The Origin of Tolkien's Orcs

I began to research into the characters of Orcs within texts as well as the use of film references. I came across a book by David Day that catalouged all of the creatures within Tolkien's work in the form of a 'Bestiary'. He wrote extensively on the history of Orcs, their creation, various different masters and key battles.

  "These were the Orcs, a multitude brought forth in shapes twisted by pain and hate. The only joy of these creatures was in the pain of others, for the blood that flowed within Orcs was both black and cold. Their stunted form was hideous: bent, bow-legged and squat. Their arms were long and strong as the apes of the South, and their skin was black as wood that has been charred by flame. The jagged fangs in their wide mouths were yellow, their tongues red and thick, and their nostrils and faces were broad and flat. Their eyes were crimson gashes, like narrow slits in black iron grates behind which hot coals burn."

  "They were cannibals, ruthless and terrible, and often their rending claws and slavering fangs were gored with the bitter flesh and the foul black blood of their own kind. Orcs were spawned as thralls of the Master of Darkness; therefore they were fearful of light, for it weakened and burned them. Their eyes were night seeing, and they were dwellers of foul pits and tunnels."

Day then goes into the lengthy history of the repeated rise and fall of the race of Orcs through the ages until the period of time that is featured in Tolkein's books 'The Lord of the Rings', known as the Third Age of the Sun. Here they claim allegiance to the dark lord Sauron and were transformed into a new, stronger race using his powers of sorcery, a race that became termed 'Uruk-hai'.

  "These Uruk-hai were Orcs grown to the height of Men, yet straight-limbed and strong. Though they were truly Orcs - black-skinned, black-blooded, lynx-eyed, fanged and claw-handed - Uruk-hai did not languish in sunlight and did not fear it at all."


Michael Stanton also comments on the origin of Orcs, including the different perspectives of characters within the story. He reiterates the fact that Tolkien explains the origin of the word Orc as being derived from Old English for 'demon'; the creatures themselves are ancient in Middle Earth.
Although Orcs are featured in 'The Hobbit' they are described as Goblins and described as such;

"...bow-legged, long-armed, fanged, squat but muscular, hairy and they smell bad."

Treebeard comments in The Two Towers that Orcs were made as a 'counterfeit' of Elves in the olden days, which has its merits but is not entirely true. Orcs do have a similar restorative drink to the Elves, however, it is apparently a much more foul-tasting draught. 

Comparatives are often drawn between two different breeds of Orcs - those belonging to Saruman (stronger and bigger - Uruk-hai) and those belonging to Sauron (most sinister). It is thought that the evil within the Orcs makes them untrusting and untrustworthy, something which often works in the favour of the Hobbits and their tendency to turn on each other enables them to escape. 

Other Orcs in Legend and Myth

It is unclear where Tolkien originally got his idea for the characters of Orcs and Urak-hai from, however, he was not the first to tell stories of creatures named 'Orcs'.

In AD77, Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, wrote his 'Historia Naturalis' and within it, described a monstrous creature called an Orc/Orco. Carol Rose writes of this in her Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth and comments,
  "It was considered to be a vast creature of the ocean with immense jaws full of huge teeth. It was not a whale but said to be much larger and to prey upon the whale. An instance of an Orc consuming a load of cowhides that had fallen overboard from a ship in Ostia harbour during the reign of the emperor Claudius brought terror to the seafarers. This monster, now named Orco, was later used, in the Italian work 'Orlando Furioso' (1516) by Ludovicio Ariosto, (1474-1573), as the sea monster that threatened Andromeda."

Original artwork for Orcs

Weta Ltd

Weta Ltd, the company responsible for all of the make-up, prosthetics and armour on all of the Lord of the Rings films is a New Zealand based company that began from very humble beginnings.

futurefilm.wordpress.com

Weta Ltd started life as a small prosthetics and effects company called RT Effects that was formed in the back of a small flat in Wellington, NZ. The founders were life partners, Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger to create effects for local, low budget TV commercials.

One of the first big jobs taken on my RT Effects was creating puppets for a show called 'Public Eye' which required a new sculpt to be made approximately every 10 hours (200 commercial sculptures in all). As materials were very difficult to obtain, Richard and Tania made the most of the materials available to them; beginning sculpting in mud that they dug up themselves and eventually moving on to industrial grade margarine to create their puppet sculptures! Although these basic materials worked adequately for them, they began to develop their own type of plastercine until a supplier in Australia was eventually found.

