Prospect, the film we worked on in 2017 building and finishing props and sets, is now out on Netflix in the US! Prospect is a sci-fi western full of practical effects starring Pedro Pascal in a helmet. It is also available on Blu-ray if you want a physical copy! This 8-part series of posts does not contain any spoilers so you can check them all out without fear of ruining anything if you haven’t seen the film yet!
The prisoner box was built by our amazing team and handed off to me pristine and white. But, of course, this is a cell that’s seen plenty of wear, tear, and environment and needed to reflect that like everything else in the film.
This was the box after the first pass of weathering. One thing I want to bring up because it took a couple of days for me to wrap my head around this when I started as well – so many techniques for doing finish/weathering work, are the same across so many things and are really just a difference in scale. I started my skills on scale-model aircraft, Star Trek ships, and Gundam model kits many, many years ago. Doing props and costumes carried over a lot of those techniques onto a life-size scale. Transitioning to sets was just another order of magnitude up, but utilizing a lot of the same skills. So instead of putting a few drops of paint and some water on a palette to give a 1/144 scale robot a wash, it’s a few ounces of acrylic paint mixed with water in a spray bottle and instead of wiping it down with a piece of paper towel, its using big shop rags. Same technique, just on a different scale. Once I wrapped my brain around it, it instantly became less intimidating!
Here are some close-up detail photos of the final weathering on the box. I used a variety of paints, charcoal, pastels, and even real rust to weather and age the box.
Because the prisoner box was used outdoors, I made sure that the weathering reflected something that had been in the elements. Instead of just dirt and grime, I wanted runs and water spots to reflect being in an outdoor environment. I really love the build up and run down in this spot. 
And a bit more close-up on the weathering. For more on how this box was used, you’ll have to go watch the film!
We hope you enjoyed Part Seven of our Prospect behind the scenes series. We’ll be posting a new behind the scenes build every day. In the meantime, go watch Prospect!
If you’d like to help us continue making great stuff and content, you can support us by donating via our ko-fi or by shopping on our Amazon page where we list all of our favorite and most used tools and supplies! And as always, we are available to do set, prop, and costume design & fabrication.
