The Monkey Rodeo

LAST POST

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Sun, 19 May 2024 12:23:00 +0000

As the title suggests, this is my last post, at least my last post here. I've got a blog set up on my actual website so I'm just going to start focusing on using that instead of this as well.

So, for those who care about such things - you can now see stuff over at themonkeyrodeo.com site.

Fuchsia Horned Amanzi Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:59:00 +0000

That's a bit of a clunk description, but it's what I'm going with.

Did this shoot just before last Christmas, it was kinda of a thrown together, hastily planned shoot - I think it turned out pretty well. I did the makeup on location, which I don't do anything and really don't like doing - but despite that and realizing I forgot a couple things, I still managed to put together something that looks good.

Demons in Ugly Christmas Sweaters 2023

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 14:14:00 +0000

Not much to say, just things to look at.

Ren Faire Demons - Odru-Shaggorath Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:45:00 +0000

I don't often do exterior shoots post Halloween, it just gets too crappy and cold. We had a bit of snow down and it wasn't too cold, so this one ended up actually happening. I had plans to shoot late in the day, into the evening so we could play around with shooting at night - but we lost track of time during the makeup process and had maybe 30 minutes to shoot outside (with a 15 minute drive included in that time).

I had other ideas I wanted to try, but we just lost the daylight so fast - and it was getting way colder as the sun went down, so we packed it in and headed back home to do some exterior lighting stuff.

The blue contact lenses really glowed in these last few shots and the dramatic lighting really looked cool. My only disappointment is in the lack of variety in the poses of the shots, we had to stick to keeping it simple to make sure what we were getting would at least be worth it.

Annual Halloween Photoshoot - The Eldritch Flayer

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:38:00 +0000

I forgot to upload all these here. This was from my most recent annual Halloween shoot, I just made this piece and it was meant to be first shown off in a D&D shoot in September, but shit weather and bad scheduling kept putting it off until the weather turned too cold, hopefully we'll be revisiting it in May/June of next year.

It was a super simple and quick shoot, I've started using Adobe's Generative Fill to add a little more interest to the background of some images since we really are limited on interesting shooting locations on PEI, especially after 15 years of doing this.

Ren Fair Demons - Adarra Warlock

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 15:30:00 +0000

Did a shoot last week where I made the whole costume, prosthetic, props and all. I'll be doing more shoots like this from now on, so I wont' be doing as much, but it feels a lot more satisfying that what I had been doing for the last few years.

I'm still learning to sew, but I'm pretty happy with being able to turn the dress and hood/vest pieces out in one single day, that involved dyeing the fabric, cutting it all out and assembling it, it they were all from my own versions of existing patterns, just very modified. Not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty good for someone who only started about 8 months ago.

Cagaaran Demon - Ren Faire Demon shoot.

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 13:26:00 +0000

I had a couple new pieces I needed a product shot for, so I took the time to throw together a costume for a Ren Faire Demon shoot and did a quick one afterwards.

And since here on PEI we have no real medieval settings (I know about the Woodleigh castles, but whenever I've reached out I just get ignored, so fuck them), I used Adobe's Generative Fill to make my own.

Polynesian Cthulhu Relic

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Sun, 11 Jun 2023 19:46:00 +0000

I just realized that I'd completely abandoned this blog, I haven't updated it since December of last year - and maybe no one really gives a shit anyway, so this is all just for me. BUT, I felt it was time for a quick update as I've finally done a new Cthulhu piece. Inspired by the collectable relics from FarCry 3.

What you're seeing here is Polynesian Cthulhu #1 specifically.

Each one will look a little different, some minor discolouration, maybe some chips, flaws or air bubbles - these are all meant to be by design, making each one slightly unique by itself. They're not meant to be perfect, flawless statues.

I will be doing these a lot differently than how I used to, just as an experiment for now. These are not limited edition, but they are all numbered. I will be making no more than 3 per week, and only making more when the current three have sold and shipped - just so I don't need to make space in my already overcrowded workshop and keep a steadier more reliable, easier to work with production schedule.

They are made from a quick setting concrete and so far appear to be quite durable. Almost 3 inches across at the base. 3 1/4 inches tall. Around 430 grams, the weight varies slightly from statue to statue by around 10 grams it seems so far.

