Check out my new website!

So I'm working on a new design for this website. Here's what I've cobbled together so far. What do you think?
http://budcrud.wix.com/costumes

Just another Sunday

I reconnected with an old college buddy this past Sunday to help him out with a zombie-themed video shoot. Something for the Macworld Expo coming up at the end of January. The teaser video is up here. It was a wonderfully long Texas winter's day in full zombie makeup. With other likeminded (or mindless) zombie types. The location was a 100-yr old farm house. With almost the EXACT same floor plan as my parents old two-story farm house. It was a great crew and some really talented makeup artists and actors to boot. Final video coming soon!

Costume Contest Winner!

Well, I never do costume contests on Halloween, but sometimes I do try to find online contests on the day AFTER Halloween. This year I sent some pictures to the Costume Works contest and WON for COOLEST ADULT COSTUME! Thank you to the judges. Your bribes should be arriving shortly.

Halloween 2012: GREMLINS!

Gizmo and Stripe took 6th Street by storm this Halloween! Click HERE to see some of the pictures. (more to come)

Halloween 2012: More mischief than ever!

Fantastic Fest Kickoff Costume

Last night was the official kick off of Fantastic Fest 2012! Awesome premier of "Frankenweenie" and lots of other fun events. Henri once again called on me to create a one-of-a-kind Franken-Mazza skull cap. It ended up being a 2-piece sculpt (brain/head). I also attached a hinge a the back so you could see what was on Henri's mind. And I dropped in a few battery-powered strobe lights to get the dance party started.

A great kickoff to the 2012 Halloween season!

Oh, and scroll down to see a VIDEO of Franken-Mazza in slow motion.

Jack is tired of waiting for Halloween.

The dog days of summer are here and I'm ALMOST, ALMOST, ALMOST settled into my new studio. 

More room. More resources. More possibilities! 

As you can tell, Jack is VERY excited about this development. But don't bother asking him about this year's costume. He's sworn to secrecy. 

Halloween 2011: FRANKENBERRY!

Introduced by General Mills Cereal in 1971, this advertising icon is still around today pimping his sugary sweet cereal every October, along with his pals Count Chocula and Boo Berry.

It took me about 6 weeks to put this guy together from scratch. He was really very mobile...just not very fast. And he included a pretty hefty sound system (custom music tracks + sound effects), sound-responsive electro-luminescent wiring, a dozen strobe lights, and some sweet dance moves.

As always, Frankenberry was accompanied on 6th street by the beautiful blinking "Bride of Frankenberry."

43 batteries in all, a bit heavy, but totally worth it.

Halloween 2011 preview

Maybe you should come down to 6th street tonight and see me?

Magic Carpet Ride for Henri

Another Alamo Drafthouse original for the "Aladdin" singalong and after-party. I was out of town for this one, but before I left I was able to drop off this sweet pair of fake legs and magically flying carpet for the host of the evening, Henri Mazza. Sounds like it went well, even though I don't really remember microphones and booze in the movie...must have been a director's cut.

Bud builds big bugs for Starship Troopers

Alamo Drafthouse called again, "Bud...we need bugs. BIG bugs." It's for their showing of "Starship Troopers." Well, a full-sized bug was out of the budget, but I was able to swing a couple of bug victims. Built mostly from styrofoam and chicken wire, these poor guys will be entertaining the movie crowds before next week's show. Two brave citizens will run up on stage, remove the skull caps of our dearly departed roughnecks, and slurp out any brainy goo that the Brain Bugs left behind. What does the winner get? A hell of a lot of respect from his/her movie date. See more pictures HERE.

Cowboys & Aliens & Bud & Styrofoam

Well, I still haven’t seen this movie, but didn’t stop me from building a replica cuff (and replica horse) for the movie premiere at Alamo Drafthouse this past weekend. The cuff is carved from a single piece of Styrofoam and includes micro LED lights and sound effects.

Like I said, I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know what it’s supposed to do. I only modeled it after the movie posters and trailer. I’m pretty sure that the one from the movie doesn’t have tiny hidden LED mice in the bottom. I’m also pretty sure that Mr. T isn’t in the movie…even though I built in a Mr. T sound card. Really just a little surprise for the guy I built it for. Thought it would be fun if he prepares for battle by pushing the big red button and hears “I PITY THE FOOL”

The event ended with a Cowboy & Aliens dance party at the High Ball. I actually had time to go this time. Great music and light show courtesy of The Super Set! Loads of fun to build this stuff, and a really fun event.

Alamo Drafthouse needs a dark lord.

So, they came to BudCrud! And I was more than happy to sculpt up a Voldemort mask for them. They're having LOTS of Harry Potter parties, and the host needs a new nose. Of course in the movies, they remove the actor's nose digitally. Also, my "actor" will need to perform, walk, talk and have a drink or two. So far so good!

Get ready to ROCK!

Here's a little prop I recently built for the Alamo Drafthouse here in the ATX. It's a replica of the missile used in the movie "The Rock." It will be used during their super-cool TOUGH GUY CINEMA. In this photo you can (kinda) see the built-in access panel where audience members will have to DEFUSE this warhead by eating all the VX gas inside ... or green Jello-o. Either of which may make the skin melt off your face.

"Face Off: Season 2" Audition

Have you ever seen the show "Face Off" on the SyFy channel? No, it has nothing to do with the John Travolta/Nick Cage movie. It's a "reality" show about special effects artists competing against each other each week to eventually win some cash, some makeup, and some heart-felt pats on the back. I LOVED season one. So (at the insistence of my closest friends and sweet-sweet wife) I sent in this little audition tape.

For this audition, I sculpted this original monster mask.

I think it turned out pretty okay. But from that point on, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I made a 2-piece mold that created an undercut...LOCKING the front half to my armature. I went ahead and busted it loose, but it broke the front half of my mold. It wasn't in a critical area, so I continued on to latex.

Unfortunately, my latex kit is a few years old, and I usually only bake one mask per year, so all the chemicals had turned a little murky. As a result, I had to make two tries at it (each taking 4-hours to bake). The second attempt was moderately successful, except that I had TOTALLY run out of mold release. NOTE TO READERS: Cooking spray does NOT make a very good mold release. Fortunately, the design of this was supposed to be that of a gross decayed zombie, so a few tears here and there worked out just fine.

At that point, it seemed like I was home free. All I had to do was put it on, video tape it and edit it all together. I shot it all on my FlipCam (in HD) and on my iPhone (not even SD quality). The conversion of this digital media took HOURS. But a couple of Lone Stars later, I calmed down and put together the video you can see above, or at my YouTube page HERE.

Well, it's all in their hands now. Wish me luck!