The best special effects are the ones nobody recognises as effects

It all started when I was 14. In my room I sculpted Slipknot masks from reference, moulded them in plaster and cast them in latex — with no instructions, simply because I wanted to make them. I had no idea it would ever become a profession. I only knew that nothing else had ever gripped me like that. By 16 it was settled for me: I wanted to work in special effects. Hardly anyone believed in it. A boy from a village who wants an exotic job like that, heading off to the big city — to most people that sounded fairly unrealistic. I did notice the doubts, but I did not let them drag me down. The idea stayed in the back of my mind, and I kept at it until it worked out. It began in a small studio with an SFX prosthetics artist in Mönchengladbach. After that I learned the craft properly, from the ground up: first an apprenticeship as a hairdresser and two years in that trade, then the classical training in stage and screen make-up at the Staatsoper Hamburg, where I also worked for another two years. That gave me the foundation everything rests on today — precision, an understanding of materials, and a feel for face, form and character. Alongside all of that I kept teaching myself, through online courses with the best in the field: the Stan Winston School, Neill Gorton, Ryan Kingslien and the ZBrush courses from Flipped Normals. Over time I developed a real obsession with realism. What I like sculpting most are portraits — I keep working at one until it truly sits. That is how I handle every skill I want to own: stay with it until I have it. And that is exactly where it carries on for me. I do not see digital processes as a replacement for the craft, but as its future — and I learn something new every day to bring the two together. My aim is not to make special effects visible, but to make them feel so natural that they become part of the story. When even my own brain forgets for a moment that it is looking at a film prosthetic, I know I am on the right track.