Pirates!

I went to see Aardman's new production: Pirates, today. I really enjoyed it, the craft in it was incredible! I'm finding it quite interesting how i'm beginning to what materials things are made out of, like foam latex for the character bodies. I can tell that they have been moulded to create folds in the costume.

At Rusty Squid, Rosie said that trimming and filling latex is a really important thing and that Aardman spend a lot of time perfecting what comes out of the moulds.
I've been trimming a latex cast to neaten it and remove the flash and any lumps of latex on the surface of the cast. Where there are holes i need to fill it with latex filler (can't remember proper name).
The scalpel blades become blunt really quickly, which makes cutting more difficult and you can't get a clean cut. Its frustrating, especially when you don't want to use up loads of blades.

Its not the best image, but you can make out the lines by the elbow and shoulder.

They also used 3-D printing to make replacement mouths. I think this works really well for the style of Aardman mouths. The smoothness the replacements shapes gave, made the characters really expressive.