TUTORIALS

 

Okay, theres not much here yet, as with the rest of this site, it's been a bit of a rush to get this all up and running, I hope to bulk up this section very soon. But hopefully the tutorial links below will get you started (also check out our general links page and the DIY page).

If you would like to submit any tutorials, tips or tricks, or if you have any good links, please email me, cheers :-)

 


Makeup Effects

Foam latex and mold making (Lars Carlsson) - step by step tutorial with images

Making false teeth (Lars Carlsson) - step by step with images

For more makeup effects and techniques check out Lars Carlsson makeup FX site

Fake blood (Matt Hawkins)

More blood recipes

Teeth & Fangs (tips & tutorials from Scream Website)

Make "friendly plastic" fangs (fangs made out of a easily shaped modelling plastic)

Special Aging Effects (Use of Stipple Latex Ager (SAPSMA website))

Life Casting (tutorial from the Scream website)

Life casting technique (great step by step with photos (SAPSMA website))

Prosthetics (latex face mask tips & tutorials from Scream Website)

Blood, scabs, scars & other kitchen recipes (tips & tutorials from Scream Website)

Scar recipe

Thoughts on mold making, gelatin and foam latex (some good hints and tips)

The use of Gelatine for molded prosthetics (SAPSMA website)

SAPSMA - Society of amateur and professional special effects makeup artists (lots of tips and tricks)

Making fake eyes (a step by step photo article from the FX21 site in Sweden)

Foam Latex Oven (construction and plans (SAPSMA site))

Vacuum Form Machine (construction and plans (SAPSMA site))

Dragonbytes (Halloween makeup ideas (step by steps to make bulletholes, wounds, etc))

Monstermakers Latex Mask Making (Basic overview of the steps you need to do to make a latex maskstep by step with photos (they also have a more detailed book for sale, which you can download fairly cheaply or get a printed version))

FXSupply Guide to Latex Mask Making (another overview, similar to above)

Blood and bullets for no budget films (good guide to creating gunshot hits, not just make-up but a physical exploding bloodpack design is here)


Claymation, Stopmotion and Traditional Animation

Claymation - a step by step guide (GREAT site!!!)

Claymation - the No Budget SFX website guide

Animation World - secrets of stopmotion

Animation World - Foam puppet farbication explained

Stopmotion Animation site - has all the info and links you could need on this artform

 


 

Physical Effects

Sugar Glass (Matt Hawkins) - breakaway glass for stunts

More Sugar Glass Recipes

Making Fog machine Smoke Hug The Ground - gives it a more dry-ice foggy appearance rather than the usual smoke look

Misc tips for using Fog/smoke machines

Weather FX

Gunshot Hits

Blood and bullets for no budget films (good guide to creating gunshot hits, not just make-up but a physical exploding bloodpack design is here)


 

Costumes, Wigs, Puppets & Props

Create Stormtrooper Armor (Studiocreations) - a good for guide on vacuum forming & bodycasting techniques

Propguys homepage- a British website of an FX artist who has worked on a number of classic British SciFi programmes including Dr Who and Red Dwarf, check out his DIY project on building a Dalek.

Costume Links - A HUGE list of costume links (to guides to doing specific people, period and character costumes to accessories such as wigs, and also makeup. Some links are to basic sites but some are more pro, …a good place to start if planning some costumes)

A Milliners Approach To Maskmaking - a students guide to mask making

Wig Making - great professional little guide, but man, its time consuming!

LOTR costumes - make your own, plus all sorts of info relating to LOTR costumes

Ngila Dickson Interview (costume designer for LOTR, with info on how they did some of the costuming)


 

Animatronics

Animatronics - good site that takes you through the construction of a basic animatronic puppet

The Yoda Project - talking animatronic head design

Animatronics, Robots, SPFX - huge links page, but a lot of the links are old and don't work anymore unfortunately


2D Computer Visual Effects

Keying

Bluescreening - the not so ancient art, a page with a good run down on the process (will write my own tutorial soon)
Chromakeying with 4:1:1 DV Footage (Douglas Spotted Eagle, off Creative Cow site)
Shooting for Chromakeying - Great article on Chroma keying, if youre looking at doing some bluescreen or greenscreen work, READ this!!! (by Barend Onneweer, off Creative Cow site)

After Effects

AE Freemart - the place to go for tips techniques and free plugins for After Effects
Creative Cow - After Effects General Tutorials
Creative Cow - After Effects v5.5 Tutorials
Time remapping - handy for ramping speed
Time Remapping - more of the above (Bryan Preston, Creative Cow site)
Displacement mapping- article explains use of the Displacement Filter and Time Displacement, from LearnDynamicMedia
Proceedural Matte Creation - this covers using procedural techniques of combining a couple of different chromakey filters to produce a good composite matte (After Effects based, but theory is good for use in other software. From Creative Cow site by Barend Onneweer).
Morphing in After Effects (Chris Zwar, Creative Cow site)
Colourgrading in After Effects (Barend Onneweer, Creative Cow site)
Panning & Zooming in After Effects (Matt Dallows, Creative Cow Site)

Morphing & Warping

Morphing explaination
Morphing tutorial
- for Elastic Reality
Morphing in After Effects (Chris Zwar, Creative Cow site)
Nicky Pages Morphing- Morphing tutorial for PC users

Misc 2D FX

Adapting Print Graphics to Video - article from LearnDynamicMedia
Broadcast Safe Area Templates
- make sure the graphics you create for video can be safely seen on all TV sets (tips and tricks plus PAL and NTSC template files to download, from LearnDynamicMedia)
Nicky Pages Lightsabres
- Lightsabre tutorial using Adobe Premiere & Photoshop


3D Computer Visual Effects

3DS Max FX - numerous 3DS Max special effects tutorials
The Imperial Archives - 3D models, meshes, resources & forums to do with all SciFi films & TV
3D Cheap and nasty HDRI rendering techniques - simple way to add realism to your 3D render
3D hair modelling - links and resources