The company really took off when a friendship was formed with Jamie Selkirk and Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson. Jackson had always remained frustrated with the lack of effects companies in NZ and the need to create new effects facilities from scratch for each new film. Henceforth, the four collaborated to create what is now known as Weta Ltd. Richard and Tania worked with Jackson on projects like 'Meet The Feebles' and 'Heavenly Creatures' before the Lord of the Rings trilogy was eventually brought to the table.

www.wetanz.com

Due to the amount of work undertaken for the trilogy, Weta needed to expand their workshops to a much larger scale. It is now the biggest facility in the world of its kind and covers over 65,000 square feet.

www.joblo.com

Over the course of the trilogy, Weta made over 48,000 individual items, these included:
- 10,000 prosthetic facial appliances
- 3,500 pairs of Hobbit feet
- 2,500 foam body suits
- 1,200 suits of armour
- 2,000 weapons
- 10,000 arrows
- 72 miniatures for middle earth visuals.

From small beginnings Weta has grown into a world renowned effects company, working on productions such as King Kong, District 9, The Legend of Zorro, The Lovely Bones and now in pre-production for The Hobbit. Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger have also picked up five Oscar's along the way for their work on Lord of the Rings and King Kong.

Creating an Orc - Lurtz

lotr.wikia.com

As Charlie had mentioned a character in the film with the role of a 'Hunter Orc' I began looking for inspiration from the Lord of the Rings films, particularly at the character of Lurtz, the lead Uruk-hai warrior from 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. In the film Lurtz is created by Sauroman to lead his army of Orcs into battle against men, and he certainly looks the part with his massive build!

lotr.wikia.com

Lurtz is played by a Maori actor from New Zealand named Lawrence Makoare, who saw the films as the big break in his acting career. As well as playing Lurtz in the first film, 'The Fellowship of the Ring' and another unnamed Orc, he also played two characters in the third film, 'Return of the King'. One of these was another Orc character named 'Gothmog' for which his face and hands needed more prosthetic work, the second was the WitchKing, which was Lawrence's favourite role as his face was completely hidden by a mask and costume so he spent no time in the make-up chair.

www.wetanz.com

www.wetanz.com

The character of Lurtz was brought to life on our screens by Gino Acevedo and Jason Docherty from Weta Workshop. It was a gruelling process for both the actor and the make-up artists as the full body make-up and prosthetics took 11 hours to apply (often starting at 9pm in order for the make-up to be complete to commence filming at 8am the next day!). Lawrence then needed to be on set for up to 12 hours before the make-up was removed, which took a further 3 hours. The head piece for Lurtz came in 5 separate parts alongside numerous more pieces to cover the body, which were often made of very thick silicone that could be up to 4 inches thick! All of this meant that acting in the make-up was often very hot and uncomfortable for Lawrence, particularly in the fight scenes where he was moving around a lot. Although Lurtz is featured frequently throughout the film, Lawrence was disappointed to discover that over 2 hours of footage was cut from the film before release, in which he had featured more heavily and had more speaking parts. This footage is available in the director's extended cut.

Azog - The pale orc of 'The Hobbit'

During one of the life casting sessions Charlie had mentioned his interest in a character from 'The Hobbit' that he described as 'the pale orc'. He made a comment that this was one of his influences when he pictured John as the character of The Hunter Orc, and therefore I felt that it required some further investigation.

The character of Azog is mentioned briefly in 'The Hobbit' by Gandalf;

"Your grandfather Thrór was killed, you remember, in the Mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin."

Azog is described as a Goblin as there was never any mention of Orcs in 'The Hobbit', however, research has indicated that they are essentially the same thing. There appears to be a lot of controversy surrounding Peter Jackson's portraying of the character of Azog in 'The Hobbit' and the ways in which it deviates from the original text. The film depicts Azog as the Orc chieftain of Moria, known as 'The Defiler' or 'The Pale Orc' and is described as leading a band of 'Hunter Orcs' which may be the inspiration for Charlie's character. Unlike in 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, Azog and his band do not speak in English, but rather in the dark Orcish language. This may indicate that he is of an older generation of Orc that the ones seen in the trilogy, or that he is more wild and has not been exposed to the language of men. 

www.zedge.net

In appearance, Azog is similar to an Orc in some ways, and very different in others. Although his facial features hold a lot of similarities to the classic Orcs that we are shown in 'The Lord of the Rings' he is very large; much larger than an Uruk-hai and has bone white skin and piercing blue eyes in contrast to the dark, muddy tones of the more traditional Orcs. 

