Barrie Gower: The Creatures of Masters of the Universe

The Masters of the Universe toyline from the 1980s indelibly left visual and tactile memories to a generation of kids that fueled their imagination–eventually inspiring future artists to bring these characters to life on screen. The unforgettable designs of Skeletor and his Evil Warriors made their animated debut on television in the titular Filmation series, followed by the first live-action adaptation, which kept the essence of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe while visually departing from bright-colored heroes and foes in favor of darker, grittier tones. Decades later, the creatures of Eternia have made their comeback in the most spectacular way. The newest reboot of Masters of the Universe excels in every way possible–a work of love in each frame that honors and elevates the iconography of these characters.

As a ten-year-old, Barrie Gower was an avid He-Man fan. The prosthetic designer recalled collecting action figures and reading the comics that came with it, along with religiously watching the cartoon. His fascination for creatures and monsters continued to grow over the years, reading Fangoria and visiting the local video store to pick up the classics–Evil Dead and American Werewolf in London to name a few. When he realized that there were artists that “get paid to make monsters”, it quickly became clear that becoming a makeup wizard was his destiny. After making his mark in award-winning projects (Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, and Stranger Things), Gower and his BGFX team embarked on a journey to Eternia alongside director Travis Knight to revive Masters of the Universe.

BGFX was first approached for Masters of the Universe in 2019. The project changed trajectory a few times, until the stars aligned and Amazon MGM Studios greenlit the film with Travis Knight taking the reins as the director. “We met with Travis and just clicked immediately. I was a big fan of Bumblebee, but also my daughter and I were big fans of all the stop motion animated LAIKA films that Travis has made–Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link, Coraline … my god, he’s made so many great films. Obviously it was a bit of a no-brainer that we wanted to work with Travis, but it was his passion for Masters of the Universe and his vision for what he wanted to do with the film [that inspired us],” Barrie Gower shared.

Masters of the Universe was an incredible opportunity to push the boundaries of prosthetic makeup, with BGFX prototyping different techniques and materials that went beyond the traditional makeup effects. Although they still modeled everything by hand, making real molds out of fiberglass and epoxies and casting all the appliances out of silicone or foam latex, the team embraced 3D printing technology for creating lightweight appliances (horns, spikes, etc). When Gower’s makeup, paired with Richard Sales’ costumes, was finally put on display to showcase the fantastic characters for the first screen tests, it was clear that they were making something truly special. He recalled that “they looked like full-sized adult action figures! And that was the goal really, to create these larger than life [characters], which paid true homage to the 80s classic [toys].”

Skeletor

The big bad of Masters of the Universe, Skeletor was the focal point of Barrie Gower’s designs–they had to bring the most authentic version of the character on screen. BGFX implemented a muscle suit that transformed Jared Leto into the powerful villain: “We enlarged all of Jared’s muscle tone, his anatomy, and then sculpted in all these fine veins and fibrous textures. We were able to cast it in a very lightweight foam latex material … it was skin tight to his body. We made silicone gloves and some prosthetic appliances for his feet, which you see a little bit of in the film when Pig Boy comes into Skeletor’s chambers to help him off his bed.” Gower revealed that the original concept art depicted Skeletor in a golden metallic skeletal mask which was going to reveal a horribly disfigured character, something that Travis Knight wanted to depart from in favor of a more accurate, nostalgic solution while avoiding a rehash of Frank Langella’s look from the 1980s film. Although the final visual execution was purely digital, they created a sculpt that aided the VFX team to achieve the right blend of realism and expression. “We went through a couple of different versions to establish this, trying to find the fine line of feeling like it was made out of bone but also with a lot of emotion … they were going to animate it, so it would be flexible. We sculpted it from scratch in modeling clay, and then we scanned it, 3D printed it, and did a painted model which we put on a pole for visual effects that they were able to have on set for lighting reference,” he explained.

Trap Jaw

Skeletor’s most recognizable henchmen from their original designs is Trap Jaw, the Evil Warrior with a Swiss Army knife-like arm and a mighty mechanical jaw that can munch through anything. Barrie Gower shared that Trap Jaw’s helmet and jaw were the only costume prop elements that didn’t come out of Richard Sale’s department, “primarily because that articulated jaw needed to move with his face … we knew that it would need to be made out of some semi flexible material. We’ve got a really talented sculptor who works with us, Patt Foad, who sculpted Sam [C. Wilson]’s makeup. Harvey Smith 3D scanned the helmet and cleaned everything up in ZBrush. He made the interior fit Sam’s head perfectly, but from the outside it looked beautifully formed and symmetrical. Then we 3D printed it, molded it, and cast it in a urethane rubber, which was fairly firm but could flex and move. The [metal] jaw sat on Sam’s chin perfectly, so when he opened his jaw, it moved with his, and the helmet was buckled together with magnets.” It was a real head scratching process for the BGFX team, making sure both the props were as comfortable as possible for the actor and also easily reworkable to properly fit the stunt performer.

