Biography

Steve Howarth's modelmaking career, like so many of his contemporaries, started out as a hobby, and, like many of them, no longer has the time for making models as a hobby, due to the increased workload of tighter and tighter deadlines.

Brought up on a diet of Gerry Anderson as a child, e.g. Supercar, Fireball XL5 etc, it wasn't until later in life that steve would re-discover his creative roots and passion for modelmaking, blaming BLADE RUNNER in the main, for this re-kindling.

Working alone, he produced his first models, yet, even these early and rather crude attempts (by his own standards) earned him 'best of class' trophys at Wembly's Model Engineers Exhibition in 1982 and 1983 and then entry into Herts College of Art & Design for a HND Modelmaking course, which he completed with Distinctions, "one of the most consistantly skilled and productive students ever to pass through the course" (Brian Holder-course leader).

From college, Steve went straight into architectural modelmaking, with regular intervals doing product modelmaking. Always with the dream of working in entertainment in the back of his mind, steve set about building up his portfolio and broadening his experience with as many and as varied contracts as possible, sub-contracting for many companies. Steve believed that by working for many companies, he would come into contact with many more techniques, than if he were to stay with one company for many years. I think that this is reflected in the range of materials that he works with.

COMPANIES WORKED FOR

ACE EFFECTS * AC1 * ARTEM * ASYLUM * A.T.O.M * BARROW MODELS * B.I.B DESIGN * BRAY PRODUCTIONS * BRIAN SMITHIES VFX * BROCK CARMICHAEL ASSOCIATES * CLIVE WILLIAMS * COLIN CUNNINGHAM * THE COLONIAL PIONEERS GROUP * COSGROVE HALL PRODUCTIONS * FAISIL KARIM * MODELSCAPE * MODEL SOLUTIONS * MODERN PROPS(USA) * THE NETWORK * PARALLAX MODELS * PH SOLUTIONS * P.P.L * RAINFORD MODELS * GERRY ANDERSONS/MENTORNS SPACE PRODUCTIONS * TETRA ASSOCIATES * VENDETTA FX * VISION UK * W.E.D *

Steve doesn't place too much importance on his many years of experience, and believes that it is his fresh approach to each new job that has brought him this far. Not biased towards one particular material or technique, only biased towards doing the job in the correct material and using the fastest technique.

Eventually, more and more visual effects type work would appear in his portfolio, like those associated with advertising, making it more appealing to miniature supervisors, like Bill Pearson, for example.

After hoofing it around Britains major film studios with his portfolio, Steve found work with said modelmaking legend Bill Pearson. Through Bill, Steve worked alongside Faisil Karim, which led to his first major movie contract.

With these higher profile jobs, steve had the opportunity of sharing his experience within the pages of Science Fiction and Fantasy Models (now SF F FX ),which he took. Writing for the international magazine on a fairly regular basis.

Steve's last project was the film MOON which will be released in July 2009. For obvious reasons images cannot be posted until the film is released.

Steve is currently building a 1:25th scale TIME MACHINE of his own design for exhibition perposes.