The character of Azog was one of the last to receive design approval during the creation of 'The Hobbit' as he was originally cast as an actor in prosthetic make-up, much like the process used to create Lurtz for 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. However, as Peter Jackson had requested that the character stand out and was intended to be over 7 foot tall, the decision was made to create him entirely using CGI. They cast Manu Bennett for his muscular build and range of key facial expressions and used him for the performance capture necessary to base Azog's movement upon, which was refined using a muscle simulation system. The creators of Azog also relied heavily on a complex facial system that was created for the making of 'Avatar' and has been refined with each CGI based film ever since. This created a surprisingly usable range of facial movements from the very early stages, which usually would take months to refine, meaning that Azog began appearing on screen almost fully formed. 

forums.3dtotal.com

Following my research in Azog I was slightly concerned with how Charlie wanted the overall look of the Hunter Orc to be as previously I had been basing the character more around Lurtz in my head. Azog, however, was much paler, larger and without hair in stark contrast to Lurtz so it was difficult to know which area to focus on. After speaking with Charlie, however, he assured me that the reference to Azog was more as a focus on size than appearance as he had requested that John bulk up quite significantly in the months leading up to filming. He agreed that remaining with the darker skin tones of the more traditional Orcs and Uruk-hai was the right choice as he didn't want to the character to appear to be too much of a copy of Azog. 

Scarification

After researching into Azog, I became interested in the idea of perhaps incorporating some form of scarification into the character of the Hunter Orc as I felt that this was one element of Azog's appearance that made him seem particularly fierce and dominating. Before I had even had a chance to suggest this to Charlie, however, he sent me a message saying that he had had his own thoughts about the appearance of the Hunter Orc and now wanted him to look a little wilder than the character of Lurtz, with some form of tribal body markings. When I suggested the idea of incorporating the elements of scarification he seemed very happy with this, so I began furthering my research.

African Tribal Culture

www.oskarlewis.com

africaisdonesuffering.tumblr.com

Scarification is very popular within African cultures, not purely for it's aesthetic elements but also to serve a functional purpose; indicating lineage, families and social or religious status. Standard scarification is done by using a sharp object to cut into the skin, ideally to create a raised keloid scar. There are, however, more complex and gruesome methods of scarification, including cicatrisation which involves making an initial cut and then irritating the wound by applying caustic plant juices that form permanent blisters. These blisters are often rubbed with charcoal or gunpowder to make them stand out further.
Scarification is often used in tribal cultures to indicate a rite of passage for both men and women. For women in particular the purposes of scarification are vast, often undertaken at key stages in their lives such as reaching puberty or getting married. It is said that these scars make the women appear more appealing to men as they are interesting to touch as well as look at. It also proves to potential male suitors that the woman has a high pain threshold and can therefore withstand the pain of childbirth.

For men, the purposes of scarification vary from tribe to tribe and country to country. In Papau New Guinea's Sepik region they believe that human's were created by crocodiles. Hence, scarification is used to initiate young boys to become men; slicing their check, back and buttocks with bamboo to test strength and self discipline. The scars that remain are symbolic of the teeth marks of a crocodile. For the Karo tribe of Ethiopia, men scar their chests to represent the killing of enemies from other tribes. The Maori tribesmen of New Zealand etched deep tattoos across their entire faces to make them appear fiercer in battle.

Modern, Western Scarification

tattoo.lovetoknow.com

Scarification is also very popular within Western cultures as a more extreme part of the craze for body modification. Similarly to African cultures it is often used to mark a rite of passage in a person's life and is said to open up the borders of the body.
Scarification is especially popular amongst women who have suffered some form of sexual trauma, whether that be molestation, rape, incest, etc. It can be seen as a way to reclaiming authority over one's own body and sexuality. The following quotes have been made by women partaking in scarification, regarding their reasoning behind their decisions:

"A physical manifestation of my experience would be a mental and spiritual release."

"...ritualised marking symbolically revokes former claims on the body - those of victimisation, patriarchy and control - and so is deeply meaningful."

Some woman, however, undertake scarification for totally different reasons, such as wanting to break away from and reject the pressures of cultural standards of beauty and what is considered to be 'normal'. This is a view shared by some members of the gay community who regard body modification as "defiant self-exile" in order to reflect their standing outside of the sex and gender mainstream as a modified body can no longer live a 'nor

malised' life. It is also an act of defiance in refusing to give up any pleasures that may offend the mainstream.

Homo-erotic body modification received a lot of publicity in the 1990s when public cuttings were popular. Their was uproar at the realisation that some of the men participating in these cuttings were HIV positive and were therefore somehow endangering their audiences. There was much ambiguity regarding the legality of homo-erotic body modification and a number of tattooist, piercers and cutters were prosecuted for assault, despite the fact that all of their 'victims' argued that they were consenting adults. In 1995 a judge eventually ruled that body modification for decorative purposes would remain legal, however, body modification performed for erotically would be deemed illegal. 

Meeting #5 - 16/04/13

It had been quite a while since we had last caught up with Charlie as he had been out of the country in LA speaking with production companies who may be potential sponsors for the film. Paige and I were acutely aware that with designing coming along nicely and our fibre glass heads almost complete it would soon be time to begin sculpting and we needed a concrete decision from Charlie regarding the final designs as well as a list of numerous other things that needed to be discussed.

