Dragon Age: Redemption Episode 6

So this is it, the final episode, the exciting conclusion of Dragon Age:Redemption! It's been a long time coming. We started this over a year ago, but at the same time, I can't believe it's over already. I'm very proud to share this behind the scenes look at last chapter of the saga, yet it's a bitter sweet moment. I've enjoyed reliving the process by blogging with each new episode, and I'm sad that we've reached the end so quickly. I hope you enjoyed my posts, as well as the realization of Felicia's amazing vision.

Photo 1: One of the biggest challenges of the final episode, and actually, of the entire series, was bringing Sundermount to life. Sundermount is known in Dragon Age II as a sacred place to the Dalish elves. A place of magic and power, essentially the Stonehenge of Bioware's virtual world.

One thing that I have learned about Felicia Day is that we share a very similar approach to writing. Before a story is completely fleshed out there will be certain visual elements that she will lock onto and the script will grow from there. It can be anything really, a character, an action, a prop, in the case of DA:R, a place. From our earliest conversations, before there was even a solid plot, Felicia knew that she wanted the characters to eventually visit Sundermount.

Photo 2: What made this set so challenging is that it was the one environment we were pulling directly out of the game. Much like all of the weapons and props that I had blogged about from previous episodes, I wanted this set to be as accurate to the game as possible. We literally constructed the set stone by stone to construct the graphics.

Photo 3: Despite out best efforts, we did have to take some liberties. We searched the entire radius of Los Angeles for rolling European hills, but couldn't quite find anything accessible to match the grounds in the game. It was ultimately decided to shoot in the alien landscape of the Topanga hills. The setting was very cool, but it forced us to change our color scheme from European gray field stone to California desert sandstone.

Photo 4: Another challenge was trying to make the small shootable area that we found look like the vast landscapes that Bioware provided us. Several of the views revealed houses and freeways in the distance, and the Sundermount walls wouldn't block them all.
Photo 5: My solution was to move the in game gates and crumbled walls closer to the sacred ruins
Photo 6: Due to time budget and space constraints, I had to pick and choose which game assets we brought to reality. In some cases, such as this gateway, I chose what I felt were the coolest elements, out of a larger structure, pairing it down to a more achievable set piece.

Photo 7: All of the Sundermount elements were made of polystyrene sheet foam, the kind used to insulate houses, mounted onto wooden frames. The foam was carved, coated in joint compound, and painted.

Photo 8: Several days before shooting the set pieces as far up the mountain as possible, then carried by hand the rest of the way. There were over 20 pieces total, some being more than 12 feet in length and several hundred pounds. Lets just say, it was not easy to get up that mountain.

Photo 9: It took my crew two days to erect Sundermount. Once all of the places were staked in place and connected, all of the seams needed to be puttied and painted. The really tall structures needed to be roped off against the elements.

Photo 10: Several rock samples were taken to the shop to help guide the painting of the sets, but once it actually stood at the location, it was obvious that we needed to do some more painting to blend it into the landscape.

Photo 11: It is funny that I would blog about this alter in one of the finals DA.R posts, being that it was actually the first set piece to be constructed for the entire series. It consists of a 2x4 and plywood frame layered with the styrofoam which was then carved to look like individual stone blocks.

Photo 12: We knew that the alter was going to be involved in the fight scene and possibly end up needing to hold a lot of weight. The wooden structure was completely up to the task, but the foam stone skin would not be able to take any weight or impact. I decided to put several layers of fiber glass on the altar's surface to protect it.

The polyester resin we use for fiber glassing actually eats the styrofoam, so a trick I use is to spray mount a protective layer of aluminum foil onto the sculpted foam. This allows all of the detail to remain and keeps the resin away from the foam. Here, Josie Kavadoy and Jason Swearingen apply the final layer of fiberglass mat.

Photo 13: The final alter as it appeared on set awaiting it's sacrifice.

Photo 14: Of course, that sacrifice happens to be my dearest friend Marissa Cuevas. I knew all along that this prop played a big part in Marissa's climactic scene, so it was kind of special to be able to build it for her.

