The first version of the beard was meant to look like a pharaoh’s beard that is attached to the chin. I researched pharaoh beards and talked to Jacob about what he wanted the beard to look like. So the essential idea was a pharaoh’s beard made out of metal with a mechanical inside that consists of microchips and watch parts in order for it to follow the movie’s cyberpunk aesthetic. The lid parts of the beard were meant to move like claws, depicting the actor’s emotions accordingly. The claw-like metal lids proved very difficult to built, I did not know how I should built it and what kind of mechanics they would need in order to be believable and in order for them to work in the real world. I tried several different methods, shapes and mechanics. After a while I decided to work on the inside of the beard, because I did not want to waste any more time on the lid mechanics. I looked at pictures of motherboards and microchips to find out how I could recreate one in blender. I noticed a motherboard has a lot of diodes and resistors so I set out to build one of each components and duplicate the meshes with the array modifier. For easier distinction, and being able to quickly show what the model looks like to Jacob, who throughout this project acted as my first client, I gave the different meshes a material in different colours.

After roughly a month of trying to make a believable pharaoh beard with a motherboard and cables inside of it, the decision was made that we should rethink the beard design from scratch and, rather than only attach it to the chin, make it a full beard that is attached to the sides and the jaw. I understand the decision to change the beard’s design, it took a big workload off of Lyon, who would have had to animate it or create the mechanical insides through a 2D animation. And it took a lot of work off of James who would have had difficulties with the matchmoving. But, this required me to make new sketches, so I started with them immediately.