Moss Man

Not all monsters are Evil Warriors. Moss Man’s presence, although powerful, had a natural, organic feel to it–a complex mix of earthy and mammal textures that created a big challenge for the prosthetic makeup and hair departments. Barrie Gower took direct inspiration from the 80s action figure–basically a green version of Beast Man flocked with fine, fibrous hair that resembled moss: “I remember the figure smelt of pine. Our actor, Stephen Adentan who played Moss Man didn’t really smell like moss unfortunately [laughs], but I think when we were developing him we very much had the action figure in mind. We created a muscular suit and prosthetics and had this moss-like texture which was pre-sculpted into the clay. He was quite a challenging character for our hair department [run by Chloe Muton-Phillips]; all the fur, foliage, and moss on his body and hair was a combination of so many different materials–whether they were synthetic [or organic]. We actually bought synthetic foliage and mosses that you put into train sets; we bought real moss as well, called reindeer moss. Then we punched dyed real human hair into the foam latex. It was this weird patchwork quilt of lots of different techniques to cover his body … you can’t really see where one thing stops and the other starts.” The creature was the closest practical thing we got to Beast Man, which in the film was fully CG–although BGFX was essential in providing a full scale, head and shoulder maquette used for the digital model of the character.

Goat Man

Goat Man was one of He-Man’s greatest rivals in the final act of Masters of the Universe. The character was played by Icelandic actor Hafþór Björnsson, the world’s strongest man, who in order to transform into the larger than life villain went through hours of makeup from head to toe. Gower explained that the prosthetic application required an entire team armed with paint rollers–first applying a layer of skin tone opaque paint to cover up the actor’s tattoos, then top it with red (nailing the right pigment was a challenge in and of itself). The artists subsequently highlighted Björnsson’s muscle tones and added some scarring with mottling and shading. Finally, the highlight of the makeup: the horned skull cap and the white war paint dripping down his chin. “We glued the rigid cap on his head which had magnets built in, and a prosthetic forehead glued over the top of that–blended into his skin perfectly all the way around. The 3D printed horns were flexible and connected to those magnets so that in between scenes we could just pop them off. Finally, we had a stencil for his design where it looks like he put his hand in some kind of war paint that we airbrushed through each day, completed with dentures and contact lenses. All his prosthetics were sculpted by Duncan Jarman who I’ve known for thirty years … he headed the Goat Man prosthetic application team,” Gower said.

Spikor

Spikor felt like one of the boldest visual departures from the character’s earlier appearances in the toys and animation. The prosthetic designer shared that there were several discussions about his design, starting with the traditional concept with armor-plated spikes and finally landing on a completely new approach–with the spikes becoming part of his anatomy. While the idea seemed exciting, the execution was probably the toughest for the BGFX team, the main challenge being meticulously determining “the direction and lengths of the clusters of spikes. It’s not only having some kind of common sense about the way he’s designed, but also preventing them from injuring the performer or inhibiting his performance. There also needs to be a very natural flow to how the spikes are sculpted and the progression over the body so they look quite dynamic and not disjointed.” Gower delved into materials and techniques: “The longer spikes on his body that protrude out of his back and his arms were 3D printed, and the smaller ones were made out of slush latex. You had to find this middle ground of something that was semi-rigid, but if you caught one of these big spikes, it would bend rather than impale his co-stars!”

Eternia is a rich world populated by a plethora of fabled creatures, but only a few could make it into Masters of the Universe. Whether it was for storytelling or budgetary reasons, many of the fan-favorite characters were left out, or so we thought. Barrie Gower and team were able to sprinkle a few cameos in the background–including the beloved Mer-Man. “We were like kids in a toy shop,” he said. “We had all these overmasks and makeups … there were so many characters that we did which you kind of blink and you miss.”

With the excitement around the new film, there is hope we will see new characters come to life in potential future installments of the franchise on the silver screen. But for now, let’s enjoy Masters of the Universe in theaters, and if you want to learn more about Barrie Gower’s creations, then make sure you follow his page on Instagram for more behind-the-scenes!