She was very excited about the role that Felicia wrote for her. And who wouldn't be? After all, its not everyday you get to dress like a princess. Especially one who gets to wear a dress designed by Shawna Trpcic, who also designed many of Marissa's favorite shows, including Firefly! Here she is during the final fitting for her ceremonial dress. I couldn't wait to see her in action.

Photo 15: Of course, actually seeing it was horrifying. That is one of the cruel twists of Hollywood, working with friends and loved one on movie sets, despite the fact that none of this is real, there are certain images you never really want to see.

It's okay though, Marissa was unharmed in the filming of this scene. The dress, however, did not survive.

Photo 16: Marissa was not the only things pretending to be dead at Sundermount. The evil mage Saarebas attempts to hold his ground by raising an army of the dead to battle our heroes. Luckily for him the Dalish elves buried their fallen comrades in a cemetery not far from the Sundermount ruins. We made a wide variety of tombstones based on Bioware game assets from foam and wood.
Photo 17: Tombstones being set in place in the Topanga hills, creepy but peaceful. For the moment...
Photo 18: This next series of photos are truly a behind the scenes exclusive. Due to circumstances beyond our control, production had delays during the Sundermount shooting schedule, and almost all of the zombies, which I am about to show you, did not make it on the film. We created a variety of foam latex appliances, such as this one piece pull-over zombie. All of the appliances were sculpted by Digger Mesh and myself.

Photo 19: One of the first pitfalls was that the stuntman hired to play the large zombie was allergic to latex, so I couldn't apply his make up. We considered switching actors but there was no one available to fit the mask. In an experiment to see what the latex would look like on a smaller person, I donned the dead elf head. You can tell its me because of the hat.

Photo 20: Here we have a female zombie elf warrior. This was a full head single piece appliance.

Photo 21: The best part of the zombies was that it gave members of my art department an opportunity to do some make up effects. Here Rikki Techner applies the zombie girl. Rikki's true passion is make up, so she really enjoyed being able to create a character that would be filmed on a set that she had helped to build.

Photo 22:This pruney zombie was sculpted on a life cast of Ben Afflek's face.

Photo 23: Art Department Coordinator Pooja Sharma tries her hand at applying zombie make up for the first time.

Photo 24: This elf obviously died from severe wounds to the face. It was done as a one piece face appliance.

Photo 25: Yeah, yeah, yeah... you get it.

Photo 26: About at this point we were informed that the zombies would not be filmed. As you can see, they were not happy about it.

Photo 27: No really, they were not happy! They kind of haunted us for the rest of the night.

Photo 28: The ghastly ghouls had their revenge though, summoning the dark forces of nature to reek even more havoc on poor Sundermount. When we returned in the morning, we discovered that the winds that blew through the mountains in the late hours of the night took down our set, despite out best efforts to secure it. Needless to say, I had a situation on my hands...

Photo 29: It was a mad scramble to get everything back online, but I will save that story for the final post of my DA:R blog.

I am excited to hear all of your reactions to the epic finale of our series. Please leave comments below and feel free to ask me about anything I might have left out within these blogs. Don't forget to like and share this page below!

Eric’s Halloween Make-up

Hey, everyone! Once again, as usual, I am working on a secret project that keeps me from blogging about my current work. The good news is that it is the coolest secret project I have worked on in a while, so when I can blog about it in a few weeks, I think everyone will find it very exciting. But I did want to make an entry, so in honor of Eric McNeely’s birthday, I thought I would show you how I made the Fallbrooke front man’s Halloween costume!

Anyone who knows me knows that I usually hide on Halloween, mostly to avoid the tons of requests to do make-ups and costumes as favors! Its not that I don’t love doing it, or want to make my friends happy, its just one of those "all or nothing" type situations, and it’s hard to make costumes for everybody and still maintain the work flow. But Eric was so excited about the make-up process when we were doing the “Take Me Under” zombie girls, I figured one make-up for a huge horror buff wouldn’t kill me. Unfortunately, my schedule got crunched, and I had to wait till the week OF Halloween to do it. So, once again, here are some tips on doing a 24-hour make up…

Photo 01: Here’s Eric as he usually looks, loving every second of being attacked by a zombie during the video filming. Take a good look, ladies…this will be the last time you see him like this during this blog!


