If i build it will they come? (and will it fit them when they get here?) Episode Five

Two weeks had passed since I'd done anything armour orientated. I'd had to stall work on the project on account of working in London. Remember, no one is getting paid for their work on Joey & Robins film. Thats fine as we've all agreed to do it anyway for the love of it in our free time. Downside for Joey & Robin is it means that whenever paid work comes our way all thoughts of running around a derelict, bombed out building pretending to fight monsters dressed like a futuristic madman take a back seat. Such was the case for me as I'd been called down to London to be part of the special effects crew for a car commercial that for reasons that elude me was treated with pentagon levels of security. Maddest of all was that no-one was allowed to know of this cars exsistence but across the road in the tube station was a fucking massive poster advertising it!

Anyway, as I was setting off for home I got called to do another job the following week sculpting a life size Blue Whale tail. So I did that & then headed back to Power Armour Command.

I'd forgotten about the quadroplegic mannequin sat in my room & suffered a mild heart attack upon entering. Get a life size cardboard cut out of someone & put it in your house. You'll forget you've got it & you'll jump out of your skin everytime you see it for a few days. I once lived in a flat that boasted it's very own sporty spice..........until one night some pissed bloke absolutley kicked the shit out of it for reasons no one dared to know. To this day I have no clue who he was & what he was doing in the flat. Those were the days:)

Sculpting. After making sure that the mannequin was secured to my turntable I got to it. The plan was to sculpt the chest/backpack armour & the groin armour (later to be named BattlePants). Then Paul & myself would mould & reproduce the pieces in the same way as the helmet & fit them to the full bodied mannequin (which would be available by then) and continue to sculpt the rest of the suit. Simple! Yeah right. The first barrier to overcome was a self imposed one. I'd never attempted to do something like this before & was a bit unsure as to how big to make it which sounds silly. I was worried that if I made it too large then we'd end up with some bloke rattling around in a suit thats too big for him.

Joey had said that the size of the mannequin I had was the size they wanted it to be but it was noticeably quite small & not representative of an average build. I think I spent about 4 or 5 days on it & it went well & looked pretty slick. Still the size of it was bugging me. Basically I was over cautious with the thing & while it looked good as a sculpture, proportionally it was just not that imposing & still quite small even though I'd made it slightly bigger. Not big enough at all though really. Still Joey, Robin & Paul liked it. I like it as a sculpture & it's not bad at all from that point.

Speaking of Paul, he had a helmet report for me. As you may remember the helmet we had was just a bit too tight for comfort. We had decided that the best thing to do would be to essentially cut it in half so that you could then put your head in the back & the face would clip into place. Trouble was the sculpt was quite fancy & cutting it in a way that made it look like it was supposed to be in two halves was tricky & Paul was stressing. He always stresses though & usually it's not that big a deal & he can be put at ease. However, this time I chose to encourage his unease for my own artistic needs! Essentially the helmet would have worked fine but it would have been a pain getting it there, but it would have worked.

Now, I'd had two weeks to think about the fact that I didnt really think the flashy over the top design worked well at conveying a big brutal beast. It was bugging me & I was dying to sculpt another more simpler helmet that more than made up for it's lack of flashy nooks & crannies with a healthy dose of menace. Paul agreed (mostly I think because he didnt fancy the idea of fiddling around with clip together helmets) & we talked to Joey. I said that essentially it would be quicker & easier for me to make a new helmet than it would for Paul to fix the one we've got. Joey was happy for me to sculpt one & if he liked it we would mould it. If not we'd have to make the first one work.

I had two days to do it in which actually helped. It meant I didnt have too much time to over-sculpt it & risk diluting the character of the thing. With bold forms & no nonsense design I had a helmet that I was pleased with. I also made sure to leave room for a human head to go inside! I wish I'd had one more day to tidy it up better but for two days work you cant grumble. Especially when you're getting it for free. It does look a bit too Warhammer 40k for my liking & compared to the first one it does look quite plain but it does have more presence & Joey & Paul instantly preferred it to the other so it got the thumbs up. And so to more mouldmaking. Whoopee.

This time I personally made sure that we had everything. There was no way I was going to risk buggering up the body. We chose to mould the helmet along a seam that would allow the two seperate halves to look like they fit together naturally that way in the event of it still being small. Thankfully the mould making went well with no problems & by the end of the day we had a pair of respectable moulds. A good day.

The following day was spent casting out new helmets which, much to our delight, fit perfectly over our heads. We also got the chest armour & BattlePants. A slight snag - there was no way I was ever going to fit into it & I'm quite an average build. It fit Paul though who is, in his own words possesing a "puney frame". Oh well we'd just have to find people of the same build to go in the suits (we were now asked for 3 suits in total - one was trouble enough). Not exactly the superhuman juggernaut I had been envisioning but it was quite a buzz seeing him walk around even without arms or leg pieces & in its raw state.

It was held together with silver gaffa tape. Just for the testing though! It bugged me though that he'd lost any kind of presence & it just didnt look right. I put it down to the fact that it will look a bit weird until the other pieces are added & also Paul is the shittest actor in the world. It would seem that he is incapable of standing up straight & tall & can only potter about. Upon viewing some test footage I'd shot a friend of mine said, & I quote - "he looks like he's trying on a pair of shoes". Not exactly the impact you want from & (supposedly) 6ft indestructible warrior machine. Paul Lewis will NOT be appearing in the finished film. If it ever gets made.

Next time:

• We find ourselves with nowhere to work
• Which leaves me with a month to do my own head in staring at the photos of the suit.

Bye for now,

Michael