How FX artists turned Alexander Skarsgard into a 3D-printed wicker husband for new movie Wicker

The new film "Wicker" brings a medieval story to the screen where actor Olivia Colman plays an independent fisherwoman who asks a local basket weaver to make her a wicker husband. Alexander Skarsgard stars under heavy makeup and a special suit as the basket man, a role that required extensive behind-the-scenes engineering from special effects teams.

Making The Suit

Writers and directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson adapted the project from Ursula Wills' short story "The Wicker Husband." Weta Workshop artists, prosthetic makeup designer Joe Dunckley, and lead makeup FX artist Sarah Rubano spent 18 months on research and development for the complex costume. Because standard prosthetic materials imitate human skin rather than woven plant material, the team relied on modern 3D digital sculpting and 3D printing after starting with a full-body scan of Skarsgard.

The Printing Process

Artists used a powder-bed laser-sintered printing process involving a volume of thermoplastic elastomer. A laser fuses the powder at specific focal points to build intricate woven geometries while the surrounding powder keeps the strands apart. Nearly all of the costume consisted of 50 individual 3D-printed appliances painted to resemble wicker and stitched onto a soft, flexible spandex suit. This design ensured that Colman did not get splinters during the film's intimate scenes, as no actual straw was used.

Makeup And Hair

Sarah Rubano handled the facial makeup, which included 10 individual pieces such as ears, eye bags, lips, an underlip piece, a jaw piece, a larger forehead, a nose, and cheekbones, alongside extensive hand-painting around the eyes. Facial hair including a beard, hair, and eyelashes was made from muka, a silky-soft fiber from the harakeke plant that allowed artists to knot individual strands onto the weave. The transformation process eventually took just 90 minutes by the end of production.

Context

Practical creature and costume design in filmmaking often requires combining traditional sculpting concepts with advanced modern technology like 3D printing to achieve physical effects on set. Such innovations allow actors to interact directly with physical props and costumes during filming rather than relying entirely on computer-generated imagery added later in post-production.