Photo 2: Told you! I would imagine that you will never see Eric on stage with a plastic bag on his head! But that’s what happens here at the BarnYard! Eric is prepped for a face cast. I will be using dental alginate and plaster bandage to make a negative of his face.

Photo 3: Here he is fully under the cast. The alginate is soft and flexible, so the plaster bandage helps it keep its shape so it will produce an accurate positive of Eric’s face. Note the nostrils remain open the entire time. What’s it like being under there? Well, I’ll let Eric blog about that himself…

Photo 4: Here’s the plaster positive I pulled from the alginate face cast. The dark areas are retaining moisture, and the whole thing needs to be baked in an oven for an hour or so to make the clay stick better.

Photo 4a: Before I add clay, I dremeled out negative “keys” in the eyes. These will help the mold register better, especially since I don’t have the time to build a flange like I did in the Zombie School steps. It’s a good idea to do this first, because you risk ruining your sculpture going in with heavy tools after it’s done!

Photo 5: I’m designing as I go, so I just started with a base of clay on the obvious areas.

Photo 6: I usually wonder around my shop and look at old sculpts, magazines, and life casts for inspiration when I am designing. In this case, Peter Cushing, of Hammer films and Star Wars fame, struck me as a cool starting point. His stark features are the perfect base for transforming a rock star into a horrific vision.

Photo 7: You can see in this photo how I started drafting features from the life cast into the sculpt.

Photo 8: An hour or so into the process, I felt like I had good structure to continue on. I started marking out where some of the details would go, but before getting to far into it…

Photo 9: I raked the whole surface to even out the overly hand-worked surfaces. Create rhythms and patterns with the rake to help match contours on both sides of the face.

Photo 10: After you feel like your surfaces all match, you can smooth down the rake marks with a soft sponge. Then begin the detail work. I carve in wrinkle patterns with a wax spatula, starting with following the flow of the features, then doing a second pass going against the flow for contrast.

Photo 11: To accent some of the heavier wrinkles, like around the eyes and on the brow, I roll small clay lumps and push them into the wrinkle pattern. Blend in the edges with the wax spatula, then brush them down with alcohol and a stiff brush.

Photo 12: I started as a painter, so I do a lot of brush work in my sculpting. I use the sculpting tools to create the forms and rough in the details, but most of the finished work is done with several brushes, ranging in shape and rigidness. Obviously, the final pass is with smaller, soft brushes to eliminate brush strokes. And avoid using TOO much alcohol, as it will make the clay mushy and hard to work with.

Photo 13: I captured Eric’s ears pretty well in the cast, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to sculpt up some quick, puffy, bruised ears. I decided along the way that this face would be stretched and stitched together with heavy twine, so meaty ears that I could sew through will help complete the look.

Photo 14: Can you still see Eric in there? The finished sculpt. Just in time for lunch!

Photo 15: The next step was to create a “cutting edge”, which entails putting clay over exposed plaster surfaces of the face cast, giving the extra foam and air someplace to escape when the foam latex is run later. I also threw up a clay wall to make the molding easier, kind of the equivalent of the kiddy rails in a bowling alley!

Photo 16: When mixing plaster, it’s recommended to allow the powdered gypsum to soak in the water, rather than mix it in straight away. This is called the “dried river bed” technique.

Photo 17: Mix the first batch of plaster to be the consistency of cake batter, then coat the whole sculpture. I usually splash it on, forcing out the air without physically rubbing the surface and risking damage. The sculpture is finished, but the clay is still pliable.

Photo 18: To strengthen the mold, use hemp soaked in plaster. I buy it in bails, which seems to add to the whole “BarnYard” thing!

Photo 19: Pull clumps of hemp and roll it into “bird’s nest”. Soak these in the plaster and apply them over the splash coat, overlapping them so there are no weak spots. This step is all in the timing. If you put the hemp on too soon, it will press through the soft splash coat and show up in the surface of your mold. But, if you wait too long, the splash coat will cure and chances are it won’t bond to the hemp coat, ultimately chipping out and ruining your negative! So make sure that your splash coat is firm, but still wet when you get to the hemp!

