Nick Frost/Henderson Mesh

Back in October 2005, as part of our work on the first series of Hypedrive, we were required to build a 3D computer model of Nick Frost, Captain Henderson. We had to show him floating through space from the HMS Camden Lock to another ship nearby. There wasn't the budget to build a spacesuit and our work had to link up directly with the next shot of him entering the other ship. The writers suggested that all the suits would double up as hyper-thin spacesuits, so all you'd need to go outside would be a helmet and gloves. I took some reference shots of the helmet...


Next I asked Nick Frost to wear the helmet so I could take some additional reference. He was very helpful and pushed on the helmet which was obviously not made to measure. After some pushing Nick got it all the way down!

...and it stuck!

...and started to steam up.

Nick was protesting that he couldn't get it off and for a moment I thought I was going to kill the leading actor! Thankfully I had been the victim of Nick's humour, he removed the helmet grinning. Somewhat flustered I continued with my reference photography, getting front and profile shots of Nicks uniform. Alas I didn't notice the large perspective shift in the pictures - I'm taller than Nick and I was looking down on him instead of being level with him. So the pictures were less than perfect as a reference point.

We fell back on a set of pictures I'd taken of Nick in a quarry. These ones were taken from some distance away so were no use for textures but were great for checking proportions.


The model was built by Nick here (a different Nick, confusing isn't it!). Here are some renders.





And here is the final shot as seen in the episode - it could have been anyone inside that helmet!!