Final Fight Scene
Charlie had dropped a slight bombshell just before he left the country in mentioned that he was now envisaging the final fight scene between the orcs and rangers to be a lot bigger and include up to 50 people. I was quick to explain that it was completely unrealistic to expect to be able to make around 30 Orc make-ups. Although the idea of purchasing pre-made plastic orc masks was initially mentioned, Charlie eventually decided that it would be easiest to cheat the camera and have all of the background orcs wearing helmets and hoods to hide their faces.

Hair
I was becoming more and more concerned that very few of the actors appearing to be taking their roles seriously and had been cutting their hair, despite the fact that they had all been asked to grow it longer for the film. The most concerning of these discoveries were Liam (Billy Ferny) and Neal (Roran) as both of these characters in initial meetings Charlie had requested to have very long hair. Liam's design was fairly easy to amend as Charlie felt that by slicking his hair back to look greasy and having his costume include a hood which he would wear up, it would add to the image of him appearing dark and ominous. Neal, on the other hand was a real concern for both Charlie and myself. Even if Neal agreed to co-operate and not cut his hair between now and the beginning of shooting it would still not reach the length that Charlie wanted, and he did not want to compromise and have one of his primary characters having a modern haircut that clearly did not fit with the context. The option of a wig was briefly discussed although I made it clear that I did not have the time or ability to make one myself. I recommended a number of other students who might be able to do the work if Charlie contacted them but he felt that money would be too much of a concern as budget was already tight. In the end Charlie suggested that if Neal could grow his hair to a reasonable length over the next two months he could perhaps get extensions put in. I explained that I did not have the expertise to do this myself, but that he could probably be taken to a hairdressers to have it done.

Face Casts
Charlie had initially requested that there be 6 orc make-ups created, and as it stood, we only had 5 actors cast. We therefore requested that a time be arranged when the final actor, Ben O'Shea, could have a full head cast done in order for us to sculpt a makeup that could be turned into a basic latex mask. It was, unfortunately, also necessary to re-do a face cast for Liam as the nose on his cast was so badly deformed that it would be unusable. Instead of doing a full head cast for a second time we made the decision to just do a face cast as his make-up would be made up of only closed mould prosthetics and flat pieces so a full head would not be necessary.

Teeth and Contact Lenses
In previous meetings we had discussed the purchase of false teeth and contact lenses for the orcs that were going to be prominently featured on screen. Budget was a slight issue and Charlie did not feel that we could afford to purchase bespoke teeth for the Hunter Orc, he was however keen to purchase some generic teeth that could be moulded to fit the actor's mouth and possible personalised with some teeth stain and fake blood perhaps. The other two featured orcs' teeth would depend entirely on how much one set cost and the state of the budget. We did however agree that contact lenses would be a must have as Paige and I felt that it would ruin all of the effort put into the make-up if the eyes still looked human, but as these would be cheaper, Charlie was happy with this.

Weapons
Upon reading the script previously, Paige and I were aware of the obstacles facing us with prosthetics as at one point the Hunter Orc needs to be shot in the chest with an arrow. The arrow used would need to be incredibly light weight in order to sit on a plastic base beneath a layer of silicone without causing the flat piece to lift up with the force of the weight. Charlie assured us that he had got a model making student named Sean on board and he was currently working on the production of the arrows, so we would need to liaise with him.

Tribal markings on Hunter Orc
Charlie had mentioned that he would quite like the Hunter Orc to include some form of tribal markings - scarification/tattoos/piercings but had not been very specific as to what this meant. I drew out a design that included a large number of different options and gave him the option to pick elements that he wanted. He asked if he could speak with John, the actor, and get back to me which he did later that night. John and Charlie had agreed that they would like a 3-line scratch down the right hand side of the face, narrowly missing the eye and a brand on the shoulder, the design of which would soon be confirmed.

Charlie appeared satisfied with all of the designs shown to him and Paige and I left feeling like we had a much more clear idea of what we would be making from this point forth.

Designing - The Hunter Orc

I thought that I might struggle a little with creating designs for the Hunter Orc as I was finding it quite difficult to establish what it was that Charlie really wanted. On the one hand I knew that a lot of inspiration was going to be coming from Lurtz from Lord of the Rings and that slight influences had been thrown in from Azog of The Hobbit. In terms of context I knew that the Hunter Orc was an Uruk-hai and not actually an Orc, giving me an indication of the colouring and facial form, but that he was the beginning of the breed as the film would be set before the Lord of the Rings films picked up.