Photo 20: You can put several layers of hemp, but try to keep the overall thickness of the mold to about 1 inch. It helps keep temperature consistency in the foam baking process, which will result in better foam. I usually cheat a little on this rule and build up the top to create a flat surface, which makes running the foam easier since the mold won’t flail about when its turned over.

Photo 21: Here is the mold cracked open. Most of the clay peeled out in the process, but it’s important to scrub the remaining clay from the negative and positive before running the foam. Use alcohol and a toothbrush, or Popsicle sticks snapped in half long ways to dig deep clay out. Avoid using metal tools like the wax spatula, as they will cut into the plaster and add texture you don’t want!

Photo 22: Here is the cleaned mold. It looks freaky already, even in reverse!

Photo 23: So I ran the mold up to Valencia, and the magical Mark baked it out and nailed the first foam run, as always! He delivered it in the morning, giving me enough time to paint it and still have a lunch date! Thanks, Mark!

Photo 24: I wanted this creature to look more bruised than dead, so I started with a bright red rubber cement paint mix in the shadow areas.

Photo 25: I followed this with purple, darkening the deep shadows, but still letting a lot of the red poke through.

Photo 26: Ah, my old stand-by technique: Ringlets! I always tell myself I will try something new, but this approach is really fast, and has never failed me. I used the same purple shadow to airbrush rings, layering the paint to be a little more opaque.

Photo 27: You can cover as much or as little of the piece as you want with rings. I did the whole thing, making them smaller and tighter in the shadow areas, and widening in the fleshy areas. Right now you probably think this looks pretty ridiculous! Its important to remember that rubber cement is a translucent painting medium, so you have to be thinking about the next layers as you paint the current ones. I went pretty full on with the rings, because the next few layers will reduce their intensity, and I want them to continue to read. It’s a basic pattern, but it will end up reading like veins and capillaries.

Photo 28: The next step was to make a translucent flesh tone. When mixing rubber cement paint, start with a small amount of the cement, and add a few drops of painter’s tint. The more tint, the more intense the color. Mix it thoroughly, then cut it with Bestine rubber cement thinner. The more thinner you use, the more translucent the paint will be. By using different amounts of tint and thinner, you can create a wide range of intensities. I use rubber cement because it offers translucency like no other flexible paint, so keep that in mind for layering. If you want to go with straight opaques, it might be better to use PAX paint. (See Zombie School!)

I applied a few layers of the flesh, and you can see how drastically it changed the ringlets! But now he looks a little too lively!

Photo 29: To make him more sickly looking, I layered in a very thin green over the shadow areas. It allowed the reds and purples to stay visible, but cut down on the warmth is a few areas.

Photo 30: Finally, I accented the inner eyelids, and some of the scars and shadows. I am also planning on doing a bunch of modeling with rubber mask grease paint once the appliance is glued to Eric’s face, so this paint is really just serving as a base.

Photo 31: Don’t forget to powder! The paint is still rubber cement, so it will stay adhesive until a layer of baby powder is applied to it. Keep this in mind when painting, also. Touching or folding the foam while you are working on it will cause the cement to bind to itself, and that never ends well!

Photo 32: Now that it is not sticky, I poked some holes in the foam and threaded some hemp twine through the stitched areas. Anything that can be done once its glued down I will do later, but I didn’t want to be poking around Eric’s face with a needle if I don't have too!

Photo 33: Happy Halloween! Oh, wait. That was weeks ago…Well, it was Halloween when this photo was taken. We started about 6ish, so Eric could be ready for the party circuit. It took about an hour to apply the whole thing.

Photo 34: I made some quick teeth out of Magic Sculpt, and tied them onto the loose strings hanging from his chin, brow, nose, and ears. Despite the hellish make over, Eric found this to be the most disturbing part of the whole make-up!

Photo 35: Here he is in all his ghoulish glory! Hopefully he scared the crap out of you if you ran into him that night! It was a lot of fun to do, and I hope there were a few useful hints in the process for your make-up adventures. Send pictures!

Happy Birthday, Eric!