Lance Pope At Work (1991)

Roughly twenty years ago, Lance Pope remodeling the lab, upstairs at Haunted Verdun Manor back in Forney, Texas.

Location: 32° 44' 24.6" N, 96° 25' 38.0" W

Mold Draining Table In Use

The new mold draining table quickly gets put into use.

Location: Somewhere in California

Mold Draining Table

Here's a handy addition to the workshop -- a table for draining latex from molds. The surface of the table is open, with rebar to support the upside-down molds, so the latex can drain through into buckets.

Location: Somewhere in California

Foot Maquette

We've got several new feet in the works, and we wanted a foot form to create maquettes on. Searching for existing forms didn't find anything close to what we wanted. A quick printout of 3D references later, and this simple foot was made with sculpty. It will be molded and a few copies made for building clay up on them.

Location: Somewhere in California

Wind and Water

The northern California Aqueduct and a wind farm, taken near old Mountain House.

Location: 37° 45' 22.6" N, 121° 34' 40.1" W

Retexturing Pawpads

We've wanted to rework the pads on the wolf paws -- the texture of the original sculpt was very subtle and didn't "read" from more than a foot or two away. So, here you see the fine art of plaster carving being practiced to redefine the pads. The left mold is untouched, the right mold has been carved and retextured.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Remolding From Masters

This is the fourth time we've made new molds of the wolf paws from the masters. The process is very similar to molding from the original sculpture, building up a dam and support out of Roma around the latex master pull. Here, the new molds have just been separated from the latex masters.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Claws Spread Out

Here's a large number of various claws, spread out on a towel to dry after a water bath to clean the remnants of mold release off of them.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Finished head.

This is the finished head as it was delivered to the client, photographed under natural light.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

In-progress airbrushing

Compare this image to last week's. Even unfinished, the airbrushing has brought life and character to the mask. Folds and wrinkles in the original sculpture are given better definition and finer markings are worked in.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Furred, before airbrushing

All the fur has been laid onto the head at this point, and an underpainting of the desired markings has been applied by brush onto the faceskin. The under markings are broad areas of color that will show through the translucent airbrushing in the finished mask.

Three styles of NFT fur have been used on the mask. While there is variation within each style of fur, the boundaries between the styles are still somewhat obvious, as is the transition between the fur and the latex skin. The edge of the woven backing of the NFT fur is softened with an application of base colored latex with a brush. All the transitions will be softened and the shape enhanced by airbrushing in later steps.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Partially furred head

Here, National Fiber Technology (NFT) fur has been laid on the neck ruff and the back of the head. The direction the fur will lay on the finished head determines the order the fur must be attached to the head.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Further progress on the head.

Same werewolf face skin, trimmed and cleaned up, teeth added, and the framework of strapping added. The strapping will define the shape of the back of the head while allowing good ventilation (as opposed to a solid latex head). Note that this head does not have a rigid underskull, and thus does not have a moving jaw.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W

Straight from the mold.

Here's a werewolf face skin, exactly as it comes out of the mold. There's quite a few steps that follow before it's done ...

NOTE: This head was finished and in the hands of the client before any of these images were posted.

Location: 37° 45' N, 121° 27' W