As you probably know, the makeup application is only the final step in a very long process, from the design element, sculpting, moulding, prepaint, costume... etc. etc. It takes a long old time to create a character makeup. But what if that process was between two makeup artists...working from different sides of the globe! Well, that is exactly how Rhino Cop came to fruition. The brain child of makeup artists James Olney and Ed Yates, Rhino Cop was designed and created by these two crazy kids transcontinentally! With Ed lvining in Australia and James here in good old Blitey. So we asked the overly talented pair if they would be kind enough to tell us more about their Rhino Cop and the process behind the makeup. Firstly, let’s chat about the idea and how the concept of a transcontinental makeup collab came about between you both, especially as Ed is based in Australia and James your'e here in the UK? Ed : We met while doing Don Lannings Creature Sculpting course hosted by Millenium FX in 2017. After that James actually went on and trained at NGPS, while I had done Neill Gorton’s 7 week prosthetics course back in 2012 and we kept in touch since. Social media makes it easier across time zones. And then James did a demo makeup at I believe it was the prosthetics event and I said half joking, half serious I’d love to do a collaboration with you at IMATS if you can wrangle a stall demo. The challenge of it all appealed to me. And then late 2018 James messages me and says he’s got it organised. I suddenly got very excited.James : Ed’s enthusiasm and creativity and all round attitude was pretty aspirational and he was on my list of people I’d love to work with once I had upped my game sufficiently. I’m a firm believer that no idea is too big or too crazy so when Ed mentioned it I saw a great challenge and sprung the idea on Natalie and Alice after they had drunk enough Sauvignon Blanc to make them receptive to the idea :D As far as I’m aware no one has attempted a demo like this before so that added to the desire to make it happen. And frankly I wouldn’t have minded what we did, I just wanted to show what could be achieved when you’ve got the right partner in crime!What was your inspiration for the character, did one of you come up with the concept or was that a joint effort?Ed: My original pitch idea to James, because I’ve been following the plight of a number of animals in Borneo: the orangutan, Sumatran tiger and rhino was to do a sort of sympathetic human rhino hybrid, pointing out the commonality between us and all animal species. Also wanted it to be a ginger too! But the idea evolved after it was a question of costuming, props and also booking who we did as a model. James ran with the rhino man idea in a super fun direction and it really sort of took on a life of its own. I think he has a great idea about what’s going to work for both our styles and aesthetics.James : Originally we bounced around ideas like him being a sympathetic, endangered character and maybe being albino or ginger or having vitiligo. But as Ed says once we discovered Paul had some SWAT style gear the idea evolved and after approximately a thousand messages and a hundred pics bouncing back and forth we settled on a direction we both could get on board with. Although I don’t think either of us came close to disagreeing, it was mega collaborative and we took the decision just to keep it fun.The final character managed to retain a lot of the sympathy we originally discussed. Kind of like an approachable cop with a friendly face.How was the work divided between the two of you? Did you take into consideration your strengths and weaknesses? EY: I suggested that James lifecast our model and send me a full head in poly foam or fibreglass and I send back a snap mould taken off the cowl sculpt of the face with edge of cowl sculpt. So in the end I did the cowl sculpt, mould, casting, as well as making an epoxy face mould piece that I sent over to the UK that would hopefully after sculpting on line up with the cowl prosthetic. James did the rest! I didn’t think we had any weaknesses haha! But seriously the process kind of dictated what way we approached work and we were more concerned with it being fun than an analysis of who best do what.James : It was also very much a case of logistics. I was in the same country as our model so me doing the life casting and fibreglassing was inevitable. And due to Ed’s crazily busy work schedule we needed him to get his part of the process completed first. We couldn’t afford to keep him waiting so he sculpted the cowl and got the snap back to me asap so that I could match my work up with his. It worked out very well. Costly, but well.The arms and armour got thrown in later purely because I’m a glutton for punishment and wanted a complete character rather than just a makeup demo.I found it fascinating that you both managed to design and create a cohesive makeup from opposite sides of the world. You mentioned that you used a Pantone chart to ensure your colours would match. Was there any other ingenious methods of problem solving you utilised? EY: Yeah we