I'm selling them just through Etsy for now, 3 listings added on a Sunday or Monday depending on my time and then I'll wait until all three sell out and make three more and list them for the next coming Sunday or Monday, and on and on until I simply have no time or I go mad, whichever comes first.

They will all be listed separately, so you can see the exact version you're buying, all the flaws and discoloured spots are pictured so if you don't like some aspect of that element, check out the next available listing, or wait until the next round. I won't be doing custom orders or bulk orders or anything outside of this schedule.

This is the plan for the foreseeable future, and might change depending on the number of sales, but this is it for now.

You can visit my Etsy shop to find them, if you don't see them, they're already sold, so wait for the next round.

Demons in Ugly Christmas Sweaters 2022

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 16:48:00 +0000

Christmas in Innsmouth

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 19:19:00 +0000

Finally made a female companion piece to my original Innsmouth prosthetic and did a quick shoot with it.

Tellfring Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:35:00 +0000

Finally got to do a shoot with this new piece.

Vijho'Hazhu

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 12:09:00 +0000

I've been doing a Halloween Day shoot with one particular model off and on for the last few years, it was never an official thing but as of this past Halloween, and this shoot, we talked about it and decided to make it an official yearly scheduled thing from now on.

While not every year we do this will feature a brand new prosthetic like this one did, depending on how things go it might be. This piece, the Vijho'Hazhu, was brand new. It was sculpted, moulding and run in foam inside of about 2 weeks (normally I take my time when I do prosthetics), and the piece used in the shoot was the first from the mould about 2 days before the shoot. It was cut pretty close, hopefully that won't be a yearly thing.

One reason the sculpt went so quickly was because I had a fairly strong idea of what I wanted. Usually there's days, weeks even, that go by while I just look at a piece trying to figure out what it needs, while this one just came together with very little effort.

I wanted something that had a kind of regal or powerful feel to it. Something that had a much more darker vibe to it than I usually got for as well. I feel like in the end what turned out was a fairly versatile design, from evil ancient vampire to some undead ancient one from deep space - which sounds weird to say that's exactly what I was going for, but seriously, that's what I was going for.

Last minute I decided to add a piece I'd made for another shoot, that I'll most likely never get to - the large clawed finger - and while it's not super obvious in most of the shots, I'm still glad I threw it into the mix.

Also, the cloak being worn here is about 20 years old and was custom made for me for the first movie I ever made. It was incredibly well made and has held up perfectly over the years - but it's heavy as hell.

Leshkaal Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 11:34:00 +0000

Did this shoot way back when we had nice weather, I hadn't gotten around to finishing it up until now because there was a massive pile of shots we got and I just couldn't wrap my head around going through them all while I was already swamped with work otherwise.

The main focus of the prosthetics on this shoot were experiments. The horns were of a length that I knew I was pushing how far foam latex could go without collapsing, falling over or whatever. The brow was an attempt to allow for a certain form. While I'm happy with the shoot, the experiment was a failure - but I did learn a lot from the attempt.

The biggest issue with the horns was that one of them would, over time, begin to pull up and fall off. Now that could be in part because it was a hot day, so the adhesive was slowly giving away the whole time as well - so it wasn't just the pulling from the weight of the foam latex, both were at fault I believe.

I do have plans for more efficient designs. A shorter version of these horns and a redesign of an older piece, sort of like this, that will allow for a much more interesting brow design - I kept this one simple since I didn't feel like throwing too much effort towards something I wasn't sure about.

The Lost Girls

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 12:58:00 +0000

This was a relatively simple shoot, I just had to make a fairly simple prosthetic, buy some contacts and fangs (which I already have a supplier for and at wholesale prices), all the models did their costumes themselves.

And while I'm not a fan of night shoots, or multiple subject shoots, I'm happy with how the shots turned out. I was able to make good use of the Closeup/Background shots (I'm still trying to come up with a name for the shots where I focus on one subject with the others in the background).

Monk Troll

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 19:40:00 +0000

I recently made male and female Swamp Troll prosthetics, the female was used in the D&D shoot a couple weeks ago, originally the whole idea of the prosthetics was for this shoot in the first place.

D&D 2022

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 13:30:00 +0000

I've had a version of this shoot in my head for going on 3, maybe 4, years now. I went through a few different models with various ideas until suddenly this version stuck and got fully fleshed out.

Part of the idea was to create a narrative, not just improv a bunch of shots with the model/actors in makeup and costume, but to tell a part of a story - which turned into a very long story, more on that later though.