I decided that the easiest way to express the vast amount of ideas swimming around my head onto paper would be to use John's face as a template and alter his facial features one by one to follow the form of a more classic Uruk-hai. This technique seemed to work fairly well and I was very happy with the ideas that I had put down for the eyes, brow and cheekbones, the trouble came, however, when I got to the nose. It was very difficult to shade the nose area in in a way that made it look flat and wide in the way that I had envisaged it and ended up looking quite bulbous; not what I wanted at all. I also felt that the dreaded hair in my initial design was far too neat and would need to look more rough and matted.

I also wanted to draw out a design using the same base that incorporated all of the possible body modification elements as an extreme version to show Charlie and give him the option of picking and choosing the bits that he liked. These included facial scarification, piercings, ear stretching and metal bands added into the dreadlocks.

Charlie and John both expressed a dislike of any extreme modifications as they didn't want the Orc too appear, in their own words "too punk". They both agreed that a bone stretcher in the ear could work and also expressed an interest in having some sort of brand scar on the body, saying that they would send me a reference image at the first possible opportunity. 

Designing - Bill Ferny

lotr.wikia.com

In initial meetings with Charlie he had explained that he wanted to base the character of Bill Ferny loosely on the character of Grima Wormtongue from 'The Two Towers' as he was meant to be quite noticeably evil. For me, this translated as having lank, greasy, long hair and a sickly pallor, which I thought could work quite well. Charlie briefly considered the option of dying Liam (the actor playing Bill)'s blonde hair darker but eventually decided that keeping it a dirty blond would allow him to become a slightly alternative villain, rather than conforming to the usual dark stereotype. Unfortunately, before the designing process had even begun, a spanner was thrown into the works when Liam spontaneously cut off his long hair. With this being a problem with a number of the actor's I was seriously beginning to wonder whether Charlie would be getting any of the hairstyles that he had hoped for as I had already made it clear to him that Paige and I did not have enough time, a large enough team, or enough budget to start making wigs for actors who cut off their hair against Charlie's wishes. In the case of Bill Ferny, however, we were saved by the costume department who explained that they had already designed Bill's costume to incorporate a heavy hood that would shadow his face, and therefore, the majority of his hair would not be visible. Charlie suggested in this case that we simply slick back Liam's hair so that it still looked greasy and the length could not actually be seen, which seemed like the best solution.

Keeping with the idea of an unhealthy pallor I planned to incorporate a number of grey/green/ash tones to Liam's makeup and create some heavy darkening under the eyes - something that I noticed was done with Grima's makeup using a similar colour palette rather than the traditional blue/purple/grey tones. The only concern that I did have after seeing Grace's designs for Bill was whether or not any of his face would be visible on camera at all. The hood of the cloak was going to contain a large amount of dirty sheep's wool, which, from the looks of the design would be obscuring a lot of the upper face. This was something which would need to be arranged in later costume fitting dates before a final makeup was agreed upon. 

The Lord of the Rings on the stage

The approach taken to create Orcs for a stage production was very different to that for the original films. Although influences and references were taken from the films, set and costume designer Rob Howell had very strong ideas about how he wanted the characters to look.

Another very important consideration when creating a character for stage is the type of materials used that will be comfortable and work for purpose. In this instance the costume department made the potentially unusual decision to create prosthetic facial masks using leather! The reasons for this decision was that it kept its shape whilst still giving some flexibility, as it was a natural material it had some permeability and was breathable and comfortable for the actor to wear. Rob Howell commented,

"Using these materials also means that when we repeat-mould the face masks we can get an almost infinite number of variations out of just three or four different face moulds, merely by laying the leather in with different creases and twists and stitching it together in different ways."

Rob also made the decision to give all of the Orc characters a steel mouth brace that would pull their mouths back to reveal bright yellow teeth and blackened gums. They also wore body suits that were built up at the shoulders to give them their distinctive shape. All of the Orcs had helmets, armour and weaponry that was all cast out of urethane in order for it to remain lightweight and easy for the cast to perform in. 

Early make-up technology: Jack Pierce

Jack Pierce, born Janus Piccoula, emigrated to the USA from Greece when he was a teenager. His early career consisted of a variety of jobs including amateur baseball player, manager of Nickelodeon, stuntman and assistant cameraman before he eventually began working at 'Universal City', the 3 year old company that would become 'Universal Studios'. Pierce's interest in make-up began when he met an unknown actor named Lon Chaney, who got film work for his ability to completely transform himself using make-up. After Pierce himself tried his hand at acting for a short while, he decided to dedicate himself to make-up during his time at Vitagraph and Fox's Studios in the 1920's.

