The young lord's sword

Two weeks of sculpting, molding, casting and painting resulted in this sword. I'ts going to appear in a fantasy short film inspired by slavic folklore. I'm so excited to see it in action!

There's still some details to finish up. The handle is wood, blade plywood. Both shaped by sanding and then painted. The cross guard was originally sculpted from clay and then molded and cast from polyurethane resin. Black pigment and silver powder was applied to the resin in the casting process. The silver powder could then be polished after the cast was cured. 

The background wall was also made by me. This was a first test in carving and melting urethane board. I'm quite happy with the result!

Mansion set

This might just be the coolest set I've worked on so far. In the script this mansion belongs to a mysterious and wealthy old woman, whom one of the characters refers to as "the satan herself". He is exaggarating of course but still there seems to be something supernatural about the old lady. I thought of her as some kind of a modern Baba Yaga character be it that she isn't really a witch, merely a superstitious collector and traveler.

We shot in a great location in Vääksy, Finland. The house was in excellent shape and had a great atmosphere on its own. With it's wallpapers, wooden floor and high ceiling it was perfect for our purposes. All I had to do was to fill the huge space with furniture and props. It took quite a lot of effort but I really enjoyed doing this! Results below.

   

  

Fragile

Here's a few photographs from a short film Fragile, which I worked on as a production designer early this autumn. Directed by Carolin Koss, Cinematography Hannu Käki, Costumes Alexandra Ovtchinnikova.

Coral chair making of

I finally got the inspiration to continue my masking tape experiments thanks to a material course we had in school. I also had a broken chair in my living room waiting for me to fix it so I thought this was the perfect chance to make it into a whole new object. The chair and the costume are something I wish to get properly photographed in the near future but in the mean time I'll present you the making of pictures.

This is the original chair.

And this is what I brougth to our final exhibition.

I think I spent about 20 hours with this chair project and the coral vest. It took a lot less time than I thought it would. Most of the time I was rolling and painting tape. It was actually quite fun and if I had more time I'd make more of it. Here are some pictures of the process.

First I sanded the whole thing and gave it a rough look. I also shred the fabric a bit around the edges of the seat. After sanding I gave it a very light wash of gray paint and varnish. Then glued a shreaded net to make a base for the tape corals.

Dremel is my new favorite tool. I used a set of small grinding tools to carve holes and cuts on the chair. Added some dark patina and and other layer of grey paint. Gave it a light sanding after that.

Then I spent couple of days just rolling the tape. I think I used at least two rolls for these. So that's about 100 m of tape. Should have had even more variation with the sizes. Making the smallest pieces took a lot of time but the bigger rolls don't really look that good in close up.

Painting these things proved to be a challenge. I didn't have access to the perfect shade of spray so I had to sink all of the pieces into paint in order to get the color inside the tubes. After a day of  drying I sprayed a thin coat of white to make highlights.

Finally I glued the stuff on the chair. Should have had more of it and in much smaller scale to get the look I really wanted. But as we all know there are only 24 hours in a day.

Stay tuned for the photoshoot!

A space in the sewers

These are actually the first set drawings I've ever done. Not that they'd be accurate enough for set builders, but at least there's a guideline.

A simple sketch of the whole space. 

I think I'm addicted to floor plans. They look so neat!