Jamie Kelman

As a child of the 1970's and a fan of fantasy and science fiction, alien life forms were Jamie's childhood friends. Whether he was playing with Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons action figures, writing them into computer program text adventures on his Commodore 64, or sketching them into new comic book worlds of his own, he was soon to make a career of it.

Adolescent fears of monsters and horror movies transformed into a teenage fascination and obsession, thanks to a boom time for monster movies and special make-up effects during the 1980's. Absorbing all the information he could find in videos, books and magazines like Fangoria, his Long Island, New York basement became a laboratory in experiments of synthetic flesh. As he splattered clay, plaster, and latex on the walls and old toys, new creatures emerged.

His first professional job, at age sixteen, was as a make-up effects assistant on a TV show called Monsters, filmed in New York City. Soon after, hoping to meet tomorrow's new filmmakers, he attended college at New York University's acclaimed Tisch School of the Arts and majored in film production. While there he independently studied under Dick Smith's Professional Makeup Course and sharpened his skills working on student films, experimenting with every type of make-up effect imaginable. Meanwhile, with an eye toward the future, he minored in computers learning cutting edge computer graphics programs. Two weeks after receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1995, he headed west to Hollywood.

Only two months after his arrival, he began working in a major make-up effects lab as the assistant to an Academy Award winning make-up artist, Matthew Mungle, who became his mentor. By the time he left that lab for a freelance make-up career at the end of 1997, he had already earned Emmy and Cable Ace award nominations, union status, and credits on feature films. He has continued working with the top talents in the movie business, including frequent projects with legendary make-up artist Rick Baker such as Planet of the Apes, The Grinch, Men in Black 2, and The Ring series.

Jamie's lifetime love of fantasy and toys has now come full circle. He is designing and creating prosthetics, full body animatronic creature suits, puppet heads and special make-up effects from his Kelman Studio for feature films. And now, combining his drawing, painting, sculpting, and storytelling skills he has formed the imaginary world of Teratoria™, a land of creatures and monsters inhabited by the characters he creates - the Fleshycreatures™.

As in the fantasy worlds of the recent films he's worked on, Jamie Kelman's Makeup FX Studio and his company Teratoyed™ with its world of Teratoria™, designed as a special place for those with restless imaginations to escape to, arises to entertain our world with future visions and stories of creatures and characters yet to be seen or imagined.

E-Mail comments to: fexer@fleshycreatures.com