In 1928 Lon Chaney went freelance and Pierce was made head of the make-up department at Universal. His break break, however, came when Carl Laemmie Jr (known as 'Junior') took over production from his father and made the decision to begin producing film adaptations of classic horror novels and from 1930 - 1937 Pierce created some of film's most iconic horror characters.

cinemaknifefight.com

en.wikipedia.org

It began in 1930 with the production of 'Dracula' where Pierce was primarily responsible for the styling of the vampire character and his female victims as the theatre based actor, Bela Lugasi demanded to be able to do his own make-up. One of Pierce's most widely recognised works came in 1931 when he began work on 'Frankenstein' alongside lead actor Boris Karloff, a man he collaborated with on many later films and considered a close friend. Make-up technology at this time was very basic and often very uncomfortable for the actor to wear due to the high levels of toxicity in the products used. In order to complete the transformation into Frankenstein, Karloff would have to sit for 4 hours in the make-up chair whilst Pierce applied first a layer of spirit gum and then built up layer after layer of cotton and collodion (a liquid plastic-like substance). The entire make-up and costume weighed over 35 pounds and was so difficult to get in and out of that often Karloff would go home wearing the make-up, sleep in it with as little movement as possible and then go in the next morning for simple touch ups in order to avoid repeating the application and removal process. A final touch for the character was Karloff's ability to remove a dental plate that gave his face an indentation on one side.

www.reddit.com

This was followed by 'The Mummy' in 1932 where Pierce and Karloff worked alongside each other once more to create another iconic and complex make-up. The research that was undertaken for this project was enormous as Pierce wanted his creation of a mummified body to be as true to Egyptian history as possible. He spent a month experimenting with pigments, paints and drying materials to create a material that would give the appearance of rotting bandages without falling apart when applied to the actor. He had an assistant spend a week feeding cheese cloth through a cylindrical device over a gas flame to give the appearance of aged, charred bandages without burning them. In order to obtain the perfect greying-yellow tone Pierce worked with over 20 colours to eventually mix the colour he would eventually use; a mixture of burnt umber, light umber, fullers earth, other colours, glue and hot water that made a mud-like substance.

funstuffblogandreviews.wordpress.com

The application process was even more gruelling than the 'Frankenstein' make-up; taking over 7 hours. Pierce said that it was the hardest job that he had undertaken in his 20 years in the film industry as the cooked bandages were so fragile that they often fell apart in his hands. The bandages needed to be built up in 3 layers across the body, running in different directions to ensure that no skin would be visible beneath. Unfortunately, one the first few attempts the outer layer crumbled into dust as soon as Karoff tried to move within the casket on set.
The facial application was almost as complex, with a layer of special gum being spread over the face that would help to maintain moisture whilst Karoff was wearing it. Next a thin layer of cotton was applied to the face and once this had set into the glue was manoeuvred and teased out with a pair of tweezers to give the lines and crevices to the face, this was then coated in another layer of gum to retain its shape. As the face had been so greatly altered by this process and was barely recognisable as human anymore, Pierce used greasepaints to restore this human quality and ran brown pencil through the crevices he had created to make them appear deeper. Another problem that he faced was with Karoff's hair, which was jet black and needed to appear the same greyish-yellow shade as the rest of the make-up. For this Pierce applied a coat of greasepaint through the hair as a base and then added fullers earth and facial beauty clay to give the finished result. Once Karoff was all ready on set the final processes could be completed with his legs being bound together with bandages and his eyes sealed closed with rice paper. All of this work and discomfort was undertaken for only 5 minutes of screen time!

Following his 2 most ground breaking make-ups on 'Frankenstein' and 'The Mummy', Pierce went on to work on films alongside the Laemmies such as 'Bride of Frankenstein' (1935), 'Son of Frankenstein' (1939) and 'The Wolf Man' (1941) with Lon Chaney Jr in the lead role that would become another horror classic. His final original make-up was for 'Phanton of the Opera' in 1943 which would be his only monster movie to be shot in colour. Unfortunately the make-up screen time was significantly cut down by the producers as Pierce's original concept was thought to be 'too hideous' for audiences.

Pierce's time at Universal ended shortly after WW1 when the studios merged with International Pictures and many of the department heads, including Pierce, were replaced. He ended his incredible career working on low budget independent films and TV shows and died in obscurity in 1968. His work, however, will be recognised by make-up artists for many years to come as ground breaking and he has been honoured with a tribute DVD, a lifetime achievement award by the make-up union and a proposed star on Hollywood Boulevard.

