On the heels of the recent hype over the appearance of key new characters in X-Men: The Last Stand, we spoke with Bart Mixon, FX makeup artist, about his work on the film. He discussed how he helped create the look for signature characters such as the Beast, Juggernaut and Colossus, who all required prosthetics to achieve their look for the movie. Bart provided some in-depth answers about the makeup process which we think fans will find very interesting!
The Xverse: How have you found your time working on X-Men: The Last Stand?
Bart Mixon: X3 was a pleasure, for a number of reasons. I am a life long comic book fan, and the X-films have been some of the best comic book movies, so getting to contribute to that series has been great.
I was working for Spectral Motion for the second time [after doing the on set application for them on Fantastic Four] and you could not ask for a nicer group than Mike Elizalde and his team!
I am applying with Thom Floutz, who I met on Hellboy [he was on the Spectral Team and I was on the Hellboy make-up team], and it has been a pleasure working with him. It was also nice working again with so many of the Fantastic Four Canadian crew and Ralph Winter and the production gang that comes with him.
The ONLY negative part has been being away from home for FIVE MONTHS! That’s too long!
TXV: With the introduction of some very iconic characters from the X-Universe (Beast, Angel, Juggernaut) in this movie, did you feel a lot of pressure (from the fans) to get the right look for the them? What lengths did you go to ensure that you remained as true to their comic forms as possible?
BM: Just like on Fantastic Four, 99% of the design work was done while I was on other shows, so I had little input on that end. I would drop by the shop as the designs were coming together, and make what ever comments I could, but in the end it was all between Spectral and Fox. I do remember seeing an Angel statue with wings that were much to small, or cringing when the other director was wanting the CAT Beast, but thankfully, all those things were changed for the better.
In terms of getting the “right look” you have the same problem with the Beast that you did with the Thing; which look is the “right” one. I love the George Perez and John Byrne Beast, as well as the Jim Lee version, but they do have their differences, so who’s do you choose? As drawn, the Beast had a defined hair line and mutton chops. Does this mean there’s no hair on the face, or does he has a fine layer, like a horse? When he first appeared in AMAZING ADVENTURES, he was BLACK, but just like so many other characters, they changed the highlight color to blue, and suddenly he’s go blue fur! I remember when Nightcrawler was first called “the blue fuzzy elf” in the comics. Looking at the illustrations, I NEVER thought of him as fuzzy, and he was clearly meant to be BLACK, as he would get lost in the shadows, etc. But over the years, these things change and tend to stick. Once a character said the Silver Surfer had WHITE skin, again referring to the limitations of the comic book printing process, so I hope no one expects that to be taken literally when Fox gets around to doing him.
I think we ended up with a nice mix of the best of several different ones. Sure, I do wish little things could have been different [ I would have liked the more classic hair, but Wolverine has that look locked up! ]; but at least we did not have to do that darn cat-Beast!
TXV: Which of the characters in this movie were you involved with mainly, and what are the areas that you worked on for each of them?
BM: I was the on set supervisor for Spectral Motion, heading up the team that was responsible for the four Spectral characters: Beast, Juggernaut, Angel, and Colossus.
Because of the schedule, for the most part, I worked only on Beast and Juggernaut. I applied them with Thom Floutz, and we pretty much split the make-ups down the middle. I would apply one side, Thom the other; he would paint on the glue, I would lay down the appliance or hair, etc. Thom is an amazing painter, so he ended up doing most of the finishing on that end. We would put Vinnie in his body and glue that closed, wrangle his helmet on set, etc. We had a great costumer, Laura Baker, who dressed Juggernaut and suited up the Beast, but we helped her as we could and I would brush the Beast between takes, etc.
Thankfully, Beast and Juggernaut only worked a handful of times on the same day, so we could do them both for most of the movie [ Mike Fields and Jayne Dancose did Vinnie for a few days when we could not ]. We did do the Angel tests, but had to hand it off the Dave DuPuis for shooting, as we were needed elsewhere. Since Colossus was more of a costume, and not a make-up, to be used ONLY for wide shots or digital reference, we handed that off to some of the locals.
TXV: What sort of feedback have you had so far in regards to Juggernaut and Beast in this movie?
BM: I have not had any feedback, personally, but I have been reading some of the chat boards, and they are all over the map. I agree with some, and not with others. You can not please everyone. Some say Juggernaut is to small, but if you look at his first issues of X-Men, he’s about the right size. I DO wish the helmet and costume were truer to the comic, but those choices were out of my hands.
TXV: Can you tell us how Colossus's metal skin was achieved using practical effects/makeup on set?
BM: What you have seen in ANY photos of the metal Colossus is our EXTREME BACKGROUND SUIT, meaning that it was never intended to be seen up close. It is our understanding that ALL the tight shots are to be digital effects over the actor. We did shoot reference passes on set with the double in the metal costume, and some of those have found there way on line when they should not have [ just like that terrible first photo of the Thing with the “broken” arm ]. The costume was a foam latex body, neck, arms and gloves; with chrome plated plastic parts attached to it. The head is a two part helmet that breaks along the hair line, also plated. The fast ball special shot in the trailer looks to be the suit with out any digital touch ups. That’s about as close as it was meant to be seen, with out any digital help. I am told that anything closer will get the necessary digital clean up.
TXV: Let's talk about Beast. How long does it take to make Kelsey up as Beast? What are the various stages that you go through in terms of makeup, prosthetics, hair?
