Project Gromit

I made a couple of Gromits for me and my friend Kev. Here is the armature care of John Wright Modelmaking in England. He's a star and has done loads of model work the Wallace & Gromit films. I took off the sharp edges to make it as small as possible for the skin and keyed it with cotton (not shown) so that the plasticine would hold better.

Blocking out the plasticine - they look like something off of 'Village Of The Damned' and give me numerous night mares starring William Shatner aka - The Shat. For some reason 'Village Of The Damned' always reminds me of 'The Devil's Rain'
Nose and eyes HAVE to be the right size so that I can get the proportions of the face right. I cast these from a solid Gromit that was a going-away gift from the 'Ware Rabbit' team. See the mould in front of the forks - its a bloomin' fuss when you don't have the right tools. Took me a day to make them noses proper - making mold, molding, undercoting, sanding, spraying, fitting stem.. .bla.. bla.. .bal.. . .

Detail pass - I haven't touched Gromit for a few years and he changes subtly with each film. For example, in the feature film his tail got shorter and his face got a little fatter. My mate Ian Whitlock helped bring me up to date with the face. I also posed the model at this stage and use water to help smooth him down to get the final smooth finish on the surface (useful tip me thinks).

The Final part was altering the plasticine for the ears. I only had a small supply and it was too dry at first, so I mixed it with some Vaseline (petroleum base), but I put too much in and it went like soft cheese, so I had to buy some black board chalk, mash it to dust and mix that in, but I didn't have a pestle and mortar so I spent about a day smashing the plasticine against a wooden chopping board with a hammer!