Pioneering makeup technology: Gordon Smith

A key part of creating the full head silicone prosthetics for the Orc characters would be decided on the correct percentage of deadener to add to the Platsil Gel 10 in order to make it sufficiently soft to move easily with the skin and the actor's facial expressions. I therefore decided to do a little research into the man responsible for the creation of Smith's Theatrical Prosthetic Deadener: Gordon Smith.

makeupmag.com

Smith is Canadian and achieved a degree in Classical Theatre from the University of Windsor. His skills in special effects make-up are completely self taught as he decided that entering the world of horror make-up would be the best way to overcome his phobia of blood, as opposed to working in a hospital. He still to this day remains reluctant to refer to himself as a make-up artist. From this point on Smith's career spans over 3 decades, during which he is responsible for the creation of make-ups in over 80 films. Smith eventually created his own team of dedicated and skilled artists that were based in his shop in Toronto; FXSmith.

forums.superherohype.com

As well as his outstanding make-up creations, Smith is most recognised throughout industry for his pioneering developments in make-up technology, particularly involving silicone. His main interests with prosthetics lay in the translucency and ability to intrinsically colour prosthetics. He therefore spent between 10-15 years developing the technology to enable him to create a substance that would most realistically mimic the texture of human skin. Along with Kerr Industries and Polytek Development, Smith's Theatrical Prosthetic Deadener was eventually created and marketed to all areas of industry where it is now a crucial element to the majority of silicone prosthetics. This new technology was particularly essential for Smith's work on 'X-Men' and 'X-2' for characters such as 'Mystique'. This very ambitious makeup originally took between 8-10 hours to apply, although this time was reduced by the second film to about 6 hours. It involved over 100 silicone prosthetic pieces that covered about 60% of Rebecca Romijn's body along with a complex blue body paint.

www.wornjournal.com

Following the success of the make-up in 'X-2' Smith was nominated for an Acadamy Award, however, the experience rapidly turned very unpleasant with Smith developing a lot of enemies within industry who refused to credit him for his part in the development of silicone prosthetics. Eventually he reached a point where he could no longer battle against these kinds of people and retired from the industry.

Meeting with Costume and Model Making departments

It was suggested that the costume, make-up and model making departments get together to discuss things like the amour and helmets for the Orcs and how these would effect each of the departments respectively. Costume was represented by designer Grace Noble and superviser Lucille Kavanagh, model making by Sean Birkby, and makeup by myself and Paige.
Sean explained that Charlie had requested that two helmets be made for Orc characters, but not specified which characters in particular they would be for. Sean therefore offered Paige and I the chance to choose which characters we felt would benefit us the most in wearing a helmet. We requested that Liam be given one as he would be wearing a full face silicone prosthetic piece but not one that covered his entire head like John, Josh W and Josh L. We did not want any of these three characters to be given helmets as we wanted the makeups that we had put so much time into to be fully visible, giving Liam a helmet however, would work to our advantage as it would cover up any edges or problem areas that may arise when applying a bald cap. We also requested that his particular helmet would come down over his ears as this would reduce the amount of additional sculpting work for his character. Originally we had suggest that Jay be given the second helmet, as one of the Orcs that would be wearing a latex mask, the wearing of a helmet was of no concern to us and we already had Jay's head cast completed which could be used for measurements for the helmet. Unfortunately, however, Jay dropped out of the project a few days later. It was then that the use of a helmet became much more beneficial to the make-up department. We did not have enough time or materials to complete an additional full head cast for the actor that would be replacing Jay's role, and did not want to sculpt a latex mask onto a generic head cast. Sean suggested then that we make the helmet for this particular Orc cover a large proportion of the face so that only the eyes and mouth would be visible; greatly reducing the amount of make-up work necessary for this character.

With regards to costume, Grace showed us the designs for all of the characters, however, the one that was of most interest to me was the Hunter Orc. I had noticed the last time that I had seen John that he had a tattoo on the inside of his forearm and was initially concerned about how this could be covered up. I noticed in Grace's design that she had planned to give John's character wrist cuffs and I therefore asked if these could be extended to cover more of the forearm, eradicating the problem of the tattoo. I also noticed in the design that although John would be shirtless, he was going to be wear a collection of straps around his torso and some form of necklace/chest adornment. This may work in my favour in concealing any problem edges on the prosthetic, should they occur.

(Designs by Grace Noble and Yolanda Collins)

Life Casting Actors

Now that we had a more concrete idea as to the actors that would be playing the Orc characters we could begin the process of creating head casts. We had a lot of previous experience in creating simple fast casts for previous projects, however, tackling a whole head and shoulders was a much more complex and time consuming task. Pete assisted us in our first cast to give us a clearer idea of what was needed and the rest we undertook ourselves.