BM: Beast was about a 2 and 1/2 hour make-up, with another 20 or 30 minutes for the body and gloves. In the make-up chair we did him from the neck up which included a foam neck with prepunched hair, a skull cap with the ears attached, a full face appliance, a forehead, and a lower lip. All of Kelsey is covered but for his eye lids and upper lip. After all the rubber is glued on, the painting is finished, and then the hair goes on. He had a chin beard, left and right mutton chops, eye brows, and a wig; and upper and lower teeth. For his Washington scenes, he wore body padding and foam latex gloves with hair punched in them. When in his X-uniform, he had a sculpted foam latex body with punched hair, and tied spandex gloves that went up to his shoulders.
TXV: How do you go about choosing materials to use for making up these characters, especially when they are involved in outdoor scenes and lots of action?
BM: For the most part you go with the tried and true. You know what did or did not work the last time, and you build from that. You know that he will be bare foot, so you run the rubber denser in the soles of the foot. You know the stunt guy is going to destroy the foam latex gloves, so you put leather pads on the palms, etc. Everything was foam latex on this show, and it worked out fine. We were asked to look into silicone for the Beast’s face, but that had to be dropped before it was tested because of the time factor. Silicone appliances are tricker to make, and since they did not chose which face sculpt [ they had a choice of three ] we were using until the day before it shot [ the tests were pushed back due to Kelsey getting sick ], there was no time to gear up for massive runs in silicone. Silicone is great, but not necessary for this type of make-up.
TXV: Were there any aspects of Beast that you would change if you could do this over again from the start?
BM: For the most part, no; I think he ended up looking pretty nice. Again, more testing time would have been great, just to fine tune some things. He looked very good without the beard, just the mutton chops, but there was no time to make tests to be sure. I think the final cut of the wig ended up being a bit rushed and maybe to styled, and as a fan, I would have rather seen something closer to the comic, but Wolverine has that look [ even though Beast had it first! ]. I wish the ears were not hidden by the hair so much, but this was out of our hands. We had to try lots of things that we knew would not work, just to show the production guys that it would not work, and then we ended up with a make-up that was pretty much what we wanted to do from the start. It’s like if someone asked you to fly to New York from London, but made you go over Asia to get there. You end up where you need to be, you just took the long way to get there.
TXV: Juggernaut. What made you venture away from the much bigger version of Juggernaut that fans are used to?
BM: Again, this is all coming from the production. They cast VInnie Jones, and there is only so much you can do to make him look bigger, without going into Digital effects. If you go back to X-MEN #12, he’s about the right size. Lately, he’s been drawn as big as the Hulk, and that’s just silly. Of course they were not going to make him that big. They could have cast a taller, costume actor, but then the performance could suffer. I think you’ll be happy with him.
TXV: How much prep time did Juggernaut require?
BM: I was in the middle of another show when his make-up was created at Spectral Motion, but I remember seeing the first designs in April or May. I think Vinnie said they took his life casts in late May or early June, and I think we did our first tests in Vancouver in late August or early September. The Juggernaut make-up took around 2 hours to apply. We had a front and back of the neck to overlap the top of the body costume, and a jaw appliance to beef him up a little. Thom and I did most of his 30 plus days of application. His stunt double had the same body suit, but none of the facial appliances. Thankfully, all the helmet less shots were only done with Vinnie.
TXV: Did you enjoy the time that you spent working with the various actors from the movies?
BM: Kelsey Grammer and Vinnie Jones were the guys we worked with the most, and they were fantastic to work with. They both were very attentive to the process, paying attention to what was going on and doing what you needed them to do; things that only help to speed along the process and get them out of the chair quicker. Ben Foster and Daniel Cudmore were also good guys, really into their characters. And even the actors that we had nothing to do with would take an interest in the new characters, and they were very complementary about our make-ups.
TXV: Are you happy with the final result of your work or are there things that you feel you could have done differently?
BM: Well, there’s always something that could have been done differently, but overall I think they look damn good. Sure, the Beast’s hair could have looked more like the comics, but Wolverine owns that look. Juggernaut’s helmet and costume could have been closer, but you have lots of different people who want their “creative” input, so what are you going to do? Spectral Motion did come up with a great design that looked enough like the comic, but could rotate with his head, but that was discarded by the production for reasons unknown. When you look at how close these two guys are to the source material, and how much was changed on other characters like Mystique and Nightcrawler [ what’s up with those scars? ] that are now loved by the fans, I don’t think there’s anything to complain about. Of course, the fan in me says look at Spider-Man, he LOOKS like Spider-Man, and those movies have made a ton of money! Is there a lesson to be learned here...?
TXV: And finally, what's next for you?
BM: I am now doing some tests for Rick Baker’s next film. After that, if all goes well, I will be back on the FF sequel this Fall. I plan on doing the Thing again, but I am sure I’ll be helping out with the other characters that Spectral will be creating. I have not seen a script yet, but I have been told things that, as a fan, make this a very exciting project. Any time they go back to the Kirby/Lee stuff, they are going in the right direction.
On the heels of the recent hype over the appearance of key new characters in X-Men: The Last Stand, we spoke with Bart Mixon, FX makeup artist, about his work on the film. He discussed how he helped create the look for signature characters such as the Beast, Juggernaut and Colossus, who all required prosthetics to achieve their look for the movie. Bart provided some in-depth answers about the makeup process which we think fans will find very interesting!