On Show

Yaroslava Leivshina

BA [Hons] 3D Design Modelmaking + Digital Art

Hello, I’m Yassia, and I am extremely excited to graduate this course. Throughout the course both my experience and passion for creating things has grown. I thoroughly enjoy practical work like sculpting, moulding, and casting. After an amazing 4 years of Modelmaking I'm really looking forward in applying my knowledge into the film industry. I pride myself on being friendly, outgoing, creative, determined, hard working, punctual and a quick learner.

For my "Final Project" I have made this massive silicone puppet with a jaw mechanism that allows the creature to both open and close it's mouth.

Here is a video of the creature from different angles to show the details.

My sculpture was made out of two types of clay, Buff clay and Nylon-reinforced clay. I will explain first the structure of the sculpt in order to understand why two different types of clay were used. The structure inside the sculpt is out of timber, a few screws and chicken wire to give the creature a basic bone structure. Nylon-reinforced clay has fibers that attach themselves to the chicken wire better than normal clay. Then I used Buff clay to smoothen/hide those fibers.

After the sculpt is done I made a silicone sleeve to capture the details on the clay creature. There was a massive gap between the tentacles and the lower lip of the creature also known as negative space. That is a big problem so I filled it with sponges to take that space away while applying the silicone layers . Those little bumps around the silicone sleeve are keys and they allow the silicone to stay in place for the casting of the creature.

Here is a little look inside the mould. My mould was made out of high strength plaster called "Crystacal". Due to the my home environment I wasn't able to use fibreglass (too toxic to handle). The cast was extremely heavy, so to strengthen it I used strips of hessian coffee bag throughout the cast, this prevented the mould from cracking and combining it together.

Here we see the plaster mould, the silicone sleeve, the silicone cast and the foam which is the white material inside the mould. This foam allows the creature to take its shape, without it the silicone creature would collapse underneath its own weight. The silicone acts more as skin. It is also extremely important to use a silicone release agent before pouring the silicone cast which is yellow colour here. Silicone will stick to silicone so this spray prevents the silicone sleeve sticking to the silicone cast.

This is the silicone cast out its mould/sleeve. I died the silicone yellow to give it a nice base colour. To paint silicone you mix silicone + a silicone agent+ silicone pigment. I couldn't get hold of the silicone agent called "Novocs" in time so I simply used white spirits instead. When I have accomplished the desired painted finish, I used a gloss lacquer on the skin areas to create that wet skin look.

This video presents the whole prosses of the developing and making this creature.

The jaws and teeth were made out of clay. The teeth where moulded separately to the jaw. The mould for the jaw was out of plaster and then casted out of silicone. While the mould for the teeth was made out of silicone and casted out of resin. Simple cast and moulding tip: Hard cast (e.g. resin) means a soft mould (e.g. silicone) Soft cast (e.g. silicone) means a hard mould (e.g. plaster)

Here is a photo to show the size of the creature in comparison to me( 150cm). The silicone creature measures at 70 cm in width and 50cm in height.

The eyes are 3D printed, then primed followed by using red sewing thread and super glue to create blood vessels on the eyes. I used both a paintbrush and an airbrush to paint the iris. I made a silicone mould for the eye and once the 3D printed eye was dry I poured a little bit of clear resin into the mould and then placed the 3D printed eye inside with it. This created a clear and watery eye feel.

This video shows the jaw mechanism in action, while opening and closing the creatures mouth with a chosen boggy environment.

"Vodyanoy" Film Prop

I have designed and created a silicone character puppet for my final project.

Vodyanoy is a mythical creature based on the Slavic/Russian folktales, he is a water spirit that aggressively guards his waters. If anyone comes too close he will lure them in and devour them.

I wanted to create a creature who makes the viewer feel uneasy and I have taken inspiration from a combination of horses and cuttlefish to develop the form and shape of this unique aquatic creature.

The creature was sculpted out of clay and made out of silicone. It measures at 70cm in width and 50cm in height. The puppet is controlled by “hand mech” that allows the creature to open its mouth. The jaw mechanism is simple, a few timbers to support the structure and springs allows it to be closed at all times, however, the string that is attached at the tip of the lower jaw travels through the head and neck which controls the opening of the mouth.

The Viy

My thesis looks the Russian character “Viy”, specifically how it is represented the three film adaptations of Viy: Viy by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov (1967 ), Viy/Forbidden Empire by Oleg Stepchenko (2014) and Gogol.Viy. by Egor Baranov (2018)

I investigated the characters and what they mean in folklore to understand how they are represented in each of these films.

My research revealed the most important influences are time, technological innovation, culture, director’s inspiration, and intentions. Such influences result in the Viy characters having similarities and differences across all three films.

Furthermore, using the knowledge gained throughout my thesis to see how the characters are developed throughout all these adaptations allowed me to research and analyse the process behind the development of fantasy characters for film.

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