In this instance we have a Tiefling Rogue who happens upon an Orc and Troll who've just stolen a Talisman and she decides she wants it for herself. I storyboarded it like I was shooting a movie so we wouldn't miss anything and it really made the whole shoot so much more fun, still a little hectic and slightly stressful (in an artistically satisfying way), it turned out great though.

What follows could almost be a series of still from a movie clip.

Once we got all this we then had a series of other shots laid out, not storyboarded but a list of various setups.

I usually avoid multiple character shoots because it can be a huge hassle with very little reward, but I came up with these style of shots to make sure at least each makeup/character has a good solo shot and not just slightly out of focus or out of frame or whatever. This is the 3rd or 4th time I've done setups like this.

Then we did a series of solo shots for each character, again the idea is to let them shine in a more posed way.

There's a lot of little costume bits you never really get to see unless you focus on just one character for a couple shots. There's a lot of layers to all the costumes and while they're certainly not of Lord of the Rings standard, I think I did a decent job of creating costumes for these two characters.

And if you're wondering why the Orc has what looks to be orange-ish TMNT hands, it was a choice I made to allow the model/actor to not have his hands painted, instead I was able to pull an old mould I already had of these hands and customize them into full gauntlets to make it easier should he need to use his hands. I did the same for everyone. The Troll has full gloves/gauntlets as well and I got some leather gloves for the Tiefling, so no hand painting - it's not something I enjoy and it makes things slightly messy in the end, this was a much more interesting and quicker solution. In the future I intend to start making foam latex glove prosthetics for things like this.

I'm really happy with how simple, yet really nice looking the Tiefling costume turned out. The shoot was always centered around her, I just felt it needed more than a simple posed shoot. She needed something to do to show off more characters, although these solo shots actually do a decent job of that in their own simple way.

I had debated about a full prosthetic tail, but quickly realized that was just going to be a waste of resources since I didn't want to wrestle with a dead looking tail to make it look alive. In the end my dwindling GC skills had to be refreshed just enough to do this - not perfect, but it does the job.

We grabbed a few group shots in the end as we were packing up from what was a pretty long day. Several hours of makeup, I did it all myself, and several more hanging out in the woods. Overall it was a fun shoot.

I realized during the prep for this shoot that this is the kind of thing I should have been doing all along. By that I mean I used to make weird little movies, just for fun in the beginning, however as things went along I found the fun aspect of the process became shorter and shorter. I liked the actual filming with everyone, I liked location scouting and building props and costumes and makeup, but that was it. For the actors, the day of shooting is 90% of the fun experience (memorizing lines and relooping not so much), for me the day of shooting became 10% of the overall experience, meaning only a small portion was fun anymore. Editing, dubbing, post work and all that just sucked everything out of the experience and it dragged on for months, sometimes projects never even got finished after the initial editing phase because of this.

Transposing the more fun aspects of a movie shoot onto a photo shoot was perfect. There is literally no aspect I don't enjoy and it's an almost immediate creative itch that get scratched right away instead of a slow dull prodding over months. I've got three more shoots like this planned, all with unique challenges and aspects I'm looking forward to. I've got some basic leatherworking skills, so I plan on buffing those up a bit to create some simple leather costumes bits for next time. Even learning to use a sewing machine properly to do some minor costumes and whatnot. For my D&D 2025 shoot I'm even planning to learn some basic animatronics.

With this project finally done, I'm already starting work on the D&D 2023 shoot and pulling the trigger in a brand new Mind Flayer design I've been mentally working out for the last year or two.

Demon Wednesday Addams.

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:09:00 +0000

This was just a really quick and simple shoot.

Hoana Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:01:00 +0000

The Völva - Norse Witch

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 16:40:00 +0000

This was a really quick and simple makeup. I had the idea and didn't feel that it needed anything overly elaborate, it was designed to be done quickly. I just wish I hadn't totally blanked on the shoot itself, I should have given that part a little more thought - but still, it turned out pretty good.

Korligath Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 19 May 2022 17:09:00 +0000

I've stayed away from simple stuff for a while now and I've been feeling it's time to delve back into the idea of simple pieces that might be easier for amateurs and quicker for everyone.

I should start adding the product shot images for new pieces when I do a shoot like this. Not a dramatic difference in this case, I wanted to keep it super simple overall.

