Bone Keeper, the creature horror feature partly shot at Clearwell Caves, was filmed a short drive from our own workshop. It gave RIB a chance to put sculpting to work outside a clinical brief.

The team visited the workshop with an early concept to talk through what they needed. The rig had to fit a performer’s hand and hold its shape while being worked.

We sculpted from their concept art and from real anatomy, studying how slugs move and how an insect thorax is segmented. Detail drawn from real animals is what makes an invented creature read as a living thing on screen. The sculpt then went through moulding, pigment testing and paint. The finish had to survive a cave shoot, with damp air, & low light. We're really pleased with how it looked in the final shot.

On screen, the rig carries the audience’s first close look at the creature, which arrived on Earth inside an asteroid hundreds of thousands of years ago. This is the part of it you see well before its full form is revealed.

RIB also supplied set dressing for the film’s more visceral scenes, including prosthetic remains and practical gore pieces. These came out of the same tissue and wound work behind our clinical simulation range.

Bone Keeper went on to a shortlist for Best UK Feature at the Mirband UK Film Awards.