The artistry of Anders Lerche spans a captivating spectrum. It ranges from the eerie depths of Lord Grimley’s Manor to the fantastical creatures adorning shop interiors. It includes the grotesque masks featured on Etsy. In this interview, we explore the talents of this sculptor and special effects artist. We trace his journey from a childhood passion for art and horror. His career evolved into crafting unforgettable visual creations in latex, clay, and beyond.
David: At what age did you know that you could sculpt? Was art a passion growing up?
Anders: I’ve always been drawing and painting so in a way it was easy for me to transition to sculpting. I had to learn the techniques, sure but knowing a bit about anatomy and what shapes that I wanted to create helped a lot. I’m sure there are sculptors out there that can only sculpt, but for me these two abilities are totally intertwined.
David: When did you sculpt your first monster and what was it?
Anders: I sculpted a lot of small prosthetics that I later cast in latex, but I did a lot of early work with foam latex, so I could (hopefully) work in the movies down the line. I got into doing things for the emerging LARP scene here in Denmark and I can remember that I did a foam latex Mindflayer as one of the earliest masks that I made. Just the front face with the back of the head as a latex cap that I attached. The tentacles were foam rolled in latex and glued onto the mask. The eyes were big clear plastic eggs that I painted from inside.
David: Were your parents supportive?
Anders: My parents were always very supportive with my drawing and my art but probably really didn’t know what to think when I told them that I wanted to become a special makeup-artist. My mom said that those were just people that did the hair on the movie stars, showing how little she knew of the film business, I guess.
But my mind was set and I adored all the information that I could get from Fangoria, Gorezone, CineFX, Tom Savini and especially the Dick Smith’s Monster Makeup book. I taught myself all that I could of how to do makeups and effects and fortunately had an unending horde of villing participants from the LARP community, that wanted to become old, scarred, zombified or otherwise turned from a young person into something completely different and scary.
David: Where do you find inspiration for your mask designs?
Anders: I was very inspired by the horror magazines that I could get as well as the fx books I acquired, back in the early nineties before the big Internet came to conquer the world. I was particularly fascinated by the early Halloween brochures from the USA from Don Post, Distortions Unlimited and especially Death Studios. The incredible artistic skill these latex mask had were just way above anything I’d ever seen before and I was even able to order a few to the LARP club that I worked for. And then there was the movies, of which I educated myself with everything that had anything FX in it, from the old Lon Chaney to the whole splatter phenomenon, from VHS to DVD with all the extra material and deleted scenes you suddenly had acces to see.
David: Describe your process for creating a mask from concept to completion.
Anders: When ever I start a mask, I always do a lot of sketching honing in on the design and the shapes that I like. I then take my drawings as well as several other designs that I like and put them on my wall to look at when I sculpt. I primarily sculpt in WED Clay which is simply the best and most ‘alive’ medium that I know of. You can achieve details, shapes and and organic flow with this that is second to none with this material and work very fast too. The mask usually takes two days to sculpt ( 2 x 8 hours) depending on the size and complexity. I then spray it with a clear lacquer and make a two-part plaster mold from my sculpt. Once the plaster is hardened, I open the mold, clean it out and let it dry for a day or two before putting the two halves together again. The plaster mold is then filled with RD 407 casting latex and the resulting cured mask is later cleaned, painted, haired and cut with sharp scissors, if its a wearable mask version.
David: What materials do you prefer to work with, and why?
Anders: Latex is my main material but mostly because it’s easy to work with and I can get it at a reasonable price. Silicon would be preferable but it a lot more expensive and that would limit my clients too. I also build large scale decorations and figures from polystyrene and various hard coatings such as Epoxy putty particular. These large things are used for theaters, film premieres, set decoration and fantasy shop interiors, which is where I can create crawling Aliens, sitting dragons, Sci-Fi robots and all those other fantasy heroes that everyone enjoys these days.
David: I know you provide exclusive masks to Lord Grimley’s Manor. Can people find your creations anywhere else?
Anders: I have an Etsy shop which make ordering my work a lot easier for people, as well as my work to be seen out there on the Internet too. Look for Anders Lerche FX on Etsy and you will see all the grotesque, scary, cute and crazy things that I make there. I have a lot of stuff on Instagram and Facebook too and don’t mind taking orders from there too. I may have a homepage later this year, but for now most of my old work is visible on these two social medias.
David: What were some of your personal favorite creations you have made over the years?
Anders: My own favorite creations are hard to pinpoint: I tend to see my own work as piles of mistakes with the occasional bright ideas buried underneath mediocrity and repetition 🙂 Here are some the work that I like at the moment…meaning that I haven’t had the opportunity to go back and redo them or at least improve on the details that I didn’t like.
David: Do you have any favorite mask companies, past or present?
Anders: I have recently done some work for CFX mask, which resulted in two silicon masks from the website, as well as Distortions Unlimited for who I sculpted their new Electric Zombie figure
My favorite mask companies would probably be Ghoulish Mask in Mexico as they are responsible for a lot of all the mask that are sold in the US. Other mask companies are using their skilled artist to produce their own masks and the quality is astonishing. Of course, the kings would be Immortal Masks, and the the good old Death Studios and Distortions Unlimited must be mentioned here as well, as well as smaller companies such as October Studios that continue to put out some really high quality stuff.
David: Any new projects you can reveal here?
Anders: I’m currently doing some fantasy decoration for Faraos Cigarer in Copenhagen and have a couple of mask jobs lined up down the line to. I’m always looking for new challenges and would love to do more film work especially. Who knows what might happen?
You’re going to want to check out Ander’s Etsy store by clicking HERE!