Fred Prigg
I'm a second-year VFX student at NCCA Bournemouth, focused on Houdini simulation, character and asset work, and Nuke compositing.
I started in 3D in Year 10, doing artistic explorations in Blender for GCSE and A-Level art. My final piece being a Horror short. Five years in and it still doesn't feel like work. I came up through fine art and still think that way — every decision about how something looks is deliberate, tested, and justified.
- Bournemouth, UK
- NCCA Bournemouth — 2nd Year
- FX / Simulation, Character & Asset, Compositing
- Houdini, Maya, Nuke, ZBrush, Karma
Background
At secondary school my teachers pushed me on artistic intent — what does the work communicate, not how is it built. They wouldn't have even known what topology or UVs meant. At 16 I got a placement as a runner at Blink Ink, a London animation production company. I got to do some actual work while I was there. Seeing how a real studio operates at that age changed how I think about production.
More recently I did a placement at ETC and stayed in contact with one of their artists, who got on a call with me to give feedback on my work and had some valuable answers to my questions.
At Bournemouth I'm still making horror shorts. Same obsession, different tools. The work now just has to hold up technically as well as feel right. Our film HOST was screened at the BFX Festival 2026 as part of the Real-Time Horror & The Uncanny panel — the first time any of my work has been shown in a public industry context.
Process
Reference comes first — not to copy it but to understand the behaviour I'm trying to match. Then I build rough, get the core thing working, and refine. The cloth tear went through pre-fracture methods and noise-driven tear thresholds before I landed on the approach that actually worked.
Same in texturing. Getting skin to behave right under light, or worn leather to catch it the way it should, is as much about looking carefully as it is about software. It's the area I've been enjoying most.
Comp is where my creative control has been the sharpest. Two of the shots in my portfolio came in with broken plates — no cryptomatte, no Z-depth, and badly overexposed footage. That overexposure actually opened up the grade; because the exposure was already blown, I had to rebuild the image, which meant I had full control over the mood, the colour, and exactly when the audience could feel the creature's presence. Both shots nearly got cut. They weren't. That's where I think most of my value is, not just the technical fixes, but the decisions behind them.
Contact
Open to studio placements, freelance, and industry conversations.
View CV →