became ill with cancer. I took a step back from sculpting and making things as I wanted to spend more time at home. I couldn't focus on anything really. After she passed away, I wasn't sure on what to do. I was still in my early 20's but felt that there were no artistic or creative opportunities for me here in the North East. I didn't have the means or money to relocate elsewhere. John was still sculpting and making things, but the other artists from our group no longer had as much time to be creative as they needed regular paid work and had family responsibilities. It felt that all we'd tried to do over the years, everything that we'd made collectively and individually, had been for nothing. 

So in 1999, I opted to enrol on a City & Guilds course for TV and Video Production. I wanted to learn more about film making, and have access to equipment that I couldn't afford. I was once again dreaming of making some horror films.

I started filming a short zombie film, inspired by the Resident Evil video game. I loved that game and thought it would be cool to make some sort of a fan film. I sculpted and made a bunch of things for it, as did John. Even Paul and Juliette came to lend a had on a few filming days. I'd also met a guy called Dan who was a stage technician at a local theatre. He was really into lights and pyrotechnics so he came on board to do special lighting effects, bullet hits, and other explosive effects.

This little horror project got some good coverage in the local newspaper and as a result of that I was interviewed for a piece on 'Look North News' for Tyne Tees Television. 

Sadly, this short film was not completed. I'd gotten around half way through and then had to break for the summer holidays. The college wouldn't let me keep the equipment over this time. (I later found out that this was because the teachers there had a side hustle shooting wedding videos for people!). After the holidays, I assumed people would be wanting to film some more and get it finished, but most of the actors had lost interest and just wouldn't return. I didn't know what to do, so I had to abandon it. I still have all of the footage from this project. Maybe some day I'll edit some of it together.

Below is a selection of photos from the making of this. Most of these photos were taken by a guy called Jamie who came along and offered to be a 'behind the scenes' photographer. He took some really great shots. There are some things that I made for this film that didn't get photographed, including a very impressive 12ft long arm that bursts from a TV to attack someone who is sat playing a video game on a Playstation. I may try to get a screen-grab of it from the footage some day. It was a really cool effect with Dan rigging the TV to explode.

Here are some of the storyboards that were created. These were drawn by Andrew, who was part of the team back then.

John and myself, checking out his sculpture for a Licker. Unfortunately, I'd stopped filming before we got a chance to finish and film this creature.

Film Work

It was roughly in the mid 1990's, that I, and my friends, were asked to do some concept work for a low budget sci-fi horror film. My friend John had been approached by a first time Producer/Director asking for some advide on fight choreography. John was a well know figure within the martial arts community as a fighter, journalist, and magazine editor. One thing lead to another and when John showed him some of our sculpture work, we got involved doing characters designs and other conceptual work. By this time, John and I had been joined by two other artists, Paul and Juliette. Once we began working on this film project, I brought in a guy called Andrew, whom I'd been friends with for a while, to work on some of the concept art and storyboards. Between us all, we were a pretty good team.

There was no money to cover our own expenses on sculpting and making things. The producer could not give us anything, but he did want us to come up with some designs etc, that would help sell the film and also show what we could do, to a degree. So we did what we could, but because we were all struggling financially at that time, we were limited on what we could make.

Unfortunately, the film never happened, which was a shame. It was a fun time though, and very inspiring for us all. We got some coverage in the local newspaper so more people became aware of us. We even had some students from the local Art College coming over to visit us and wanting to work with us.

Below are pictures of some of the things that I sculpted.

 

 

There were a lot of drawings, storyboards, and artwork created for this project. The ones below were done by me for a creature transformation scene.

After things didn't happen on the sci-fi horror film, John and I spent some time writing various scripts. We'd gotten a taste of film making and producing, and wanted to write our own ideas for horror films etc. No one here in the North East was making anything horror related. We'd been approached a few times by different people wanting us to do a few make-ups for them, but when we started talking about budgets, and the cost of materials, they would balk at the thought and we didn't hear from them again. People seemed to think that all of these things could be made for nothing. 

