Hollywood FX Maker Turns to Clay {Halloween Special} | Mike Regan | Episode 572

Mike Regan | Episode 572

Mike Regan is a California native, born in San Diego and raised in the South Bay area. Mike currently works in the movie FX industry creating strange and fantastic creatures, as well as horrifying deaths at the hands of theses creatures. So, why is Mike on the Potter’s Cast? Because a year and a half ago, Mike decided to apply his knowledge of sculpture and mold making to ceramics and take up another hobby… Not like he doesn’t have too many already!

(Below are a mix of Mike’s ceramic and resin creations)

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Where does an idea for a monster start? Is it with a story that you have heard or is it with a snapshot that you have seen? I’m talking about in your mind, like how your mind works.

That’s a weird one. Sometimes it can just come out of the ether and a weird idea that I end up with in my head. Other times it can be inspired by anything. It can be inspired by, you see a weird stain on a bus bench that looks like a fence. You see a piece of driftwood that you see a face in or something. It can be an art show with a theme and suddenly from that theme I think, I am going to make something like this. Sometimes it is just exploring. It is just sitting with a piece of clay and pushing it around and you start to see a face. And you think, I like this better, I like that better, I’m going to pull this out.

Do you ever use a person that you know as inspiration for a monster?

Sometimes. Not necessarily a person for a monster. I mean, in terms of film work we definitely done likenesses of people where it has to look like the person. Monsters are usually inspired by , I don’t know, bugs or underwater creatures, inspired by nature somewhere. Not so much a person I think.

There is an element of darkness to some of your pieces. What makes a piece dark?

It’s the brows. It’s an angle. It’s the brows and the nose and the cheek bones. At least in my sculptures there is usually a correlation between the brow and the cheek bones and a weird angle that just gives you a stern brow look. In terms of the darkness, I don’t know. Sometimes if you are sculpting a creature you just need it to look a bit menacing. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the eyes or whether it’s the attitude you give it. Some creatures aren’t but I think a lot of the creatures do tend to have some intensity to them so you try and work that in.

What kind of skills that you use as an FX creator-what kind of skills crossed over from that process into your ceramic process?

I would definitely say sculpting. I mean it all starts with a piece of clay, whether it is oil based clay or water based clay, you know, ceramics clay, it all starts with a sculpture. In terms of FX work it results in a mold. Often times it can be a plaster mold of some sort or some other thing. But in terms of a cross over the process for making a latex rubber mask is very similar to the process of doing a slip cast cup. You have a sculpture, you make a plaster mold of it and you try and limit the undercuts or you mold out the undercuts. You pour in either latex rubber or ceramic clay clip. You let it dwell for a certain amount of time until it builds up a thickness. You dump it out, you let it dry, and when you open the mold you either have a latex rubber mask or a ceramic cup and then your color process goes from there. Mold making and sculpting are really the thing that kind of tie it in and made it easy for me to transition on to the other. Wheel throwing that is a whole n’other ball of wax. It is one I will conquer but…

Have you had any of your new ceramics skills cross over into your FX skills?

Not yet. But I am waiting for that day that they go, Hey, this backwoods creature should have a ceramic cup that he drinks from. And I will be like, I can do that!

It is important to create a sense of individuality of a creature being its own person or its own monster?

Absolutely. There was a guy I worked for who very specifically, he would get a script and he would design a whole back story for the creature and terms of where it lived, what it would eat, what it would hunt, how it would hunt and all this stuff and it all kind of informed the design. He didn’t want to design something that was simply teeth and horn and scales and fur and not have it make sense. It would hunt here, and it would have claws that it would dig with, it would have this and that and that is why. It was intelligent design. There was a reason for every bit of the design and in that it makes it individual to its environment and to itself. You always strive to have it different than something someone else has seen before. But also, if you give it a reason for having those things it makes sense. It becomes a better design. Someone looks at it and thinks, Oh that makes sense. I can see that creature living in that environment.

So you make creatures that are full of hate. How important is it for you to love your hateful creatures?

I love every single one of them. I am probably the least sort of dark person you could meet. It all gets poured into these creatures. I just have a wild imagination. I love the darkness in things. You can revel in it, you can toy with it, you can explore things with it that you don’t have to have in yourself. You know what I mean?

Is it important for your work to go beyond your studio and get into the hands of people the hands of somebody?

I would like it to but it’s not necessary. I would sit in my room and I would sculpt this stuff anyways. I would make weird little creatures even if they never left my four walls. If other people see them and they like them and they find some sort of inspiration or enjoyment form having them I would be more than happy to have them in people’s homes.

Who is one person you would love to have your monster mug?

Does it have to be a ceramics person or is it anybody in the world?

It’s anybody.

In a weird way and this is going to sound really strange, my inspiration growing up was make up Fx artist Rick Baker. If I were to do a really cool Frankenstein mug or something, I would love to get it into the hands of Rick Baker and I’ve worked for him and the truth is if I ever made a really cool Frankenstein mug I probably could get it into his hands. So maybe that’s a future goal.

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