A few years ago I met up with the amazing Kevin McTurk, I was already a huge fan of his Spirit Cabinet Victorian ghost stories told with rod puppets and was thrilled when he asked me to work on his newest short~ The Mill At Calder’s End! (Beware! Spoilers below!)

Along with a Hammer Horror inspired title design and a couple posters for the projects Kickstarter (which you can see here), Kevin asked me to do concept on the films monster! His new short had a creature at the climax, but no details were in place aside from Kevin wanting to use a boar skull as its base and the form needing to be modeled after a gorilla for the actor in costume (the incredible

Hoping to keep it mythical in appearance~ and always getting inspiration during long hikes~ I wanted to use lots of twigs, branches and bramble around the skull to act as a mane and horns so it didn’t have the feel of a stereotypical horned demon. Also dressing up its shape with red bloated and peeling skin, a belt tail of skulls and an oxen hump to get as far from the gorilla feel as possible.

When I started working up the design ( and having said the word “bramble” too much when describing it ), I called it the “Bramblegor” just to label it. Kevin liked the way it sounded and the name stuck!

Be sure to check out Kevin McTurk’s award winning The Mill At Calder’s End on Vimeo!