fx – Texas Applied Arts | The University of Texas at Austin

November 5, 2018, Filed Under: Reactor Assault, SFX 2018

One Final Effort

This is it. We all have one week left to go before shooting begins, but we have made great strides on all fronts in preparation for filming. Last week we held our first film test with our elements at the stage they were in at the time for a presentation. This was made to demonstrate what we hope to achieve in terms of shot composition and how each piece would fit together, resulting in this wonderfully goofy short.

Since then we have all made great strides. For myself in costume and props land my focus has mostly shifted towards completing the helmets, they’ve moved along some since the last update as you can see in the video, but since then, once I finalized the general structure of the pieces I used a hot knife to etch into the EVA foam to create small details. After this a few coats of spray PlastiDip were applied to seal the porous surface of the foam, making it much easier to work with when painting. Both helmets were primed and then moved into the hand painting stage using acrylics.

Now the base coat of paint is just about finished (the yellow being slightly uncooperative due to being against a dark background) I am about to start the detail/effects painting process and they should be almost complete.

In robot news similar steps have been taken, he was assembled and coated with primer for our demo and was given a prototype lighting fixture with which to assert his dominance.

But since then Dylan and the rest of the group have pushed forward, coating our robot in many coats of filler primer to fill in all of the ridges left by the 3D printing process, after which we sanded, before coating him again with regular primer and then wet sanding each piece.

After this was finished we moved ahead with applying the final chrome paint to the robot to test its appearance on the pieces. While these continue to dry Dylan has moved ahead with experimenting with upgrading our robots arms to be both more proportional to the rest of the body while also offering more structure so they don’t bend in so many point as they do in the demo.

Last but certainly not least AJ has made great strides on our set in the past week. Dylan and I struggled to work with it for the demo video previously due to its flexible nature, AJ took this feedback and constructed a custom support rig for the dome and some stands so shooting with it on the 12th should go very smoothly. He has also been hard at work laying the honeycomb pattern shown in the demo across all of the dome instead of suspending it like it was previously, which has turned out to be a surprisingly daunting task that I only fully appreciated after helping on it myself. That said it is coming very close to completion.

Wish us luck!

October 15, 2018, Filed Under: Horned King, SFX 2018

Stepping Into Fear (And Our New Silicone Nightmares)

Take a moment to fall back into your childhood days where the dark shadows under your bed and in the deep corner by your closet held a sinister nightmare of malicious intent upon your sweet dreams.

Now, imagine that old fear you believed was extinguished walking towards you on the street today. Its dark cloak billowing in the wind, horns cutting into the starry night sky, rotting, clawed hands reaching out towards you as its eyes begin to glow with an ember of rage that will never burn out. Feel the shiver crawl up your spine as your breath quickens and your eyes search the shadows in paranoia.

This is the fear you thought you lost as you grew older. This is the fear that we plan to reignite within those who grew up fearing the Horned King would pay them a visit with his un-dead army in tow.

Adapting an Old Fear

**Original Concept Art by Walt Disney Feature Animation**

Originally based on The Chronicles of Prydain, Disney’s The Black Cauldron brought a darker edge to their usually musical and fairy godmother filled worlds by introducing frightening elements and a most notable skeletal, Horned King to cinemas with the hopes that the experiment would expand their audience to a wider demographic. Although it was not one of Disney’s large successes, the Horned King remains a horrific figure haunting those who witnessed his villainous ways when they were younger.

In order to recreate fear for the illusions of film making, we will be using a mixture of artistry and engineering to build multiple pieces of prosthetic makeup and costuming that an actor will be able to wear comfortably and without large limitations to their ability to become the Horned King.

Our goal is to build from the old fear that Disney’s animated film pressed into its audiences with the Horned King and establish a new fear that will take the dark creature out of the 2D world and into reality using special FX makeup and prosthetics.

Creating a New Fear

Our Goals:

16 individual prosthetic makeup pieces that will be sculpted in clay, molded into reusable plaster trays, and cast in silicone to be applied to the performer’s face and hands.
A set of large, unique horns that will have an intimidating presence on screen.
One large, hooded cloak of deep red that “pools” around the performer.
A pair of brightly glowing eyes

Our New Nightmares:

Putting our sculpting and painting abilities to the test with a new medium, silicone prosthetic makeup!
Considering all elements in regards to the actor’s level of comfortable mobility and visibility
Creating “multiple wear” makeup pieces
Working with the actor’s overall performance to ensure that the Horned King effects are truly terrifying
Understanding what should be done practically and what should be left for post VFX work

With our actress lined up, measurements secured, concepts drawn, and the recent arrival of our main materials, we are ready to step into the fear that is the Horned King!

Will you join us?

September 5, 2017, Filed Under: guest artists, Raptor 2017

Guest Artist: Ron Pardini

We are pleased to announce that Ron Pardini will be joining our class Sunday October 22 through Monday, October 23. Ron is a special effects artist who has been working in the entertainment industry for 29 years.

Some of Ron’s more notable accomplishments include; creating many of the guns for “Men in Black”, creating the “hero” skeleton pirates for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride for Disneyland California’s 50th anniversary, and producing/creating “The Haunted Vineyard” haunted house in Ontario, California. He even spent six months in Seoul Korea as lead sculpture/art department head for a ride rehab at Lotte World. Ron likes to refer to his title as “the art guy” since his specialties include fabrication, figure finishing, scenic work, tooling, and design.

ron pardini mammoth — Animatronic pygmy mammoth created by Ron Pardini for Channel Islands Kayak Center. Photo: Ventura County Star

He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Whittier College where he majored in Biology (which he hardly ever uses) and minored in both Art and Drama (which he uses pretty much daily). He spent his senior year running back and forth between his classes and the special effects studio SPFX where he did an internship which opened the door to the world of movie making. He spent the next ten years hopping from shop to shop (sometimes even working in his own shop) creating special effects and custom props for the Motion Picture industry.

He then switched gears and spent the next ten years hopping from shop to shop (sometimes even working in his own shop) creating static and animatronic figures for the Theme Park industry. He currently is working once again in his own shop CIFX where he tackles projects that vary from movie and theme park work to creating sets for a church VBS and providing custom props to various party planning companies. His work has been featured in Indi and Feature films, is prevalent at both Disney and Universal Studios theme parks, and at public venues such as Rose Hills Mortuary’s annual “Day of the Dead” celebration.

While Ron has loved having the opportunity to be part of so many fun projects and really enjoyed being a Disney Imagineer, he is most proud of his title of Dad.