5/1/10

Brick by Brick


One of the materials that I've consistently been surprised with in terms of versatility in it's usage is foam. Using a fairly simple technique, I was able to create some realistic looking brick walls that definitely became useful during set construction.  


The type of foam I used for the walls are like the ones pictured above. It's a pretty common foam that can be generally found in most arts and craft stores. They come in a bunch of different shapes and sizes and since foam is a really easy material to shape your not limited in the range of things you can create.

 

The only two tools I used to create the bricks were a wooden sculpting tool and a makeup wedge.

 This was my process:
  1. Decide on what type of brick wall you want to create.
  2. Use the wooden tool, and a straight edge, to score the pattern into the foam.
  3. Give the foam a base coat of gray paint for the concrete, you can use a makeup wedge but a large paint brush is quicker for this step.
  4. Use the makeup wedge to add the final top coat of paint for the bricks. The imperfections in the paint coverage will reveal the undercoat nicely giving the natural illusion of the brick having multiple layers.
*DO NOT use solvent based spray paint on foam. It's corrosive to this material and will melt whatever beautiful creation you've made. Try using another type of paint like an acrylic, or Krylon H20 Latex spray paint as recommended by my good friend Brian Engh.


 Here's a detail of the first wall I made. You can see here how the gray undercoat really looks like concrete wedged between a bunch of red bricks. Another good thing about this type of foam is that it has a lot of rough texture that looks like rock. In stop-motion texture is a really good thing to try to incorporate into your set construction as much as you can. It make things look more realistic and much more imperfect, unless of course you story calls for something different where you want things to look very smooth and clean.


With the second wall I stuck with the base coat as an overall color but painted a few groups of bricks with the makeup wedge for variation. I wanted this wall to look like it was made out of cinder blocks as opposed to the red brick wall above.

Here are some roughly composited examples of how I ended up using the walls for the film. 

 


One quick word on using the right material for your story. As you might notice from the brick wall details above their textures are a little different. The red bricks are a little smoother and softer while the cinder blocks are more pitted and brittle. This was a happy little accident that happened mainly because I found these two unrelated pieces of foam in my garage. I didn't buy them at the same time so they weren't exactly identical in the way that they were made and I only realized this after finishing their construction. But it didn't ruin the shot in anyway, instead it greatly contributed to the right mood of the scene. The cinder blocks look more menacing and uninviting while the red bricks are a little more stable and peaceful. This made me realize that the choices of material you use to create an object can greatly inform it's character just as much as it's color or shape would. 

 -Al

4 comments:

  1. Great stuff Fonz!!! Growing up in Italy as a young ragazzo (that's boy in Italian), I always passed by Geppetto's workshop and wondered what secrets lie inside. No matter how much I'd beg him, the master would never divulge his secrets. And sadly, those secrets died with the man (although numerous dramatizations/ documentaries have surfaced since).

    Flash forward to now and voila, all my boyhood dreams are answered with this one blog!!! Keep up the good work Fonz! And yes, Brian, I did in fact laugh at the subtle Fonzie humor.

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  2. Looking forward to seeing this progress Fonz ^_^ Great job!

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  3. :D I love materials discussions!
    Oh oh! Do you know about Krylon H20?!?!
    http://www.krylon.com/environment/h20/
    They don't melt foam because they're not solvent (paint thinner/lacquer) based!

    Home Depots usually don't carry them (um, evil/hates environment?), but 'DO-IT Centers' do and probably OSH (because OSH seems to have everything... even awesome hats).

    Anyway, yeah, foam is awesome, and I love how using physical materials almost always adds dimension to the story if you relate to/use them right. They're like "uhhh, yeah. We can help you tell a story. We're what real-life is made out of. No big deal."

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  4. Cool thanks Brian! I've updated the info about which paints to use on foam. I'm definitely going to get some of that stuff.

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