Seeing the ears like this the asymmetry of them is super obvious, but I find seeing them applied it's not as noticeable.

I like doing little "mini" prosthetic sets like this. Normally I do a large full face that needs a bald cap - and in turn needs ears too to look complete - but little pieces like this are much easier.

The Jötnar

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 15:34:00 +0000

I've been planning this shoot for some time and finally, even after several Sundays of postponing it in April, we finally got a chance to get it done. I hadn't planned however on doing all the makeup myself, two people both with full cowls, faces and ears done up in basic skin tones for product shots, then turned blue and airbrushed - took about 4 hours I think, which is what I had expected.

The location I'd hoped would work ended up being ridiculously windy that one day, so it was hard to communicate and concentrate on what I was trying to do. We got a couple shots and moved on to a more sheltered, but limited locale amidst some trees.

We then went back to my place and snagged a few more, with the pausing in shooting I lost sense of what I was getting and what I wanted so the overall variety was a little limited, but I'm still pretty happy with how they turned out.

Demons in Ugly Christmas Sweaters 2021

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 13:02:00 +0000

I don't get to do as many of these as I used to or would like to do,there's just not enough time after Halloween and sometimes very little time before Halloween, unless I do them in the spring and that's too much planning ahead for me. So what I've taken to doing is when I have a shoot that I feel like would make a good Ugly Sweater shoot, I just tack it on at the first of a shoot or at the end - the makeups are way more elaborate that way and it feels like less of a waste of time (considering these shoots take about 5 minutes).

Styx - Master of Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 15:06:00 +0000

Styx - Master of Shadows and it's sequel are two of my favorite video games ever. For ages I've been thinking about doing a prosthetic based on Styx, I finally got around to it this past summer. I immediately already had ideas for a shoot to accompany it. What should have been a overly elaborate shoot, just became a regularly elaborate shoot since I was able to cobble together a decent costume from stuff I had in storage from years of making movies and other shoots.

Just a shot showing off the contacts lenses as they normally look, I added a lighted effect over them for all the other shots.

A series of headshots, just to get an idea of lighting and how the piece would work, even these turned out great.

This is the first time I've actually storyboarded a photoshoot. Back when I made movies I used to do this all the time and since I knew this wouldn't be a random, improved pose shoot, and I wanted to create a really strong narrative element to it I thought this would cut out a lot of last minute stress and frustration during the shoot, plus the risk of missing a shot idea would be greatly reduced.

This one shot was a massive amount of work to do, but it was something I had in mind right from the beginning. One of my favorite D&D monsters if the Otyugh, so I very early on decided I would have Styx encounter an Otyugh - I just had no idea how I'd do it. In the end I sculpted a little minature Otyugh in Cosclay and just lit it similarly to the original image and comped it in.

I also wanted everything to have an 80s movie feel, so this really helped sell that idea since the Otyugh looks like a little stop-motion monster in the background.

And lastly, since in the 2nd Styx game he had a female Paladin companion throughout the game I thought this would be a good idea to incorporate into this shoot, but I wasn't interested in creating that armor so I again went with what I had on hand and came up with an elf character.

Odru-Shaggorath Demon

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 18:30:00 +0000

I finally got a chance to do a shoot with a prosthetic I made a few months ago, it's a female version of the original Odru-Shaggorath, and because of that I decided to do the shoot replicating the same look from that original shoot too.

The Three Fates.

noreply@blogger.com (The Monkey Rodeo) — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 14:30:00 +0000

This one of those rare shoots where I made one-off prosthetics just for it, the moulds are gone and you'll only see them here.I also rarely do shoots with multiple people, mainly because I'm only a so-so photographer and find trying to get several people into a shot and maintain some kind of focus on them is a little on the annoying side sometimes, so I just have to do what I can when these kind of shoots come up.

Having said that, this is the second time I've shot with these three on one shoot and it's always been fun so far so I proposed that maybe we do this yearly - since I'm trying to focus more on quality photoshoots that have a little more something something to them rather than just the usual random Demons (which are awesome and easy, but it can get a little too easy and simple sometimes) and coming up with an idea that needs three people presents a enjoyable challenge that I feel like I need to put back into these shoots.

And having said that, we already have next years shoot planned and it's going to be pretty fucking cool, so all you 80s horror kids should be happy with it.