were having problems sourcing the same silicone pigment systems so James came up with using the Pantone system so we both could aim for same prosthetics colour regardless of method. I came up with idea of using just white silicone pigment combined with flocking though even then we had ever so slightly different flock colours. I’m surprised how well it worked as well as how few problems we had on the day. We had also both sculpted small prosthetic blenders but in end didn’t need to use them. Back and forth photos really helped mesh the design together and I did move ears down off head to match James sculpt and Paul our model. James: Same industry, same language, but completely different products we had access to! We just couldn’t get the same pigments or flock so we needed a way to standardise the process. We tried measuring quantities and working out percentages of colour and pigment but the lack of identical products made it unviable. So it came down to eyeballing it. Ed sent a finished cowl to me which I was hoping to match up an extra run of the pieces to if needs be. But thanks (not) to UK Customs and Excise it didn’t arrive in time so the first time we saw if we had a match was on The Makeup Armoury stand on the day. I brought two sets with slight colour variations to hedge our bets and thankfully we had a match!How long did it take you to prep the makeup? Including the sculpting, moulding and costume?EY: We planned it six months in advance really and did the build over a few months before event but I did this makeup around working 70 hour weeks on a US tv show I’m currently working on and James did similar. I worked on the cowl sculpt over a few sessions over a number of days but really only had 8 hours sculpting total on it due to needing to get things moulded and sent over to UK. Then a couple of days to mould cowl and the same to cast two out, sending one via post and another in suitcase.James: I probably spent about 10 hours on the face (split over many little chunks), about a day on the arms and probably two days on the foam armour. The moulding and running the pieces were probably another day. It’s funny how we had so long to plan and discuss but ultimately had so little time to work on it until quite close to IMATS. There was also a small maquette I noodled around with for a few evenings that was rejected by both of us for being too “Rhino” but it was a really good exercise in helping us establish the level of humanity we wanted to show.During the application did you experience any hiccups or problems you hadn’t accounted for? Ed: Not much at all really, given it was our first time working together and applying! I think if I had come a week in advance and we did a test makeup then the few things would have been even fixable. There was one little ‘step’ where face appliance overlapped onto cowl that could have been filled / handled differently but given everything I’m so pleased. James: The language barrier was a huge problem! Every other word in Australian is mate and the ones in between are some sort of slang! ;)Top 5 products you couldn’t create this makeup without –Ed: Telesis 5 adhesiveSkin illustrator inksBen Nye neutral set powderMouldlife baldiezSmooth On Ecoflex gelJames:For me, definitely the skin illustrators as the gave as consistency. Platsil 25 for the pieces. Bdellium brushes. The internet for making communication possible. And lots of alcohol while sculpting and moulding at stupid o’clock to keep me going (No, I don’t have a problem. I can stop anytime I want…)If you had the chance to recreate this look again would there be anything you would change? Ed: Probably do a different skin tone. Different hair work and costuming.James: Full body suit! Make him massive and even more intimidating! But the truth is it turned out so much better than I could have hoped. The whole day was a blast!Would you consider doing more collabs? Is there anyone you would love to collaborate with? Ed: Yes. Definitely do another with James. Our next might use 3D printing and scanning. We’d both love to see LA or Canada haha... Possibly guys like Andy Fordham and Sangeet Prabhaker as they’re both geniuses. James: I hate answering second as it sounds like I’m copying Ed! Definitely Ed again (it was the greatest collaborative process I’ve experienced), Andy and Sangeet (both wonderfully talented and giving artists). And David Marti! But I think he might be a bit tricky to convince so perhaps someone easier to pin down like Rob Bottin.Teeth created by the wonderful Chris Lyons at Fangs FX. Get a load of Chris and teams work HERE! If you want to check out more pictures and videos from James and Ed's Excellent Adventure, we've taken the liberty of making the duo their very own board on our Pintrest! You can find images of the process: from the initial sculpt/idea, the moulding, application and final look right HERE! Don't forget to check out Ed and James's website below, and do yourself a favour and follow them both on Instagram! James Olney - http://rippedfromthecrypt.com/@rippedfromthecrypt Ed Yates - http://www.edwardyatesmakeupeffects.com/@edyatesmufx