[Tyrell Corps]
[Featured Artist]
[Kaj Steveman]
[biography]
Kaj
Steveman (pronounced "kai") was born 1968 in Stockholm,Sweden.
At an early age he developed a huge interest in film and film making.
Since film making involves many people and Kaj being an only child,
he focused on Makeup effects, which was something he could do on his
own and while learning the craft of film making.At age 16 he got his
first foam latex kit. With great eagerness he started doing noses for
his friends.
"I
didn't know anything about undercuts or flashing at that time, so you
can imagine what the results looked like!" recalls Kaj.
At
the age of 18 he made some new friends who were doing amature splatter
movies on Super 8mm film. They joined forces and made lots of short
films and Kaj got to practice his craft "for real". During
this period he started to get calls from production companies and slowly
he began freelancing as a makeup effect artist.At the age of 20 he got
a job at the largest theater in Sweden.He got to learn how to do proper
makeup, how to deal with actors and, last but not least, how to do wig
making. During the time at the theater he
freelanced under his own company. At the age of 23 he got work at the
Swedish national television. There he got to do a lot of effects for
various television productions. The huge lab with its complete range
of equipment gave Kaj the opportunity toexperiment a lot with all kinds
of materials and techniques. During his 5 years doing television he
continued to freelance with his spare time giving him even more experience
in the field. At 28 he wanted to take a break from the makeup and develop
his skills
in film making. He ended up starting a film production company with
some of his old film friends. During 2 years they produced 23 episodes
of a miniseries called "The haunting" as well as several music
videos and
commercials. During this period Kaj felt that he was missing the makeup
effects that had been his passion for his whole adult life.
At age 30 he left the film producing part behind and went back to makeup
effects .He joined forces with a colleague named Carl Sandberg who makes
models, props and animatronics. After 2 years of working together they
felt that they wanted to expand. So in the winter
of year 2000 Kaj and Carl merged their companies with an existing CGI
company called Fido Film. Kaj Feels that this merge was exactly what
he had always looked for. Fido mixes all the techniques of physical
and digital effects. With its 11 employees, it acts like a creative
house,
and in some cases like a film production company.
[Image Gallery]
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[About the Work]
The astronaut (a portrait of Allan Bean, one of the Apollo 12 crew
members) was made for a space exhibition at the Swedish museum of natural
history. He was sculpted in wet clay (not a lifecast) and the molds
were made out of Ultracal. The silicone used was a British tin cure
silicone from Jacobsons Chemicals called C-204, and was was precolored
with acrylic paint. A simple wooden armature was placed inside for some
support. He was then painted with airbrush acrylics and sealed with
one-part silicone caulking thinned with naptha. In order to save time,
the eyes were not made by me, but bought from a hospital.The severed
is from a feature film called "Sleepwalker" and is made in
the same way as the astronaut and it is a cast of the actor.The hair
was made out of a wig of hand knitted human hair. The hair line and
eyebrows were punched separately by hand.
The
monster without a mouth was a character created by Fido
for an internet portal company. He was made both physical and digitally.
The physical character was made out of a tin cure silicone from Cirkle
K called XP-153. The Skin was precolored with acrylic paint (flesh tone)
which was brushed in layers into the negative molds. Flesh colored pantyhose
were layed in for both reinforcement and mechanical bonding. The seams
were trimmed and patched with the same silicone using a fast catalyst
for a fast cure.
[Contacting the artist]