2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #6 - Tim Walkers Porcelain skin for US Vogue

We were very busy in the studio this week! This was shot the day before the Mail order shoot and just after another huge project. It was an editorial about flawless skin for US Vogue. I didn't work on this shoot but thought it is far too beautiful not to post! Prop design by Rhea Thierstien, Makeup by Val Garland, hair by Julien d'Ys.

2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #5 - Tim Walkers 'Mail Order Food'

In September Rheas Studio was working on 2 Tim Walker Shoots for American Vogue. This first one was for an editorial about Mailing food as gifts. The brief was to wrap an entire kitchen and all of its contents as if each item had arrived in the post. We had a lot of fun doing this but wrapping stuff up takes sooo much longer than you would think. Here you can see Sophie and I celebrating the end of the shoot with a toast at the kitchen table! Set Design by Rhea Thierstein.

2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #4 - O2 ireland ad 'Christmas With Love'

Later on in August I helped out my very talented friend, set designer, carpenter and model maker Dan Gardner.
This job was soooooo much fun, we had to make an entire model village including a church, rows of houses with gardens, warehouse buildings, shops, cars, Dan even made some tiny telegraph poles with tiny thread wire! After a week of making and painting It was so exciting to see them all light up.

Its very strange working on something for christmas in the middle of summer, we forgot that it would be covered in snow and took ages painting the gardens and making the trees naturally green!

Here is a still from the finished ad. our miniature masterpiece features for a whole 2 seconds! totally worth it though!

2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #3 - BIBA for Goldsmiths

While Rhea was taking some time off to have an adventure in Borneo, I spent most of August playing Fallout 3 and watching Seinfeld. I did do a bit of work though, first of all I got a commission to design and make a window to be in the background of a jewellery shoot for Goldsmiths. The final window was about 2m tall, but as you can see, that wasn't really necessary! Thanks to Marcus at Beam Laser Cutting for making it and generally being an awesome dude.

2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #2 - Viviane Sassen OP ART shoot for POP magazine

After previously working with Rhea for POP magazine,  photographer Viviane Sassen asked Rhea to do the set design and prop styling for a 1960's OP art inspired shoot, again for POP. As a huge fan of unusual patterned textiles and collector of vintage fabric, this shoot was a dream for me to work on! We sourced a ton of cool fabrics and rugs and made some backdrops inspired by original Op art patterns. Add some indoor fireworks, tropical fruit and plenty of emergency blankets and there you have one swell fashion shoot! Set design and props by Rhea Thierstein, Styling by Vanessa Reid

2011 - Pretty much everything! Part #1 - Tim Walkers Mechanical Dolls

OK so instead of doing weekly or even monthly posts like I should have been doing, this is the way all my favourite bits of work related activity in 2011 is to be shared!

This was one of the first Jobs I worked on for Rhea Thierstein in July, I helped make things for this shoot based on Mechanical dolls, or automatons made by Roullet and Decamps in the 1890's and early 1900's.
It was pretty intense! We had to learn how to do face casting as Tim wanted the models to have replica porcelain face masks of themselves as well as a compartmented bisque doll costume (see final pictures), mechanical limbs and a fully working mechanical doll! Here are some pictures of us in the studio as well as the beautiful photographs that made up the finished shoot. Set design and Props by Rhea Thierstein, make up by Val Garland, hair by Malcolm Edwards, styling by Jacob K.

Practicing face casting and making the masks 

More tests...

Ha! thats me! Ageing up one of the plinths. 

 

This is the Beautiful and very talented Sophie Durham working VERY hard adding the finishing touches to little mechanical man's head. 

Here is Little Man (thats his real name) with his hand embroidered onesie and booties! Every detail was painstakingly added, thats real hair on his head by the way, Making a wig with finger waves for a giant Doll is definitely one of the strangest things I did last year!