So John and I wrote. We packaged our ideas together along with some concept art and storyboards created by our friend Andrew. We sent them to the regional Arts Council as we new they had a film division, but they were not interested in helping us. There was no internet back then, so trying to find out any information on whom to send things to, was very difficult for us. We did send our pitch-packages to BBC, ITV and Channel 4. The head of development at Channel 4 did reply and was interested. However, after corresponding with him for a short time, we suddenly had all of our material returned to us. It turned out that he's left to work somewhere else and his replacement was not interested. We tried to find out where he's gone to, but had no success.

More Early work.

These pieces are from the early 1990's. Probably 1993-ish. The Rat creature was from a design by my friend John. 

The other piece was just something that I'd made up. I think, at that time, I'd been watching Japanese cyberpunk stuff like the movie Tetsuo: Iron Man, and Japanese anime too, of which a lot was being released over here at that time. So, they were a bit of an infulence.

This is me with a face-cast. I think it may have been the very first face-cast that I did. My friend John helped me with it, if I remember rightly.

COLLEGE WORK. (Early to mid 1990's)

Below are some of the sculptures that I did whilst at Art College.

I spent a few years at Art College. I think it was from 1991 to 1994, or 1995. How I ended up there was purely by chance. I was in my last year at secondary school. I knew in my heart that I wanted to do something creative after leaving school, but I had no idea on how to realise that. My parents couldn't help me with this as I think that they just couldn't understand why I was so interested in horror/monster films and weird stuff. It was all completely alien to them. My dad wanted me to go into the building trade as he said "There'll always be work for brick-layers, joiners, plumbers and electricians." He was right. People in those jobs earn a lot these days. If I'd taken his advice, the odds are I would now be in a much better position financially. But my heart wanted art. Sorry, I know that sounds cheesey. 

My teachers at school were, for the most part, no help at all. With the exception of one teacher, none of them really cared about anything. Most of them seemed to actively hate children and were pretty abusive towards them: physically, mentally, and verbally. The one good teacher was my CDT (craft, design, technology) or woodwork class teacher. For my GCSE I made a weight-lifting bench, with leg extensions, and an extra frame on the back for doing squats. I designed it and welded it all together and it turned out pretty good. Because of that, he suggested me to a local company for an apprenticeship as a Toolsmith or Tool-Maker. It paid a lot. But I turned it down because by then I'd set my heart on going to the local College of Art. This came about from a visit to my school by a careers guidance officer from the local council, and she actually took the time to ask me about what I was interested in. What would be my dream job? When I told her what I loved, she then showed me a brochure for the Art College showcasing the Theatre Crafts course. On this course they made things that were really appealing to me. So that was where I wanted to go. My art teacher at school laughed at me when I said this. My parents were pretty unhappy that I'd turned down the toolsmith job. My dad especially. And his brothers. They thought Art College was a place for hippies and freaks and that I should get a proper job. In my town, at that time, if you dressed a little differently, had weird interests, and grew your hair long, then you were a target. When I was eighteen I got severely beaten-up and was in hospital, just because I was 'one of those freaks'. One of my eyes was hurt so bad, I thought I was going to be blind in it.

However, for the most part, I enjoyed my time there. Plus it's worth mentioning that back then, going to college was free. And if your family were classed as having a low income, which mine were, you were even given free money in the form of a 'grant' to buy materials with. Not like now were kids leave college saddled with huge amounts of debt which they're unlikely to ever pay off. Debt that can also be sold off to someone else. Cheers millionaire politicians!!

Below is a sculpture that I did for a prehistoric fish, again whilst still at college. I made a plaster mould of this, but never got around to reproducing one from it. To be honest, the joins on the mould were pretty messy. I was helped making the mould from a guy who worked part-time at the art college teaching the 3D students. He ran his own company making displays for museums. When he got a contract for a dinosaur exhibition, he offered me some paid work sculpting. However, it only lasted two weeks, once he realised that he could get other students to work for free and class it as work experience through the college. Some time after he'd fired me, he contacted me again to ask if he could borrow my mould for the prehistoric fish as he wanted to make one for the exhibit. I said that I would make him one, for a price. He wasn't happy with that and refused.

This last one is the only photo that I have of this piece as it had a very unfortunate accident before I completed it. I wanted to sculpt some sort of gill-man, so came up with this. I thought of it as some kind of soldier, so gave it armour plates over its head, like a helmet.

And then there's this.