The process began by preparing the actor for the cast. Firstly they needed to remove their clothing from the waist up and then be wrapped in a protective cover, like a bin bag, from below the shoulders, this was then held in place using masking tape.  A bald cap was the applied and the hair line beneath the cap was marked out using black aqua colour, this would transfer onto the alginate face cast and subsequently the plaster cast to give an indication of where the prosthetic would need to go up to. Next the actor’s back, chest, shoulders and cap  were covered in Nivea or Vaseline to prevent the cast from sticking, this was the same case with the eye lashes and eyebrows. With male actors this is a particularly crucial element of the preparation process as the more body hair the person has, the more risk there is of the cast sticking. The final step in this preparation process was ensuring that the actor was relaxed and aware of what would be happening to them. A method of communication must be established before the cast is begun, e.g. thumbs up to say everything is OK and slapping the thigh repeatedly to indicate the actor is in distress and would like the cast removed. 

The first stage of the casting process was to cover the back of the head, neck and shoulders in plaster bandage (mod roc). This was applied first by creating an edge using thin strips applied directly to the cap/skin and then filling in the centre using wider pieces. This process was then repeated until 3 thick layers had been formed. When the back piece was dry it needed to be coated around the edges with Vaseline. The alginate could then be applied to the front of the face, neck and chest as quickly as possibly, always ensuring the 2 holes were left clear in front of the nostrils to allow the actor to breathe. When the alginate was dry the rough edges were trimmed away to leave a clean line between the alginate at the front and the plaster bandage at the back, The edge of the plaster bandage was then covered once more with Vaseline to prevent any sticking and the process of applying plaster bandage in 3 layers could be repeated on the front of the face, this time laying a strip of plaster bandage with a neat edge ever so slightly onto the back plaster bandage to create an over hang that would enable the 2 pieces to slot together again once they had been removed from the face.

 

Once this was all dry and firm enough, the 2 pieces could be separated by pushing the thumbs up underneath the alginate and plaster front piece and very gently easing the 2 sides apart.

Creating plaster head casts from the life casts

The 2 pieces of the life cast, once separated needed to be coated in a thick layer of Vaseline on all areas of exposed plaster bandage to prevent plaster from sticking to plaster when the cast was filled. The 2 pieces could then be slotted back together, trying to avoid any gaps between the 2 edges and the seams covered with 3 more layers of plaster bandage strips, leaving rough turned up edges to allow for something to hold onto when ripping them off at a later stage.

When the plaster bandage holding the seams together was dry the cast could be filled with liquid plaster. This was done in stages and the plaster patted into all the crevices of the face cast at various stages to ensure an even fill. When the cast was completely filled and dried the plaster bandage strips could be ripped off from the seams and the 2 sides separated once more to leave a plaster copy of the face inside.

This plaster copy of the face will never be perfect and will always require a lot of clean up to remove any air bubbles, seam marks, creases, imperfections etc. This is done by applying small amounts of plaster into any holes and sanding down any bumps. In this case it is important to take accurate head and face measurements of the actor to ensure that too much plaster is not removed in the sanding process. The line painted on to mark the hair line, if successfully transferred, then has small holes drilled into it at short intervals. This will mean that when the silicone and fibre glassing stages are complete, the cast will have a small line of dots marking out the hairline.

Difficulties encountered in the casting process

Paige and I knew that a full head cast needed at least 3 people working on it in order to be safe and successful, so we asked one of our most promising first year assistants, Jack, to help us with the process. As none of us had ever undertaken a full head cast with no supervision from an expert, it was inevitable that we would encounter some problems along the way.

The first cast that we undertook on our own was on Liam Atton, an actor doubling up as the character of Bill Ferny and an Orc. Liam was not the most co-operative of models in the first place as he began speaking once the alginate had been applied over his mouth which we were convinced would warp the shape of the mouth, however, miraculously, it did not! The life casting process itself went very smoothly other than this and we were happy with the finished cast, the problem came, however, when we came to fill the cast with liquid plaster. Unfortunately we had not left the plaster bandage securing the seams to dry for long enough and it was quite weak. This meant that when the cast was almost entirely full of plaster, the seams split and the plaster flooded out of the cast, across the floor. We were very fearful that this would ruin the cast, however, as a reasonably thick layer of plaster still clung to most of the facial features, we decided to fix the seam and refill the mould, which worked reasonably well with only the nose being affected. We also realized, right before we demoulded the cast, that we had forgotten to apply the Vaseline to the inside of the mould which meant that getting the back plaster bandage piece off was very, very difficult and the surface was very rough, requirely a lot of sanding. However, as a first solo attempt, the cast could be useable and we learnt a lot from the experience that would allow our future casts to run much more smoothly. 

In the life casts that followed the most common problem that we encountered was with the application of the alginate. Because the room that we were doing the head casts in was quite warm for the actor's comfort, the alginate was setting a lot more rapidly than we had anticipated and on two occasions were were forced to rip the now set alginate off the actors face because it was incomplete. We resolved this problem by placing the actor next to a window which we opened when the alginate application process began and by mixing the alginate to be ever so slightly runnier than we would usually use.